Posted on 04/13/2010 3:14:12 PM PDT by Maelstorm
Small government conservatives in the city of Colorado Springs began slashing government services and taxes earlier this year and show no sign of slowing down. Everything from trash collection to streetlights to police coverage have been phased out in the quest to get closer to the free market model espoused by libertarians such as novelist Ayn Rand. The changes have turned Colorado Springs into something like a city-sized experiment in just how small government can get. So when pundits debate the Colorado Springs experiment, they're also debating the hard-line libertarian philosophy behind that experiment. Does drastically cutting services and taxes really work?
The Case For Colorado Springs
* Minneapolis Columnist: We Should Try That The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Lori Sturdevant suggests, "Colorado Springs' actions could turn out to be a template for cities here and elsewhere trying to balance their recession-depleted budgets with spending cuts alone."
* Just Like a Permanent 'Earth Hour' The Colorado Springs Gazette defends, "the media celebrate an annual event called Earth Hour as a nod to global warming. Americans are asked to turn out lights for one hour on a specified evening in order to help save Mother Earth from the ravages of wanton energy consumption." This is just like that, except permanent and more sweeping.
* Everyone Should Do This Conservative blogger and Colorado Springs resident Michelle Malkin praises the move. "Self-reliance. Privatization. Thrift. Fiscal accountability. The liberals in Denver and Washington could learn something from our Mountain West spirit if they could just get over their Colorado Springs Derangement Syndrome."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlanticwire.com ...
Too many “conservatives” are happy with big government so long as it promotes their agenda.
People often complain about the federal government taking their states rights but the reality is that the states are happy to sell their rights for federal dollars.
“Can a Town Survive With Nearly No Government?”
I don’t know, why don’t you ask the bulk of American history? Seriously, for the longest time we had no standing army, no police force, and no government currency, let alone highways, utilities, setback variances, and ordinances about everything under the sun.
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
I’d be happy to hear from any Colorado Springs residents on how this is working and what’s going well/poorly.
Is what built this mighty nation from the rock bound coast of Maine to the sunny shores of California....
Good find. I posted the link on my Facebook page to give all my government-loving friends a chance to weigh in with their predictable responses.
I bought a house a couple of years ago in a small midwestern town which I plan to relocate to eventually. Last year there was a series of articles in the little local newspaper about a proposal by the town council to make trash collection a government function, on the grounds that a few property owners were letting trash pile up on their properties and not hiring a private hauler to collect it. I was very happy to see that it got shouted off the table by angry citizens. The private trash haulers are doing the job just fine, and if a few property owners fail to hire and keep up payments to private haulers, then local ordinances prohibiting piles of trash on properties in town can be invoked so that the local government can hire a private hauler to pick up the trash and slap a lien on the property to recoup the cost.
That is why we need to turn things around. States handle all taxation and approve federal funding not the other way around.
I’d be happy to hear from any Colorado Springs residents on how this is working and what’s going well/poorly.
Same here. Self-reliance is a lost art for most of the populace those days.
I wish California , well, at least its politicians, would try doing something like don’t spend more than you take in. Even a caveman would agree its a good idea.
MAJOR BUMP!
I live in a little town of around 150 people. There are no main roads through town and most of the streets are dirt. We have a post office but aside from that and the roads we have little use for much outside money.
We did have our own police department but now give money to the county so they send a car through town every once in a while. Frankly we were better off paying for our own local cops.
You’re confusing conservatism (limited government) with the libertarians who seem to think that they can get by with practically no government.
While Michelle Malkin is a good conservative, I believe she used police services numerous times when threats against her and her family were made. She also used the public highways to move numerous times as I recall.
Remember that true libertarian philosophy says that government shouldn’t be involved in so-called “victimless crimes”. We’ll see if the “liberated” people of Colorado Springs take up the legalization of drugs, prostitution and various other “victimless crimes” in the pursuit of “true liberty”; which anyone with a lick of common sense knows will only create MORE government.
You betchya!
Maybe some of the liberals could find the people lying in the street starving. The roads look well paved, and houses well tended.
The most obvious difficulties are more potholes than I've ever seen and a lot fewer roads plowed and sanded when it's snowed. It's also darker at night, due to fewer street lights.
Some very good city-run museums and historical sites are shut down. Most likely the parks will be a mess this summer due to less watering and maintenance. They're also closing down many of the city-run pools, which is a loss for a lot of folks. I'd classify all of these in terms of diminished quality of life which, for Colorado Springs, is a big deal -- it's a major draw for the city.
Haven't noticed the reductions in police or fire support, but have not needed same. I think it probably affects staffing and maintenance more than anything else, so the effects may not be obvious.
IMO, it's going to end up costing us a lot more than it's saving, due to the nature of the maintenance being deferred or not done.
They're not anymore. Potholes everywhere.
Nonsense.
I lived there until 2003, and it's easily one of the most conservative communities in Colorado.
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