Employment

We don’t need more services for the poor – we need higher wages

l3wis May 17, 2019 14Comments

There was an announcement this week that the School for the Deaf was purchased to become a center for helping people living in poverty. As we all know, it will probably be tied in with some kind of ‘Ministry’ like most services for the poor are in Sioux Falls. But that is NOT the issue with the project.

It seems over the past couple of years our services for the poor have been exploding in Sioux Falls even though unemployment is very low. Feeding SD has expanded, the Banquet is building another location, The Barrel House restaurant has held several fundraisers for school lunches, The Bishop Dudley house has been built and likely will expand, the St. Francis House is expanding and so is The Glory House.

The Thrive report last year told us the problem, people can’t afford housing in Sioux Falls on the wages they are making. Sioux Falls also doesn’t have rent control ordinances.

While I commend those who want to help the working poor, creating more services for the impoverished doesn’t solve the underlying problem, LOW WAGES, Right to Work laws, and restrictions on Unions.

Not onlyÂ do higher wages help to relieve poverty, they actually help the economy. When people make more money, they spend more! Raising wages would be a boon for our community.

I also see a secondary solution to poverty. I think the city, county and state should invest in a FREE birth control program, and I’m not just talking about FREE condoms at Monk’s House of Ale Repute, but women being able to get a prescription FREE. In Colorado State, with the influx of taxes from Marijuana sales they implemented a FREE birth control program. In the first year of the program’s usage, teen pregnancies were down 40%!

I know the good Christians in Sioux Falls want to do the right thing and help the poor, and we will never be able to eliminate poverty totally. Some people can’t work due to disabilities, some are just too old and others are just damn lazy. But I think workforce development tied in with family planning would go a lot farther then handouts, which are just subsidies to companies who want to pay low wages while the stockholders get richer by the day without paying a corporate income tax.

We need to stop the ‘Whack a Mole’ mentality when it comes to poverty in Sioux Falls. We need to start paying people living wages and educating them on SEX.

Employment SF City Council Sioux Falls Tom Greco

Sioux Falls City Salaries released

l3wis January 22, 2019 2Comments

The numbers just came out this afternoon, so I have yet to fully review them. But after a quick look I was surprised to see that a lot of the mid-management got around $7,000 raises. I guess what surprises me is that sales taxes only went up about 3.5% from the year before (still waiting on final numbers).

Funny how the building permit numbers and raises come out almost instantly after January 1st, but we are still waiting on sales tax returns.

One surprise that stuck out was the City Clerk’s raise of $7,446. When Tom Greco was hired after retiring from the military, he was put at the top of the pay scale immediately, even though he doesn’t have a city clerk certification. In fact, after promising to get that certification, he still doesn’t have it. I guess I don’t understand that large of a pay raise when he still has to receive certification after 3 years. Also, his two assistant city clerks actually have more tenure, experience and certifications than their boss, go figure.

Here are the past three years of salary records;

2019-Wages

2018-Wages

2017-Wages

Employment Minimum Wage Sioux Falls

Business owner who complained about Teen Minimum wage expands business

l3wis December 19, 2018 7Comments

Funny how these things happen;

B & G Milky Way franchise owner DiAnn Burwell said “I’m here from open to close, every day, making sure the stores run right. I do my own accounting, I do my own ordering, I do my scheduling,Ii do everything. If I could afford to have somebody do that for me, I would, so $8.50 an hour scared me to death.”

Dropping the minimum wage for teens under 18 a dollar, from $8.50 to $7.50 an hour, may help some small business owners like Burwell.

“DiAnn gave a big sigh, it eased the pressure off me somewhat,” Burwell said.

It seems the only thing she was worried about was her bottom line, which seems to be doing just fine two years later;

The franchisee, a Sioux Falls couple, will operate the new location along 41st Street just east of the Harmodon Park entrance, said Bruce Bettmeng, who owns B&G with his wife, Pam. The Bettmengs will own the land and building, and lease it to the franchisee. The couple isn’t ready to announce their ownership yet, Bettmeng said. The wife worked for him at the B&G on West 12th Street about a decade ago.

If there is any argument behind raising the minimum wage, it should be it’s GOOD for business. I find it hard to believe they can continue to sell this successful franchise if the franchise owners were struggling to pay employees.

Employment Healthcare Healthcare reform

Here’s a story that is years past due

l3wis November 23, 2018 18Comments

When the state legislature was arguing to increase teacher pay from last place with a half-penny sales tax increase, I argued at the time ‘What about the rest of us?’ Especially other professionals in the state, like nurses;

According to the American Nurses Association, South Dakota’s registered nurses have the lowest annual salary of any state and the District of Columbia, ranking 51st behind Mississippi, Alabama and Iowa.

The association reports that South Dakota’s 12,530 registered nurses received an average annual salary of $57,010, or $27.41 per hour in 2017. California’s RNs posted the highest compensation at $102,700, $49.37 per hour.

Health care officials say many factors contribute to South Dakota’s comparatively poor compensation levels for nursing, including the rural nature of the state, as well as low reimbursement rates to hospitals from Medicare, Medicaid and Indian Health Services.

I would agree Medicare/Medicaid expansion probably would help. But I have argued for years that if we want to increase teacher pay, we should concentrate on raising EVERYONES PAY! I have had several friends leave the state who work in the healthcare industry for the same reason, PAY. In fact two of my friends that are RNs literally DOUBLED their pay overnight by leaving the state. Think about that. DOUBLED! They also told me the same stories about the healthcare industry in Sioux Falls, where pay is top heavy and run amuck with corruption and greed. They also said, when it comes to nursing pay between the two major hospitals, there is obvious wage collusion going on. One of my friends who worked at both systems before she left for greener pastures said to me, “Don’t you think it is a little strange that both hospital’s nursing pay is IDENTICAL?” Yeah, things that make you go hmmmm.

But I don’t want to make this about nursing alone, many professionals in our state are below average when compared to other states. So when I hear our teachers need more pay, I would agree, but in reality your pay is reflective of what the rest of us are making.

So why has it taken so long for a news agency to cover this story? I think we know the answer to that question.

Employment Sioux Falls

Citi’s slow bleed

l3wis July 22, 2018 3Comments

I warned that Citi would be having layoffs in September of 2017. They are claiming it is to prepare for their ‘expansion’. More like ‘reduction’. They seem to be doing it little by little.

So far they have had two ‘layoff’ incidents since September that add up to roughly 80 employees (these of course are ones we have heard about).

I wonder how many more ‘incidents’ we will hear about.

We don’t need more services for the poor – we need higher wages

Sioux Falls City Salaries released

Business owner who complained about Teen Minimum wage expands business

Here’s a story that is years past due

Citi’s slow bleed

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Trust

I have been telling council this stuff for over a decade

First Ave Doc, many memories