City Budget Talks Start – Finley Will Try to Convince Council How Underpaid Government Workers Are. That Is a Lie.

It’s that time of year when budget talks commence and Finley stands there with his hat in hand, telling City council how everyone at City Hall is underpaid.

Don’t believe it.

First, let’s take a look at some numbers from the City’s OWN comprehensive plan [see page 9]. They paid $120,000 for this “plan”, so it must be high-quality and full of accurate information. Here is a chart showing income for the average Lampasshole versus the county and the state:

As you can see, Lampasas median income is FAR lower than both the state of Texas AND Lampasas county when it comes to household income. I have added a red line running from the top of the bar over to the income number. It’s just over $40,000.

[Remember also – every City employee is supposed to live within the City limits – so that “median income” number for City of Lampasas INCLUDES all of our wildly overpaid City workers like Finley himself – thus inflating it. If you were to pull all “City employees” out of that group, the number would be even lower for “non-government employees”!]

I added another line at the $60,000 mark – that represents the average salary for a City worker. According to Finley himself, back in 2019, a 1% COLA adjustment for City payroll represented $64,000 [see page 3]. That means the City payroll was $6,400,000 back then – and has increased a few percent by now. Call it $6.6 million today divided by 110 full-time employees = $60,000 per employee, on average. Or roughly 50% HIGHER than the average schmuck of a taxpayer.

I then added another red line up around the $80,000 mark, as you can see. That is where the average City worker sits, in terms of salary and all the benefits (health, dental, life insurance, workmans comp, and retirement) they receive.

Again, according to Finley himself [see page 3] a 2% savings in health insurance costs saves the City $45,000. This means the entire insurance nut must be $2,250,000. Since $2.25 million x .02 = $45,000. Take that $2.25 million and divide it by 110 full-time workers, and you get $20,454 average cost PER City employee.

We can check this figure another way. Finley has ALSO stated in the past, that benefits are roughly 40% of salary. So we take the $6.6 million salary number and multiply it by 1.4 and get $9.24 million total for salary and benefits. Divide by 110 employees and you get $84,000 PER employee.

If all THAT isn’t enough, consider that the U.S. Census data shows the exact same thing: the typical state and local government worker is FAR better paid than the average taxpayer who foots the bill.

Hopefully, now that we have some PRIVATE sector people on City council, they will understand this better and tell Finley to pound sand on any raises this year. Any City employee making over $65,000 per year should have their salaries frozen for the next five years at LEAST. That would be a great start.

Government pays bureaucrats 32% more than private-sector workers earn | Fox Business

Covid Mask Snitch and Lockdown Lover Now Wants To Grab Your Money at Wool & Vine. Don’t Let Her.

Ahhh – what a difference a year makes. Local Covid rat and Wool & Vine lemonade stand owner Julie Landrum was busy snitching out fellow businesses last year when she felt they were “lax” with mask mandates:

Memorandum: you are not an actual restaurant, lady. Granola bars and cheese plates don’t count.

I told you, I will NEVER forget or forgive the rats that snitched out fellow small businesses during the “pandemic”. It’s payback time.

Unhinged Covid Cult member

She also got handed taxpayer money by Economic Development Director Mandy Walsh during the scamdemic – even though they employ nobody but themselves and are barely open. Hardly a “small business” in any sense of the word.

More like “hobby lemonade stand” that is open a few days a week and whenever it is convenient to the owners, Julie and Andrew Landrum – who are both far left liberals.

Support your local Antifa! Holy Christ.

Before, she was petrified of her own shadow and STILL thinks she needs to wear masks in crowds….

So you’ll be all masked up while you sling pricey cans of beer to the filthy masses, right lady?

But now that there will be massive crowds of people gathering on the square later this week with CASH in their pockets, Julie wants to take FULL advantage by selling you overpriced cans of beer. No food (low margin), no mixed or poured drinks (takes too much time) – just coolers and coolers of overpriced beer they can quickly ring up and hand out.

Just the two of you?? Why don’t you hire a couple of local kids and pay them $15 per hour – like you demand of every other business in the nation? Talk about hypocrites!!!

Oh, and she’s too cheap to actually go out and buy coolers! She wants to use YOURS for free – as she rips your face off with expensive cans of beer and crappy t-shirts!

I have an idea! Maybe click a button on Amazon and buy a few big coolers – you could even use the $3,000 Mandy Walsh gave you last year or the thousands you save by not hiring anyone to work at your lemonade stand! Like most lefties, I guess when you are handed shit you didn’t earn enough times you make a habit of expecting it, eventually.

Ironically, it was Governor Abbott (whom both of the Landrums detest, since he is a “right-winger”) who signed the “alcohol-to-go-” law this year, which allows these lemonade stand owners to capitalize on the overpriced “to-go” beer cans! Amazing!

Do yourself a favor: be SURE to bring your own cooler and beer to the square this week! If you find yourself without, then walk on over to Lampasas Beer Market (no, I am not affiliated with them) or stock up at Putters first (also no affiliation). Those happen to be two businesses that actually employ a lot of locals, are open all the time, and who AREN’T far-left liberals who defend Antifa and other Marxist goons.

Personally, I’d pay $50 for a piss-warm PBR from a bum on the street before I put a nickel into the pockets of these clowns.

Oh, and watch out for those fireworks! No fun of ANY kind allowed around Nurse Ratched

There is literally nothing this chick ISN’T scared of. Fireworks, cold viruses, mosquitoes, loud noises, low-flying airplanes. Good god – she’s like a neurotic chihuahua. What a way to live your life!

It’s “varmint”, Queen Julie.

How dare that young man sight in his rifle out in the countryside! Queen Julie is trying to recover from her HORRENDOUS day of smashing her finger a little bit and then getting her hair done and hiding from a mosquito! Annoying peasants! Stop the fireworks too!!

The Battle of Bunker Hill – June 17, 1775

Men who were not fighters by trade or inclination had stood side by side behind their earthworks and their fences and had waited calmly while some of the most formidable fighters in the world advanced against them in ordered ranks.

A few months earlier the odds against the success of any American military effort would have been overwhelming…Now Americans had met it face to face, and…it could be seen for what it was: an army that commanded great respect, but one composed of men no taller or stronger than any others.

By demonstrating that some rather ordinary American farmers had stood against this formidable enemy, the battle of June 17 proved, as nothing else could, that others might accomplish the same thing. Had they failed, it is conceivable that the rebellion might have sputtered out.

City Sees No Increase In Health Insurance Premiums For Second Straight Year. Odd Considering We Had a “Deadly Plague” Last Year.

Great news for taxpayers, as Baylor Scott White held the line on health insurance costs for City employees. I’m pretty sure this happened last year as well.

Weird, because BEFORE that, the City got jammed with massive increases almost yearly and nobody seemed to care (they saw an 11.8% increase in 2014/2015 – then they saw a 13% increase in 2017/2018).

Then in April 2020, I started asking uncomfortable questions. I asked if we ever looked around for better insurance. I asked for data going back ten years on City employee health insurance claims and why they had DOUBLED in one year! I fought with City attorney JC “Stonewall” Brown in order to get access to that data – data that City Finance Director Moreno had ALREADY talked about in the press.

Come to think of it, I never DID get all that information. JC Brown (and by extension, Mayor “Transparency” Talbert) was a huge pain in the ass in denying me much of the info, saying:

“as a courtesy to you, the staff searched for data and asked that I provide you with the limited information that remained available to the staff.  I provided that to you via my correspondence dated March 23rd. No additional data will be provided“

This is the attorney that bills the City about $7,000 every month for various little projects, btw – talking to me about doing me courtesies.

Bottom line is that a lot of info was requested of BSW about claims amounts and how premiums are set. Lo and behold! That very same year BSW decides to hold premiums unchanged…then they did it again this year!

It’s almost as if somebody over there realized “uh oh, these guys are starting to realize they are being bent over by us.”

You know what ELSE is funny? Last year was supposedly a deadly pandemic year. I remember Rhonda Witcher clutching her pearls in the Radiogram about how “hospitals were being overrun!” and I remember a tearful Mayor Transparency Talbert crying on Facebook when she caught it herself. I remember daily tearful counting of every person who passed away – including many in their 80s and 90s who actually lived in a nursing home two counties over.

The City has 110 full-time employees – many of them older and very out of shape. According to the non-stop wailing about “the deadly pandemic”, we should have seen more than a few City employees in the hospital and the ICU with Covid – racking up HUGE medical bills, right?

In short, Covid was a perfect excuse to jack health premiums through the roof – as an ACTUAL reaction to the giant hospital bills the City employees were surely running up during the “pandemic”. We should have seen at least one or two City employees drop dead of Covid too, statistically.

Yet none of that happened.

That’s because the math doesn’t lie. I know two people in the insurance industry, both with 25 years of experience – and BOTH of them told me that life insurance premiums have not reacted at all to the “deadly pandemic” last year. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth and kids in masks and morons keeping their kids out of school was ALL FOR NOTHING. The insurance numbers prove it unequivocally.

City Only Gives Out $37,254 To Latest Developer

I’m back from summer vacation and I have a HUGE pile of subjects in the hopper. I took 7 weekdays off and it felt like an eternity. I don’t know HOW these City Hall Nerf Job workers manage to take the 15 or 18 days off a year they get. I guess I just have that private sector drive to work hard.

Anyhow…..on to business.

First it was Deorald Finney and his $72,000 in “free” stuff for his Stone Valley subdivision. Then City council handed former fellow council member “Greasy” Chris Harrison and his new employer S2M2 $185,000 for their Brodie Estates project.

This time, the City dialed it back a teeny, tiny bit with the new Hillside Acres subdivision and its developer MD Homes. According to the agreement:

“as an economic incentive to MD’s project, the City will install, at the appropriate time in the Project’s development, at the City’s cost, but not to exceed a total expense to the City of $37,254.36 (“City’s Financial Participation”) certain electrical infrastructure to each platted lot in the Subdivision“

Hillside-Acres-SubdivisionDownload

Well, I guess it’s a start. Especially since they are going to be adding 27 homes out there on 580 West right near the Sports Complex. You know, the place where they have already been having water pressure problems and where Deorald is already adding 67 more houses.

Maybe someday, instead of handing OUT money to entice people who want to move here already, the City will get smart and CHARGE their pound of flesh to developers so they can pay for the impact down the road for things like greater demand on the water, road and police infrastructure.

I know – crazy, right?

Pool Fans to Pay Price For Finley’s Crappy Lifeguard Wages And Refusal To Accept Labor Reality

I’ve brought it up over and over again for SIXTEEN MONTHS now: in THIS labor market, you have to dangle more than the bare minimum wage to the lifeguards or you were going to come up short. I even outlined how to come up with the money.

But Finley doesn’t hike wages for local high school kids even as he demands they have training and CPR certs. No, he only hikes wages of City Hall Nerf jobs like Economic Director.

This was an OBVIOUS problem months and months ago, but the Talbert Administration and Finley refused to fix it. They were too busy flushing six million dollars down the toilet on a vacant lot – no time to bump lifeguard wages up a buck or two.

Spinley even had the nerve to go on Rhonda Witcher’s radio show and brag about how “pools will be open this summer” as he took a victory lap.

I said at the time “I’ll believe it when I see it”

That was then, this is now:

Of course, pools ARE open in the strictly academic sense – in that you can swim there….sometimes. Just not on Sundays anymore. And you can’t use the slide sometimes (last Thursday) due to lack of staff. Oh, and we’ll be closed this entire Saturday.

I’ll bet you Finley’s left nut that this isn’t the last time this happens.

Another Day In Biden’s America – Thanks, You Liberal Morons

WARNING: more swearing than usual in this rant

Boy, what a day!

11:17am: No gas to be had at the Circle-K/Valero at the corner of Key and 190. This happens pretty much every day now, but usually later in the day.

11:24am: Drive up to Stripes – they have gas, but the cheapest grade is $2.76 per gallon (I paid $1.90 back in January – a 45% increase in six months)

11:45am: Call buddy in Round Rock to talk. He mentions his family tried to order pizza for delivery last night, but 600 Degree Pizza was unable to deliver…because they are out of boxes and can’t get any more.

1:15pm: Mention the pizza story to a friend in town here and she tells me Mojo’s Coffee is offering double stamps if you bring your own cup there to be filled – since they are running out of cups.

1:30pm: Picked up a Radiogram and front page tells me that there is a “FIREWORKS SHORTAGE!” – and the fireworks you CAN get are going to be FAR more expensive.

1:45pm: Head over to Wal-Mart and notice as I drive by that THEY are out of gas as well.

What is this? The fucking 1970s? Is that asshole Carter back in the White House? No, we have something FAR worse – Biden and a gaggle of socialist retards cheering him on.

We are turning into the old Soviet Union. Shortages, lowered quality of life, and a bungling and intrusive government that wants even MORE power. Shitheads like Clayton Tucker and Potato Head Stephanie Fitzharris aren’t happy that America is only halfway ruined. They want to ruin it the rest of the way. They want to let the fucking idiots in DC to get their hands on EVERYTHING: ALL the health care, ALL of the housing market, ALL of the transportation industry and ALL of the energy sector (Green New Deal).

We have tens of millions of lazy pussies STILL sitting at home not paying rent. The governor of California says “that’s ok, we’ll extend that moratorium and the STATE will pay the landlords for the lost revenue“.

Where does California get all that money? From Biden, of course! The rest of us get to pay for California’s idiocy.

The entire country has lost their fucking minds. It’s very easy to see what the problem is (too much free shit) and very easy to fix (stop the free shit). But moron liberals are having none of it. They will not be happy until we are a third-world shit hole like Venezuela, Cuba or Haiti, apparently.

$66 Billion Spent On Renewables Before Texas Blackouts

Why was $66 billion spent on renewables before the Texas blackouts? 

Because Big Wind and Big Solar Got $22 Billion in Subsidies

For every dollar spent by the wind and solar sectors in Texas, they got roughly 33 cents from taxpayers. By any measure, this is an outrageous level of subsidization. And Texans are learning that the tens of billions of dollars spent on wind and solar are not translating into reliable electricity.

On the graphic below, retrieved from ERCOT’s website on Wednesday, the black line shows electricity demand. The green line is wind output. On Monday, when demand was hitting 70,000 megawatts, wind output dropped to about 3,000 megawatts. On Tuesday, as power demand was again approaching 70,000 megawatts, wind energy production dropped to nearly zero.

 The Texas oil and gas sector pays about 54 times more in taxes per year than the wind and solar sectors. According to the Houston Chronicle, the oil and gas sector paid about $13.4 billion in state taxes and royalties in 2019. By contrast, the wind and solar sectors are paying roughly $250 million per year in state and local taxes.

The bottom line here is obvious: If Texas is serious about increasing electricity reliability and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, it should be building nuclear plants, which proved to be the most reliable generation during the February freeze. For $66 billion, the state could have added another 6,000 megawatts or more, of new nuclear capacity. Alas, that’s not happening.

Adding more wind capacity to the Texas grid won’t do much to help meet demand during hot summer days.

You hear that, Clayton??

The ERCOT grid shows that tens of billions of dollars in tax incentives have resulted in the addition of tens of thousands of megawatts of generation capacity to the Texas grid that does precious little to provide power during periods of peak electricity demand. That’s a bad outcome.

Yeah, but let’s keep listening to idiots like Clayton Tucker, who knows absolutely nothing about anything. Or maybe Hubert Humperdink – who is ACTUALLY Heath Bishop in real life – a 7-Eleven clerk. I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about when he says wind power isn’t to blame. Or maybe local bartender Jennifer Moreno, who also thinks wind and solar are the solution to all our problems.

The math and the charts do not lie. Wind power is a gigantic boondoggle that does NOTHING for the environment.

Cause And Effect

May 21, 2019:

Dispatch article about all the free stuff Deorald Finney got:

“That will cost the city about $71,346, according to the development agreement…the city’s $21,600 payment toward Willis Street drainage prompted extended discussion at last week’s meeting…..Talbert voiced concerns about the street maintenance fund, as Cox said the city payments for the Rice Street extension plus the Willis curb and gutter will use about $75,000 of the $100,000 budget for the year…..A motion to approve all the proposed terms with Finney – including the city payments for Rice Street and Willis Street – passed 5-2.”

August 16, 2019:

Dispatch article about how you suckers are going to pay for Deorald’s mansion:

“The Lampasas City Council has proposed to increase the municipal property tax rate…..Mayor Misti Talbert said she does not want to raise taxes or pay more herself, but she believes it is time. An increase in the tax rate is necessary in the upcoming fiscal year, Talbert said, because the cost of city services has risen over the last several years…a potential tax increase — combined with taxable values that, on average, have increased in the past year — could mean higher city tax bills in the upcoming fiscal year.”

Checking The Math Shows Us Finley Has ALREADY Billed Us For “Growth”

As I posted the other day, Finley is already putting a bug into the ears of City council that with all the “new rooftops” (built by developers subsidized with YOUR tax dollars) we may need to grow the size of the City payroll, add more people and spend more money.

These costs of growth, of course, FAR outpace the property tax revenue they get from the new “rooftops” (houses) – a math fact that escapes the likes of Monroe and Talbert. Let’s just take a look at the fire and police departments, because Finley referenced them in his little speech on Monday.

The City has grown in population roughly 22% since the 2008/2009 budget was approved. Let’s see how much the budget has grown during that time.

Police Salary and Benefits 2008/2009: $1.42 million

Police TOTAL Department Expenses 2008/2009: $1.723 million

Police Salary and Benefits 2020/2021: $2.36 million (INCREASE of 66% – triple the rate of population growth)

Police TOTAL Department Expenses 2020/2021: $3.143 million (INCREASE of 80% – almost quadruple the rate of population growth)

Now, I am a law and order kind of guy – NOT an idiotic “defund the police” guy. Just like the U.S. military at the federal level, law enforcement is one of the main functions of any government since it is nearly impossible to have those things provided by the private sector (see: free rider problem).

BUT, also like the U.S. military, just because it is an important and legitimate function of government doesn’t mean you write blank checks and never say “no” to exorbitant spending every now and then to keep things under control. Seems to me, the cost of those services should move roughly in tandem with population growth.

I have no clue if we just have a lot more officers now than we did back then or if we have the same number and they are just paid a lot more. I have no way to tell that as the “salary and benefits” line item is not broken down further.

What IS certain from these numbers, is that the rate of growth in EXPENSES is FAR outstripping population growth…Finley’s “rooftops” he was speaking of. So for him to point at a bunch of “new rooftops” and draw the conclusion that we obviously need to hire more people is completely disingenuous. We’ve been increasing spending all along – apparently a bit more than we should have.

Let’s do it for the Fire Department as well:

Fire Salary and Benefits 2008/2009: $547,000

Fire TOTAL Department Expenses 2008/2009: $700,000

Fire Salary and Benefits 2020/2021: $1.234 million (over 125% increase)

Fire TOTAL Department Expenses 2020/2021: $1.818 million (over 150% increase)

Oops. Spending has been increasing there FAR more than population growth at the fire department as well! Yet Finley is already prepping us for “MORE!!”.

How about the TOTAL cost of City government over the last 10 years? Population has grown about 20% over that time period. What do the budget numbers look like for the entire City?

This represents an INCREASE of 62% over 10 years – TRIPLE the rate of population growth.

Bottom line is that City council needs to take everything Finley tells them with a grain of salt. This is a guy who has been caught lying more than once [see: ‘Spinley’ deGraffenried] and who has also been caught wasting piles of money more than once as well (Azbell and the $180,000 pre-fab bathroom come to mind immediately).

Do your own research. Go through the old budgets. Search the old Dispatch archives. Perhaps look at OTHER cities our size and see how large their police and fire departments are – so you can tell if we are WAY out of line or not. Maybe see what percentage of the overall budget these departments make up and if THAT is normal for a town our size.

Common sense stuff.

Remember, Finley is a well-paid bureaucrat. Well-paid bureaucrats are always looking to increase the size of their little fiefdom. Same goes for every department head. It is the natural inclination of government to grow itself and suck up more and more resources. They put the taxpayer LAST. It is the job of City council to look out for the taxpayer and ask the tough questions Finley was never asked by the last administration.