Assistant To The City Manager Ryan “Gump” Ward Presents Costs For 3%, 4% and 5% COLAs For Entire City Payroll.

At the Monday City council meeting, Assistant to the City Manager Ryan “Gump” Ward will present scenarios for a 3%, 4% and 5% global COLA for every single City employee. Even the lowest COLA will set the taxpayers back $230,000.

LAST year, Finley suggested (and got) $312,000 in raises as well….

City Proposes Tax Rate Just Under Max To Avoid Election. Sees $326,000 Surplus. Finley Suggests $312,000 In Raises For Employees.

When I complained to City council last year, they explained that they went off the Federal government SS COLA number (they clearly did NOT do this in 2014, 2015, 2016, etc). For your edification, the federal government will likely use a rate of 2.57% for social security COLAs in 2025.

So Ward is getting greedy right off the bat by making his LOWEST COLA assumption at 3%.

I ask: why not 0%? At least for all those at City Hall making six-figures who are wildly overpaid compared to their private-sector counterparts.

State and local government workers are chronically overpaid compared to the taxpayers who pay their salaries. This is not in dispute.

Ward will blather on about salary comparisons and try to make this complicated. It’s not complicated. It’s very simple:

ALSO, don’t forget the price of health insurance popped 12% this year and 13% last year – which is mostly covered by the taxpayer as well.

Furthermore, during the profligate Toups administration, HUGE raises were given out when the actual inflation rate was essentially ZERO. So you could say they were ALREADY far ahead of the curve and it wouldn’t hurt to ease off the COLAs for once.

I have painstakingly documented the actual inflation rate versus City payroll increases during those years:

City Big Wigs Want Raises For Everyone Because of Inflation. Conveniently Forget All The Big Raises When Inflation Was Negligible

You want to give some MERIT raises to the guys on the bottom half of the ladder? The guys who turn wrenches and dig up broken water mains and fix power lines? That sounds good to me. But overpaid clowns like Ward who already make around $170,000 in salary and benefits for sitting at City Hall in the AC and “managing”? That’s bullshit.

You want to know what the salary should be for City Manager? Don’t look at Marble Falls or Fredericksburg. That’s nonsense. Look at a Wal-Mart manager with about 115 employees. Take THAT salary and then subtract 10% – because THAT guy is competing in the private sector and could lose his job if he fucks up. The City manager isn’t competing and can’t lose out to a competitor – he’s a monopoly. End of story.