City Furloughs

[patric]

Last month I wrote:

AEP may not like it because you can get a 50-watt fixture to do the work of a 100-watt fixture, but they also know Tulsa will lay off police and firemen before we will cut back on unnecessarily wasteful streetlights.

..and its beginning to look like that's actually being considered:

Mayor Requests Fire and Police Furloughs

"A budget bombshell from Mayor Kathy Taylor.  Officials with the fire and police departments confirm the Mayor has asked them to make furloughs a part of their upcoming contracts and that's raising questions about public safety. "
http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Mayor-Requests-Fire-and-Police-Furloughs/nWARUsIzKkKkBre3deqeCg.cspx

This on the heels of a report about the mayor's own spending, which includes $55,000 every year for her and her staff and councilors for parking spaces near the new city hall.
http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Wasting-Your-Tax-Dollars/oBSAozc_xE6OCiXLvfacSw.cspx


"The mayor said that the furloughs would be temporary and would add up to a 1.5% pay cut for each employee.  She says that would save the city about $2.5 million.
The alternative, the mayor says, is to permanently decrease the city's payroll by $2.5 million, which would mean eliminating more positions and cutting core services."

There is another way to save $2.5 million:  Cut back on wasteful streetlights.  Calgary did it.
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/BU/roads/streetlights/pamphlet.pdf

Energy costs for Tulsa streetlights doubled just between 2003 and 2006 -- this after we passed an ordinance calling for us to "Reduce the City's overall, total energy consumption 3-5% per year through calendar year 2006" (Ord. Nos. 20188, 20546)

Would we be having to furlough public safety people if the last two city administrations had
simply paid attention to the law?
Bad streetlights certainly arent our only problem.

When some departments have to do without office necessities, other offices spend thousands on plants and decorations, for example.
It seems we have a lot of sacred cows in city government that have gotten way too fat over they years.   

[FOTD]

It took until 12:30 today (bcast on tv last night and TW this AM) for someone to show concern for our city workers.

If that doesn't say a butt-full about the attendees at TNF.

[sgrizzle]

What patric isn't taking into account is replacing the bulbs would be a year one loss. The mayor is looking for a short term budget cut.

I would gladly take a furlough if it meant me and my coworkers got to keep our jobs.

[guido911]

It took until 12:30 today (bcast on tv last night and TW this AM) for someone to show concern for our city workers.

If that doesn't say a butt-full about the attendees at TNF.

Well what's your excuse for not starting a thread sooner. 

[FOTD]

Well what's your excuse for not starting a thread sooner. 

No empathy here it appears.....

[patric]

What patric isn't taking into account is replacing the bulbs would be a year one loss. The mayor is looking for a short term budget cut.

Aside from the inference that this is something we should have seriously looked at much sooner, there are immediate steps that can be taken, such as switching over expressway lighting from continuous to interchange lighting (cutting back on all-night lighting along straightaways between curves and ramps, etc), turning off alternate fixtures where the fixture density is high, shutting off fixtures that serve no verifiable public safety benefit, and soforth. 

When LaFortune cut expressway lights, he darkened entire segments when he should have left ramps, curves and interchanges lit.  That was a mistake, and it led to an outcry among people that were convinced that you cant drive at 55mph without streetlights.  God forbid anyone try to drive 75 on an unlit highway...   

But among one of the first things we should be doing is halting the new installation of real money wasters like Acorn decorative lights and pointless floodlighting.  You cant heal the wound till you stop the bleeding, so why continue to install bad lights knowing we have to give up other city services to cover the electric bill?     

[guido911]

No empathy here it appears.....

No more than the empathy I have for those that have LOST their jobs (except UAW members of course).

[OpenYourEyesTulsa]

Surely the mayor could make cuts to some of her pet projects or take the money out of her secret slush fund.  Yeah right.  LOL. 

I like Guido911 and FOTD.  They should get a news show together.

[Wilbur]

Let me get this straight.....

We're going to force furlough police, who are already at minimum manning levels, which means you will have to hire another officer back at time and one half to replace the guy you furloughed at straight time.

Really?

Sounds like a boom for police salaries!!

[Gaspar]

They could always move back into the old city hall and sell the Borg Cube.

[shadows]

Every government entity in a matter of time will max out their credit cards.  The city has suddenly realized, as noted by their credit rating, the old cliché that we must live with in our means should be a household words.   Whereas sooner or later we must stop pork barrel spending for our grandchildren to pay off. When this occurs in past governments it has resulted in a change of those governments through rebellion.  It is very easy to increase wages when the old phrase of "For the children"' has been now replaced by "It's for public safety".  The bottom line is how do we bring inflation down where there is equality in sustaining a normal life for everyone?  How do we do away with greed?

Our sales tax support is deprecating as the population and city employees are moving to the suburbs and taking with them the major retail outlets.  Also the sales taxes we budgeted for.        

[TeeDub]

I hear that if the furloughs go through, Kathy Taylor will give bonuses to her top staffers.


Don't worry, she truly is a mayor for the little guy.

[Wrinkle]

$2.5 million is less than 1/2 percent of a $600 million budget.

For the Mayor to dump that onto the staff is purely bad management and totally unnecessary. It's very much like credit card companies who boost your interest rate on existing balances at the same time they cut your limit in half.

It hurts those least able to afford it.

Any operation which can't find a way to cut 5% without affecting performance isn't doing their job. To take less than a 1/10th of that and make the employees pay it is flat unfair.

I think Wilbur may be on to something about police coming back at 1.5x their current rate. It's votes, ya know.

[shadows]

If we read in the morning paper one of our leading banks show a profit of 10%.  This shows that they have good management that we seem to be lacking in.  Now I understand they buy our tax free revenue bonds without any other bids for 25% interest above the prevailing market.  They are insured that if the bonds should default the city will pick up the tab for the millions of dollars in interest over the next 30 years. (Like the airport deal).  We should hire a city manager that has experience on their board of directors.  Or do we have one who wants to furlough employees to save money?

[sgrizzle]

$2.5 million is less than 1/2 percent of a $600 million budget.

For the Mayor to dump that onto the staff is purely bad management and totally unnecessary. It's very much like credit card companies who boost your interest rate on existing balances at the same time they cut your limit in half.

It hurts those least able to afford it.

Any operation which can't find a way to cut 5% without affecting performance isn't doing their job. To take less than a 1/10th of that and make the employees pay it is flat unfair.

I think Wilbur may be on to something about police coming back at 1.5x their current rate. It's votes, ya know.

The city operating budget is roughly 90% O&M 10% Capital
They have to come up with about $13M extra
They cut roughly 20% of Capital
They cut roughly 0.5% of O&M

When you are running an organization whose budget is almost all in operating expenses, where can you cut? You can't stop putting gas in police cars, you can't stop providing water and you don't want to touch employee benefits. Employee salaries (not counting benefits) are roughly 28% of the budget.