You gotta love government ‘logic’.
One week, Mandy Walsh (salary + benefits of over $100,000 per year) is getting City council to vote unanimously to submit an application for the LEDC stating that the City was SO ‘economically injured’ by Wuhan Flu that they need almost $1 million in free money to waste on their pet boondoggle (the ill-fated ‘business’ park).
The NEXT week, City Manager Finley deGraffenreid (salary + benefits of roughly $180,000) has the balls to stand up and tell City council he recommends they use the “budget surplus” (his exact words at the 30:25 mark) to give everyone in City government a 3% raise. Which would “be a burden to the City of about $195,000“, according to him. [*** see below***]
He also says that we need some other “market adjustments” (Finley-speak for more raises) of around $50,000 for other employees. Bringing the total to very close to a quarter of a million dollars ($245,000).
Remember – that $250,000 is forever. They don’t take it back next year. It is a brand new, forever-more burden on the taxpayers.
Here’s a thought for City council to ponder:
If the ‘business’ park project is SO awesome and SO important and will result in many new high-paying jobs and so much ‘economic development’, wouldn’t it make FAR more sense to take that $250,000 raise and instead funnel it towards your precious ‘business’ park project? In a short four years, you have your million dollars!
Why are you INSTEAD giving raises to City employees who are ALREADY well-paid? City employees who HAD ABSOLUTE and COMPLETE job security during a ‘pandemic’ that has thrown tens of millions of private sector workers onto the unemployment rolls!
Oh – and who ALSO have top-notch health care plans (those pesky benefits!) in case they DO catch the Wuhan Flu!
Wouldn’t that make a LOT more sense? Yes. Yes it would.
*** Some super hard math for the likes of TJ Monroe ***
*** This implies a current City payroll of $6,500,000.00 since 195,000/0.03 = $6.5 million.
*** Finley has also stated in the past that benefits [retirement + health insurance + other] run roughly FORTY PERCENT of salaries. So the NEW total burden to the taxpayer just for City employee salaries and benefits would be roughly $9.443 million dollars every year
$6.5 million x 1.03 for the new 3% increase PLUS $50,000 = $6,745,000
$6,745,000 x 1.40 = $9,443,000 total salary + benefits burden for new budget
If I am very generous and assume the current number of City employees is 110, that gives us a salary + benefits burden to the taxpayer of $85,845 PER EMPLOYEE.
Yes – you are reading that correctly. Each and every City employee is costing YOU the taxpayer (on average) approximately $85,845 in salary and benefits. I’m guessing that over 90% of people in this town make far LESS than that in their private sector job.