Absolutely insane.
I expected more from a businessman like Herb Pearce. I expect this idiocy from Porkchop Kuehne and Dorothy Person. Females who have always owed their paycheck to the taxpayers. But not from a man who runs a business. For shame.
Don’t forget, their health benefits cost just exploded 9.11% this year – for the “premier plan” of course!
City Health Insurance To Jump 9.11% This Year…After 11.72% Increase Last Year.
We are now looking at an AVERAGE salary and benefit of over $100,000 for City workers! The AVERAGE of EVERY SINGLE CITY EMPLOYEE is now over $100,000. From my post exactly a year ago when they jacked salaries last time:
If Ward/Finley Even Get Their LOWEST COLA Request, City Salaries + Benefits Will Easily Top $11,000,000.00 For First Time Ever.
City and state salaries and benefits have been WAY bigger than the private sector for a while now. It’s an outrage.
(I remember when I bitched about more raises last year, someone on City council said “well, we used the social security COLA as our guide.” OK – so how do you explain handing out TWICE the SS COLA this year??)
Do YOU make over $100,000 in salary and benefits? I bet you don’t. But you’re paying for some cushy Nerf-job holders to make serious bank. Lucky you!
Here is a Lampasas stat for you, from Wikipedia:
The median income for a household in the city was $27,898,and for a family was $31,012. Males had a median income of $26,606 versus $19,959 for females. The per capital income for the city was $13,409. About 18.3% of families and21.1% of the population were below the poverty line.
But yeah, let’s give the seat polishers $100k per year. Sounds fair.
How about maybe using some new AI software to reduce the payroll? How about holding salaries flat for a year or two? You know, to make up for the OUTRAGEOUS salary increase during the profligate Toups years when inflation was nonexistent.
Here is my post from a few years ago. I meticulously detailed the huge raises handed out when inflation was practically zero in 2013, 2014 and 2015and raises were THREE TIMES HIGHER than inflation.
City Big Wigs Want Raises For Everyone Because of Inflation. Conveniently Forget All The Big Raises When Inflation Was Negligible
Here is just a small taste of my research:
July 25th, 2014 – Initial budget assumptionscall for a 4 percent increase in total salary expenses. In the budget approved last year, total salaries increased 3 percent. Mayor Pro Tem Wanda Bierschwale said she would like to see employees get “a goodly raise” and for the city to pay a portion of retiree health care costs. Mrs. Bierschwale also said she would like to increase the dependent cost share. White said he supports a 50 percent health care cost share for retirees and a 4 percent raise for all employees. Councilman Chuck Williamson also said he favors 4 percent raises.
[That idiot Bierschwale certainly was generous with other people’s money, wasn’t she? White and Bierschwale are long gone…but that fat 50% health care cost share remains…as does that fat raise – every year for the last 8 years. So – we see a huge raise AND a ridiculous bump in benefits: increasing the share the taxpayers pay for employees’ dependents AND for City retirees who have ALREADY gotten tons of benefits over their careers. CPI for 2014 was only 1.6%…raises are therefore 2.5 times the rate of inflation.]
Aug 14, 2015 – The council is consideringa 5 percent increase in city employees’ salaries. The original suggestion submitted to the council was for a 4 percent pay boost, but Mayor Pro Tem Misti Talbert [the original Drunken Sailor] and Councilman Robert McCauley proposed giving a 5 percent raise. CPI for 2015 was 0.1%. Raises are therefore FIFTY TIMES LARGER than rate of inflation. This was the beginning of the profligate Toups administration.
Let’s pause here a moment. CPI is up 3.1% over those three years and employee raises totaled about TWELVE PERCENT over that time. Nobody bothers to mention all of this. That doesn’t even include the generous INCREASE in benefits covering employee dependents and City retirees.
Oh, and your water and wastewater rates are going higher too, in order to pay for all of Misti Talbert’s idiot decisions like handing out free money to developers instead of taking a pound of flesh to pay for future infrastructure. Marble Falls is smart enough to charge $6,000 per house – and it was recently raised to $12,000. THAT is being smart. What Talbert and Monroe did was retarded….
P.S. – our school superintendent is now making over a quarter of a million bucks in salary and benefits.
