Beginning today and all week long, City Hall will be devoted to reviewing our current Budget. Line items will be analyzed with the goal of saving money. Although the City has saved $442,027.30 overall in personnel costs, there is a way to go to make up the shortfall of over $1 mil. Public Safety represents over half of our total expenditures and therefore over half of our total problem.
Therefore, let’s start with the Unions. No one at City Hall wants to talk about unions. No one knows how to say “enough is enough.” I am not even sure there is anyone at City Hall that has the skill to negotiate. Unions have built in raises based on nothing but simply being a member. Workers don’t even have to be efficient. An employee can be the biggest screw up imaginable. You can't even fire one. You have to eliminate his job. They are the big part of our present problem that continues to grow and grow and grow, just like a weed.
We must cut benefits and Union contracts need to be re-negotiated. Sick pay and vacation pay should be re-considered and should only be paid out if and only when you are sick or if you take a vacation. No accruing over a certain amount of time. Use it or lose it. Let’s go by what Federal Law mandates: Federal law does not require sick leave. If you quit your job before using all of your sick leave, your employer is not obligated to pay you for that time. This recently happened at our City when it gave in to the Union demands for firemen who moved to the County.
The salary increases need to be addressed as well as over-time pay that is going towards retirement benefits. One of the biggest Union scams is overtime pay applied to the bottom line of retirement benefit calculations. It is usually your top paid employees that get a crack at overtime first. I am rather sure that employees will be willing to have a reduction in benefits to keep their jobs.
Salary increases should be based on performance only and should be paid when we have the money, not before. No one is entitled and the unions must get “real.” Our City should be treated more like a business and not a giveaway of money we no longer can afford to pay. If the Unions will not consider our crisis, then get tough.
And just like a weed, it will get out of control if you don't come up with measures to halt the greed at the expense of the taxpayers of Lake Worth. We should be in charge of our City, not the Unions. Bring in a top Union negotiator.
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ReplyDeleteLynn,
The only way to rid the city of the Unions, and many of their outrageous demands, is to privatize each unit of the city, i.e., accounting, customer service, water, electric, etc.......but with a 'buyback' or 'limited contract'
option to the low bidder. Many of the current employees would be retained, but each would have to interview for the position and would become an 'at-will' employee for the new service provider.
Another direct result of this transfer of responsibility would be the immediate elimination of many of your upper management positions. Many of these 'high-cost' employees are a needless drag on the economy of the city.