I decided to start with the EO that inflamed me the most when I first saw it. I have been wondering back to when Misplaced Mike was mayor how certain mid-management had been getting large raises that didn’t seem in line with their normal ‘STEPS’.
This is wrong on many levels, because these raises compound when you skip steps and it is the taxpayers that are holding the bag.
Also, how can you give ‘rewards’ or ‘bonuses’ to public employees? This is NOT a corporation with profits and losses, it’s ALL losses. There are other ways to reward good work. Maybe a point system that gives you a little bonus or extra PTO at the end of the year? But don’t be superficially be giving out bonuses in the disguise of REWARDS.
If you think our mayor has our best interest when it comes to our public investment in our public employees, AND THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE! AN INVESTMENT! you have another thing coming. He is giving away our tax dollars to win favor with the minions.
The irony is the mayor has the authority to sign off on any additional raise or bonus if he wants to, he doesn’t need this EO. Just a legal crutch and little else.
Executive Order: (d)emocratic for dictatorship.
“Say, speaking of executive orders, wasn’t it an executive order that allowed Munson to complete the Phillips to the Falls project without council approval?”… ( …. “Man, that executive order shxt is some amazing stuff”…. 🙂 )
An organized crime godfather can award his lieutenants as he wishes. There’s no rules for Strong Mayor Autocracy. The people voted for this charter. When it’s voted out or revoked, the 780K budget can focus on infrastructure. Meanwhile, the mayor’s friends and relatives live well above middle class from questionable exorbitant compensation.
I don’t think people should criticize this policy. It is a very important tool to ensure that City mid management is staffed with overpaid mediocrity. The idea is that a job is advertised at a low ball rate to ensure it attracts candidates whose talent won’t cause disruptive embarrassment. Once a desirable candidate joins the team they are given significant pay bumps. Imagine the alternative where the City advertised the job at what they actually intended to pay in a year or two. You might actually have someone competent apply and if they got hired it would disrupt the whole system. For example what if they actually required the attorneys working for the City to resign their job and reapply on open hire to get a pay raise. They might actually get someone for $150,000 plus benefits who could edit a contract downloaded off the internet without $75,000 of outside assistance. The City is one of the areas largest employers and if mid management was fairly compensated it could destroy the local economy as the buying power of the outlying towns shrunk.