Issue 1: The City Council and Mayor would not state that they intended to fund a professional salary for a Fire Chief for the City of Windcrest. I made a presentation stating that I supported a professional salary for a Fire Chief as a POSITION initiative and not just because Dan Reese held the job.
The POSITION requires a salary commensurate with that of the other Public Safety Department, which is the Police Department. Parity in salary is justified for the Chief of Police and Fire Chief.
All I got from the Mayor, with the Council sitting on their lips as is their wont, is that the City of Windcrest is in NEGOTIATIONS with the Fire Chief on the matter of salary. Those "negotiations"
should have been finished in time for the funding of the salaried position on the September 4 revision of the budget.
I believe that if the Mayor and Council wanted to pay a Fire Chief a professional salary, at least a base salary would have been in the budget for 2013-2014.
Issue 2: I did not want the Council to take away one of the Patrol Corporal positions that have been in past budgets. The new budget reduces the number of Patrol Corporals to 2 from 3. I made the point that each of the three shifts needs a senior patrolman. The Mayor said he'd get with the Chief to discuss adding a corporal and the Chief had to come forward and tell the Mayor and Council that he already had 3. DUH!!!! The point I was trying to make was don't cut the allocation.
Issue 3: Touchy subject. Compensation for the City Manager and Municipal Finance Officer. I thought the CM was getting a merit raise of 18% (far above the 3% given to the other city employees). I believe I was told it was not a merit raise by a "new 3 year contract". I fail to see the difference.
The MFO position showed a raise in compensation to about $80K from about $67K, another large merit increase upon first inspection. I was advised that the $80K wasn't a raise, but rather a projected figure of income available to the MFO if she worked more hours as approved by the City Manager. If the MFO is anticipated to need to work about 20% more hours, what is different between 2013 and 2014 that so many more hours will be needed? Let me be clear - I'm NOT opposed to pay for performance or merit raises.
posted 9.12.13 at 7:02 PM by Dennis
No comments:
Post a Comment