Finley DeGraffenreid – The Original Lampasshole

Comparing Salaries – City Manager Edition.

Well, we already compared salaries for ASSISTANT to the City manager and found that ours is overpaid by roughly 35%

Now let’s take a gander at the Head Cheese himself. Finley will be pulling down $162,240 after the latest round of 4% raises for everyone.

A quick search of salary.com gives us some answers:

Uh oh. Whoopsie! Finley appears to be overpaid by about 35% as well! Just like his side-kick Dwight Schrute.

What are the odds? Quite good, as it turns out. You see, when Finley hired Schrute on for $110,000 (which was $25,000 OVER normal) what he essentially did was make sure HIS salary would be too high as well – because we can’t have the MANAGER making only a teeny bit more than the ASSISTANT, now can we?

Such a sneaky little shit. Such are the tactics of the life-long bureaucrat.

Let’s take a look at some of the MANY cities listed on Salary.com and see what they pay their managers compared to Finley’s $162,240:

Burnet, TX: $117,863 (population 6,800 – comparable to Lampasas)

Floresville, TX: $72,244 (population 8,050 – comparable to Lampasas)

Lake Dallas, TX: $125,008 (population 7,830 – comparable to Lampasas)

Jasper, TX: $150,970 (population 7,500) – NOTE: this is for a COMBINED position of City Manager AND Finance Director. We pay OUR finance director ALONE over $96,000. Ergo, Jasper pays $150,970 for both positions and we pay over $258,000 for the same two jobs – 72% MORE.

Kirby, TX: $98,427 (population 8,100 – comparable to Lampasas)

Navasota, TX: $141,677 (population 8,500 – larger than Lampasas)

Los Fresnos, TX: $123,000 (population 8,215 – comparable to Lampasas)

River Oaks, TX: $117,790 (population 7,500 – comparable to Lampasas)

Of course, we cannot forget to add in the generous health insurance, retirement and other benefits. Bringing Finley’s cost to the taxpayer up to over $225,000 per year. Every year.

Also, keep in mind that MANY of the towns listed above do NOT have an assistant manager position! In other words, these managers don’t have a lackey like Ryan Ward to dump their shit work onto. They run the City BY THEMSELVES.

The dynamic duo of Finley and Schrute total cost to taxpayers to run Lampasas, a town of 7,500? Over $400,000 per year.

Up next….Police Chief comparisons.

Finley Retiring Next Year?

I’ve heard birdies chirping for a while now….that City manager Finley “Spinley” deGraffenreid would be retiring next year. I dismissed it at first. Why would a guy with quite average intelligence give up a cushy job that pays $150,000 per year ($12,500 per month) PLUS car allowance PLUS phone allowance PLUS a free $14,000 per year thrown into his retirement account by the taxpayers PLUS ‘free’ healthcare PLUS free life insurance and dental??

But I’ve heard it from four or five different sources now, so I can’t ignore it. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire.

By my calculations, he has been paid WELL OVER a million bucks by Lampasas over the last 10 years. That doesn’t include all the perks or his fat pension he’ll be getting, too. Again – that’s JUST in the last 10 years here in Lampasas.

He’ll be 60 in March – not really THAT old. Plus there is NO way he’d make that kind of money and benefits in the real world. So when he retires, it won’t be to do anything else. It will be “to spend time with the grandkids” – and perhaps dip into that kickback fund built by the likes of Azbell Electronics and others?

HAHAHAHA – just kidding Finley. We know that all those decisions you made to pay three times more than normal were due to incompetence…NOT any kind of kickback scheme….

***Sanchez works for ASJ Construction – the ones who made out like bandits on the Old City Hall debacle. So she should know.***

But after being wildly overpaid both in Lampasas AND in Llano, Finley must have enough millions stashed away to hang up his cleats and get that very fat public employee pension for the rest of his life. Just like Sammy Bailey.

We’ll be doing a deep dive into how much he has amassed over the years both here and as City manager for Llano.

God help us if he recommends Ryan Ward to take over as the new City manager. I’m about 85% certain that Ward is borderline mentally retarded.

Lampasas City Manager Now Budgeted $353,830

Good thing they raised electricity rates to pay for Finley’s perks!

Full time salary: $272,950

Finley got a secret raise to $140,000 in the middle of the pandemic last year. That is still nowhere close to $273k. I am assuming they are once again budgeting for an assistant City manager, but I find it hard to believe that the ACM will be paid anywhere near the manager salary. This implies a salary of around $130k for the ACM.

Maybe Finley got another silent raise that nobody bothered to tell us about. Maybe it’s time to request Finley’s paystubs.

Extra pay: $5,384

What’s extra pay? It’s just more on top of Finley’s big pile. Shaddup and pay your electric bill, bitch!

Car allowance: $6,000

Five hundred a month for Finley to drive around town? Sure – why not.

Retirement benefits: $45,440

That’s annually. Every year.

Insurance benefits: $23,587

I still don’t know how the City pays so much for health insurance. I pay $7,000 a year out here in the real world all by myself with no big organization to (presumably) negotiate better rates. Yet somehow, every employee in the City seems to cost about $12,500 to insure.

Throw in the rest (phone, travel allowance, etc) and the entire “City Manager” Department now costs the taxpayers $385,000 per year. Or nearly FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS every business day.

Remember, all public employees salaries are PUBLIC. The taxpayer has a right to know. Link HERE to a list of employees.

Also remember that according to Finley himself, you need to multiply an employee’s salary by 1.4 to get an accurate cost to the taxpayer. Benefits are usually about 40% of salary, according to him.

So when someone’s salary is “only” $60,000, the REAL number is more like $84,000 when you include those benefits and perks.

Pool Days Reduced 16.6% – Finley Very Proud Of Himself

Finley has been taking a lap lately that he’s managing to get the pools open this year – despite having trouble recruiting lifeguards due to the shitty $7.25/hr he offers (as a reminder, Finley makes $140,000 per year PLUS huge benefits).

That’s all well and good and no doubt TJ will pat him on the back for a job well done.

What they don’t mention is that the pool is open only FIVE days a week now, as opposed to SIX days previously. So the pool will be open 16.6% LESS days than it was before.

Oddly, the COST to operate the pool still moves higher. For the 2017/2018 fiscal year, the pool (Hanna Springs) was budgeted $134,827 for the season. THIS season, they were budgeted $151,517 – an increase of 12.4% in three years.

On a per-open-day basis, that means the cost of the pool has rocketed something like 34% in three years. All the while, lifeguard pay has remained at a shitty $7.25 per hour. Kinda makes you wonder where all the money goes!

Costs go UP and service goes DOWN. Finley would have made an outstanding Postmaster General.

Finley Had a Very Funny Joke…

I even wrote it down in my diary: “Finley had a very funny joke today”. I laughed about it later that night!

What was this side-splitter? It occurred on the radio Wednesday morning when Finley “No Bid” deGraffenreid was talking to local imbecile, radio station owner and Covid scaremonger Rhonda Witcher.

I have to admit, whenever I listen to the Wednesday morning “Meeting with the City Manager” spot between these two, I am ALWAYS remined of the movie “Best in Show” where Fred Willard’s Buck Laughlin character doesn’t know the first thing about purebred dogs or how they are judged, but he’s somehow secured the position of a color commentator at a prestigious dog show. He just sits there and asks the dumbest questions mixed in with idiotic observations and remarks.

Rhonda Witcher IS Buck Laughlin.

Huh – weird that Fred Willard is in both of those movie scene. RIP Fred.

Anyways, as Rhonda rambled about “technology” and asked inane questions, one of them required Finley “No Bid’ deGraffenreid to explain what “system” the City uses to decide whether a gadget or service is worth the money the City pays for it.

Finley’s answer?

“The city is generally pretty conservative in their expenditures…..and you can do a cost benefit analysis….”

BAHAHAHAHAHA. Finley “No Bid” deGraffenreid actually kept a straight face as he uttered the phrase “cost benefit analysis”. I am in tears over here.

So, it was “cost benefit analysis” that led you to mysteriously throw away the $34,000 DEAL you had with Broadcast Works for the City council audio/visual system and then go with a NO BID system from Azbell that cost almost ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS??

Was it “cost benefit analysis” that led you to spend $175,000 on a NO BID PREFAB BATHROOM that could have been had for $20,000 (page 7)???

Was it “cost benefit analysis” that made you ignore the $96,000 bid on the table from Austin Elevator Co and instead blow $128,000 to use RKJ Construction for an elevator that broke down constantly in the first years?

You make me laugh, Finley!

No-Bid $170,000 Bathroom STILL Broken After One Month

My, my. You’d think after wasting $170,000 on an un-needed and rarely-used bathroom (that was NOT put out for competitive bidding), you would AT LEAST take care of the damn thing.

Nope.

Here we are a MONTH after these signs fist appeared and the are STILL there today!

There was a saying in Chicago when people talked about how corrupt and incompetent Mayor Daley was: “At least the trains run on time”. And it’s true. If you get a few things right – like the trains running on time and the garbage being picked up – dummy voters will overlook ALL the other corruption and stupidity and incompetence. But the minute you inconvenience the voter a little bit, they will come after you for ALL of it.

It’s a lesson that City Manager Finley deGraffenreid (who is paid $140,000 per year PLUS big benefits) has not bothered to learn, apparently. I guess Finley is too busy drawing up plans to waste the NEXT $300,000 (Hostess House remodel) to bother taking care of the toys he already has.

Luckily, these $170,000 bathrooms (worth more than most of the houses on the same block) are rarely used – which is why I was so opposed to them in the first place.

NOW, he lets them sit there broken for a MONTH! What a joke.

Luckily we have a chance very soon to clean house on City council. Two council members are retiring and one looooong time substandard member (TJ Monroe) is up for re-election. Let’s be sure to give her the boot and get some new blood in there.

Wading Through Mandy Walsh’s Hip-Deep Horse Shit – PART III

Our final piece on the LEDC ‘business park’ boondoggle/money grab. To continue dissecting the Dispatch puff-piece:

“Currently, the city does not own land that could host a large primary employer”

This statement confuses the hell out of me. My first response is “so what?” – why does the City need to own all the land first before it’s sold to any business? We already have real estate agents to facilitate transfer of property from, say, the rancher to the Big Box Store.

Secondly, what the hell do you call the 165-acre albatross around your neck that IS the business park?? Are you picking nits and saying the CITY doesn’t own it, the LEDC does? Again – so what? No idea what this babbling nonsense means here. Neither the City NOR the LEDC should be in the business of land speculation and/or development, because those organizations are completely populated by dunces.

In the grand finale, Finley “Spinley” DeGraffenreid has to parrot the exact same bullshit he has been saying for at LEAST 7 years. Blah, blah, blah…dividends for the local economy. Where have I heard his bullshit before? Oh yes…the LAST time the City begged for a million bucks to “develop” the park and “make it shovel ready” back in 2014. Here are a couple of Finley quotes from the past:

“We’re at a point now that we have to make that property marketable, otherwise it won’t be developed,” – Finley in August 2020 (last week)

The LEDC was “proactive,” deGraffenried said, in acquiring the U.S. 183 property several years ago for a business park. The goal of utility extensions, the city manager said, is to develop the land into a site that can promote economic growth. – June 17, 2014 (WHOOPS!)

“DeGraffenried said the LEDC was bold in its decisions to purchase the business park property and extend utilities to it. The city manager predicted Lampasas will enjoy many “spin-off benefits” throughout the city because of the utility work. ” – Oct 23, 2015 (OOPSIE! Wrong again!)

So it was developed with a million bucks back in 2014 but apparently still isn’t developed and isn’t marketable.

Wait a sec…the land it not marketable? Hold on here. I remember the LEDC spending boat loads of money to market it with videos, pamphlets, brochures, etc. Hold on a minute. Let me check my notes….

Ah yes – here are some expenditures made to “market” the ~~corpse repository~~ ‘business park’ YEARS AGO…so I guess it actually WAS marketable at one point?

Neon Cloud Productions (promotion video of weed patch) – $3,354.86

Zoom Advertising – logos, magazine ad (LOL!), art work, banner art, business cards (yes, all for a ‘Business Park’ that does STILL not exist 6.5 years later) – $2,190

Only Finley and his gang of dipshits would spend $5,500 marketing land that they now claim can’t be marketed.

I guess the business park is like Schrödinger’s cat: it is both developed and undeveloped at the same time. It is also marketable yet unmarketable. It exists in two quantum states?

We end the Dispatch article with the usual coup de grace of bullshit – the “artists rendition” of the business park.

The REALITY is the photo I took myself below:

Shovel ready since Q4 2015!! LOL!