Look at Detroit’s mayor Bing. I just love the repeated slapdowns he’s given the unions.
Refusing to deduct union dues from some city workers paychecks. Firing bus drivers who called an informal strike.
New York is having the same problem:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/new_york_pension_timebomb_ZMXZXjd4ZEBLgSPjAlfQgJ
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6304CG20100402
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/unions_won_new_york_loses_awNPCY1wC5RMthwIoNUhNJ
Great good news.
About damned time!
I guess it's not waiting anymore, the disaster is already here.
>”Dying city and state government”
Duluth, Mn
Its so funny watching them grasp at straws as their failed Socialist agenda keeps leaving them deeper and deeper in debt.
A wonderful quote from their LIBERAL mayor Don Ness right before he was elected.
“We wont be chasing any smokestacks”
So, with over 70% of all jobs in the Duluth area in the Service related industry, after you graduate college, you can count on a great career as a waitress/waiter, hotel maid/maintenance, or maybe you’ll get REALLY lucky and get a job in the food court at the mall.
Bye bye Duluth.
Turn the lights off when you leave.
....in North Carolina, the state Treasurer has warned that the tsunami of coming retired workers will be unsustainable...the enormous growth of govt.employees in the 70s & 80s is now coming home to roost.
I’m glad I’m a federal — not a state or municipal — employee. BIG difference between them. For one thing, my pension and other benefits are safe.
As I remember the story, the Pope pressed the U.S. government to be patient in its dealings with the Soviet Union -- and to minimize hostilities while at the same time pursuing whatever ongoing arms-reduction treaty was being negotiated at the time.
When the Pope was asked why he -- who had lived in Poland during an era when it had been subject to harsh oversight by the Soviet government -- wouldn't recognize the moral bankruptcy of such a governing system and oppose it at all costs, he said something to this effect:
"Communism is so inherently at odds with God's vision of mankind that it will eventually collapse under its own weight."
Public employee unions role is to redistribute as much taxpayer money as possible and vote democrat. That’s why the Kenyan loves ‘em.
I’ve been talking to my friends and have posted on FR something I call “The Entitlements Crash”, I didn’t come up with the name but it applies here, oh so well.
When the Government, (Federal, state and Local), can no longer pay out cash for “Entitlements”, it will all come crashing down. And quite frankly I do believe that it will be a world-wide crash as the economy is entertwined like a spider web among all of the nations.
What will come afterwards? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Frankly I think that cash and barter will become King and Queen and that Credit will be anathema for generations after.
At one time the unions were good for the “workers”. Today unions are NOT for the workers. The union is interested in keeping union members for their own salaries and power. The unions are the reason so many of our manufacturing base is somewhere else in the world and NOT HERE.
Despite the dire tone of this article, it is spot on. The socialists have run out of other people’s money far sooner than they expected. There is nothing more poignant for those who’s God is Government to be forced to confront the lies of their own making. Unlike Conservative Americans, Unions and Socialist Politicians are both run by violent people without moral constraints. The Republic is in peril, but we will soon find out if this Nation has a moral compass. Perhaps this split will give us the clarity needed to decide what kind of nation we will have.
“
Dying city and state governments finally turning on their union masters
and it won’t be pretty
“
For all the Democrats that (by and large) run these dying cities...
and the people that voted them in...
they sure preach “environmental sustainability”.
But sure don’t understand “economic sustainability”.
I guess the latter topic isn’t taught in the public schools of big cities.
GREED?!!!
Hey you think when President “Greed is EVIL” hears about this he’ll come down hard on the Greed-doers?
The people though will never understand. They just think the “rich” can be taxed more to pay their “fair share.”
To: Mayor Rivera and City Council Members
From: Stephen Bartolin, Jr.
Date: November 16, 2009
Subject: City Budget
I understand you voted to take $580,000 out of the CVB’s share of the Tourism Budget. I completely understand the financial pressures the City has right now and the tough decisions that must be made. I am not sure this is the most effective idea, however, for two reasons:
• It doesn’t really put much of a dent in the overall problem.
• I can say with a good fact basis that cutting tourism funding will only dig the hole deeper.
This was proven, in no uncertain terms, when the State of Colorado did this. It cost them many millions more than they saved.
With that said it is unfair to make that comment and not offer some solutions. It doesn’t appear to be a popular solution to cut police and fire or not replace street lamps or water parks or close the museum or require temporary furloughs. It appears to be making people angrier. People seem to want a more comprehensive and long lasting solution.
The Gazette article a few Sunday’s ago brought some clarity when it broke down the city revenues and expenses by area. I was surprised that public safety was only a $114M of the overall $226M in expenses.
I am sure there are efficiencies to be gained in public safety, but there is a lot to work with outside of that.
Please understand the constructive manner in which these comments are intended. A good way to look at it is as a business problem. Say you are the new CEO of a $226M a year business that is going to run $30+M in the red next year. The easy answer is to raise the rates and increase revenue, but the marketplace won’t support that (in this case, the taxpayers).
That leaves only one alternative. Deal with the expense side. A basic analysis of the expenses is that you have a 70% overall payroll cost, $161M payroll for 1805 employees which equals $89,196 per employee and benefit and pension plans that are not only “Cadillac” but more “Ferrari” when compared to what is being offered in the private sector.
Looking at it this way, the solutions become more obvious:
• Restructure and reorganize how the City is run and figure out how to do it with approximately 1550 employees versus 1805 employees.
• Restructure the starting wages for both salary and hourly personnel across the board.
• Contract out everything that is practical with sharply negotiated pricing which gets you out from under the overtime, benefit and pension costs paid to City employees.
• Restructure your benefit and retirement plans to something more comparable to what is available in the private sector.
More specifically:
• 70% payroll cost - No matter what business you are in, for profit or non-profit, the game is pretty much over if you are running a 70% payroll cost. We do approximately half the revenue the City does and we run a 30% payroll cost with 1800 plus employees, near the same number as the City.
• Per employee cost of $89,196 - It is doubtful you can find any private employer for 500 or more people in the state of Colorado or practically the nation that has a per employee payroll cost that high. Our per employee cost is $24,460, which includes seasonal and part-time people which we use a great deal as there are no benefit costs associated with these.
• The number of people it takes to get things done.
i. The Gazette reported that the City has 81 people in its IT Department and is reducing it to 69. We have some ultra-sophisticated and integrated systems and a large PC network. In addition, we provide 24-hour IT customer service to all of our guests. We do this with 9 people
ii. I was told that the Utilities Department has over 30 people in Communications plus employs the services of an outside PR agency. We have 1 person in PR and we have to compete for our business across the nation.
iii. The Gazette also reported that Utilities has approximately 60 people in Human Resources. We have 13. Yet we have over 1800 employees compared to their 1300.
• Examine the number of salaried positions - of our 1800 plus employees we have 144 salaried positions. I have no idea how many the City has but it would be interesting to know.
• The Gazette reported that the City has 67 positions paying $100,000 or more. We have 13.
• Restructure starting wages for hourly and salaried positions - every year we do a wage survey among major employers as well as other hospitality employers in the city for comparison purposes. For all like positions and in almost every single case the City had the highest starting wage over any of the other private sector companies we surveyed.
• Restructure the health insurance program to one comparable to what is being offered in the private sector and examine the costs shared by the employee.
• Move retirement age to 60 no matter how many years of service - both for collection of benefits and for medical insurance.
• Once a retiree reaches age 65 move them to Medicare and off the City plan.
• The weight of the pension plan is crushing the City financially. If the private sector cannot afford plans likes this how can the taxpayers? It has to be dealt with. It occurs to me Police Officers and Firefighters who risk their lives for this community should be excluded from the ideas being advanced.
Police and Fire support staff should be treated like all other City employees. Develop a generous matching 401K plan and have people take responsibility for their own retirement planning. A friend of mine’s wife works in the IT Department of one of the City entities (she is paid $120K a year - she is not the department head or the director).
Our Director in IT makes $90K a year. This lady is 49 years old and plans to retire next year at 50. She will receive 80% of her salary with annual cost of living increases and full medical package for the next 30+ years. Who can afford this?
• Whatever measures are decided on should be carried right across to Utilities. They operate like their own private fiefdom. When I look at our water bill going from $580,000 in 2008 to $2.5M by 2018 certainly the same operating efficiencies applied to the City should be applied there. Possibly it makes sense for Memorial Hospital as well.
• Capital Expenses - the article did not indicate how much the City spends annually in capital expenses, but I am sure it is many millions of dollars. Our staff is always amazed at the new fleets of vehicles you see in use, i.e. when the Stormwater Enterprise was established everyone was outfitted with fully optioned F-350 trucks. You see them all over town. We maintain vehicles well and run them until they don’t run anymore. We have many with over 200,000 miles. We also buy well maintained used trucks, shuttle, vans, etc., many of which have been in service 10 years now. I understand the Police Department just spent $3M on new portable telephones when the present system was operating fine. In this economy could that have been postponed for another year or two?
• Go to zero based budgeting for operating and capital expenses immediately before capital budgets for 2010 are approved.
We know the arguments you’ll get: that we are only in the mid-pay range of other cities - won’t be able to hire and recruit - etc. etc. - baloney - I showed you a number of comparisons to our business with staffing levels, number of people at 6 figures or more, number of salaried people, average cost per employee and benefits per employee, etc. between The BROADMOOR and the City - we are not comparing some third rate organization. The BROADMOOR is recognized nationwide as a world class organization and we compete in a world every day where the best is just good enough. We are able to recruit top professionals in all the key positions and get creative with how we staff and operate our business.
It probably would not be effective to turn these suggestions over to somebody within the City and have them develop and implement the necessary solutions. You’ll have to bring in a firm from the outside to do it under Council’s direction or you can put together a panel of CEO’s within the community to analyze this and I am sure they would have many more points to offer. I would be happy to facilitate such a group and host a lunch discussion. I mentioned it to Bill Hybl and he said he would be happy to offer input as well and participate. A more comprehensive approach is what will provide a viable long term solution. I predict that if Council were to take this on and restructure with real reform and solve problems you would earn the respect and admiration of the entire community. In fact, this could be a national success story.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Stephen Bartolin, Jr.
President and CEO
SB/sgw
When Rats turn on unions we know the days of both are numbered....
It is long since past time that the NLRA was repealed, root and branch, and unions reverted to what they should have been treated as all along - a partnership formed by and among the members thereof, for the purpose of carrying on a trade or business for profit as co-owners thereof - and for which a vast body of law already exists that would streamline the reversion of unions back to the partnership form of entity without too much upset (other than the fact that they’d now have to prove themselves worthy of their continued existence as they’d no longer be able to use the heavy hammer of the state’s power to bash their private enterprise counterparts over the head).