Last week, the local radio station asked [City manager] Finley deGraffenreid if he had gotten a $10,000 raise from City council recently and he had no comment. I don’t know how in the hell the radio guy found out about it, but Finley did not deny it.
Wha-what?? Finley got a $10,000 raise? First I’ve heard of this. I saw nothing about it in the minutes nor have I heard it discussed in any City council meeting. Which means it was done in “executive session” – which is Latin for “in secret”. Not wanting to post a falsehood, I did the simplest thing I could think of to answer the question: I asked Finley point blank if he was recently given a $10,000 raise. His answer? Yes, it is true.
Like cats burying their stinky turds in shame, so do The Seven Goldfish hand out 7.7% raises to a guy ALREADY making $130,000 per year in secret executive session.
Mind you, that $140,000 is just the SALARY part. According to Finley himself in past comments, you need to add 40% to that to get the TRUE cost to the taxpayer – to account for the cushy benefits and retirement packages. That would put him at roughly $182,000 annual cost to the taxpayer. OUCH!!
I find it sickening that at a time when many of us taxpaying saps are being laid off and/or taking pay cuts due to FORCED government closings/overreactions from the Wuhan virus, the very people who forced businesses shut are getting large raises.
[Oh – and they STILL are crying poor about paying lifeguards a decent wage. Guess we won’t have any pools open this year]
Just to recap for those on the short bus (and the IT Department):
- City forces businesses closed in a massive overreaction to Wuhan Flu
- City cries poor – can’t pay more than minimum wage to pool workers and thus complains they have nobody applying for pool jobs.
- City goes behind closed doors and hands Finley a $10,000 raise ON TOP of his current $130,000 salary.
This is what happens when FOUR of the current seven members of City council (Toups, Kuehne, Clark, Williamson) owe their current or past paychecks to forced extractions from the taxpayers. It means they don’t understand the value of a dollar and will always side with the OTHER tax TAKERS instead of the tax PAYERS they supposedly represent. Over HALF of City council was or is, technically, employed by the government and reliant on taxpayer largess.
Of course, we have no idea how this all went down or who voted for or against – since it was all done in secret. As usual. MY guess is it was unanimous – that way they can present a unified front and deflect any second-guessing by us fools in the private sector. Call it honor among the council thieves.
To say the optics of this are really bad would be an understatement -which is why they kept it hush-hush. What the HELL would possess City council to SECRETLY hand Finley a $10,000 raise NOW when he ALREADY costs the taxpayers roughly $15,000 PER MONTH??? The timing is extremely bizarre.
I can think of only a few scenarios:
- Finley marched in and demanded it or he would quit on the spot.
- Finley is considering retiring in the next year or two and wants to jack up his “average salary” so his pension is higher for the rest of his life (this is common among government parasites).
- The Seven Goldfish are about 50% dumber than I previously estimated.
So – which is it, guys?? Care to comment in the public record at tonight’s meeting? Maybe call up The Dispatch and explain yourselves? Or are you just going to assume the taxpayer will bend over and take it like they always do?
FUN FACTS from the CURRENT BUDGET [pages 2 and 16]
ANNUAL City manager line item expenses: $331,480 **
INCLUDES:
FULL TIME SALARY: $225,000
EXTRA PAY: $4,332
CAR ALLOWANCE: $12,000
RETIREMENT BENEFIT: $37,929
HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFIT: $23,473
TELEPHONE: $2,500
** Now remember, these budget numbers included the position of Assistant City Manager (RIP Gary Cox) who was fired ‘resigned’ in October. The ACM position was a make-work job that Misti Talbert was all for creating a couple years ago. Why did they need to create an ACM position? Because Finley was apparently super busy with expensive and useless side projects like the $1.5 million dollar City Hall remodel and the $2 million weed patch ‘business park’ project.
[So, they created an entirely new Asst. City Manager $90,000 salary position (plus tens of thousands in benefits) for an “assistant”. He is now gone.]
However, as I recall, Ricky Roy has been moved up to ACM recently and I’m assuming that “City Manager” line item will continue to grow, since the position wasn’t eliminated.
Perhaps The Seven Goldfish are handing Finley $10,000 because they haven’t had to pay Gary Cox for the last 6 months? OK – but then why do it in secret? Why not make it a one-time bonus instead of a permanent raise?? IF they survived the last 6 months without an ACM, then why not continue to do so??
All good questions I doubt we’ll ever get an answer to.
