Teacher salary comparison
The local school districts have to cut costs; due to this the pay and benefits of local teachers has underwent a lot of scrutiny.
I have decided to compare my wife and her earnings to that of the average local teacher. I think this comparison will surprise many of you!
A Nickel’s Worth of Free Advice for Huntington Mayor Updike
When the JG’s Tracy Warner comes to talk austerity measures for your city - well the best thing you can do is politely decline. Warner and the JG have championed every single tax increase proposed in the city of Fort Wayne and they are certainly no friends of fiscal discipline.
His column, which read as a plea from your administration to raise taxes, isn’t going to help. The people of Huntington are tapped out and they simply can’t afford to let you and your cronies tax them to oblivion to support more government jobs. So let me offer a few suggestions in place of your whining:
“But if you don’t have enough money to plow the streets, to pick up the garbage, if you don’t have enough firefighters to put out fires … where does it end?”
It ends where the taxpayers want it to end. And obviously they don’t want, or can’t afford, to pay anymore. Why does the city need to provide trash services in the first place? The entire city’s trash service should be privatized. This was the case in the city I grew up in with a population of over 400,000 and it worked just fine there. There’s obviously a market for trash service and a private company (or two) will fill the need. It will also likely do it more efficiently and the cost will be born by the users directly.
As for firefighters, more and more cities around the country are moving back to volunteer firehouses. Has Huntington considered this? If not, why not? According to the article, 15% of property tax payments are delinquent. Why not get some of these people to pay their debts by plowing the streets, hauling garbage or volunteering at a firehouse?
You might be surprised at how much people are willing to chip in when they can see the results and it doesn’t go to an ever-increasing black-hole of government spending…
An Open Letter to FWEA & its Membership
To FWEA & Members,
The entire community is struggling right now and your membership is certainly no different. Unfortunately your struggles are being compounded by the lack of leadership from the FWCS administration and poor oversight from the board. Bad financial and academic decisions from years past are coming back to haunt the district, but what you are starting to see is that the administration has no real plan to turn things around. They flailed away blaming teachers in hopes of scraping out some of the “Race to the Top” funds but that pipe dream is now squashed.
The administration’s inability to turn around this struggling district has bred a level of mistrust and apathy into the heart of taxpaying residents. Now they are attempting to drag you down with them and somebody is going down for the lack of academic progress so who do you think they want that to be? Think they will point the finger at themselves? Have you seen any such thing lately? Of course you brought much of this on yourself through your blind support of the administration and their hand-picked members on the school board.
The financial crisis this district faces is not a some sort of classic corporate union squeeze where concessions are being asked for in order to support bonuses and other forms of looting for upper management. Nor are these concessions being asked for in order to appease Wall Street in the hopes for a 50 cent increase in the stock price. No, what we are all facing in this community is a new baseline of economic conditions.
Former County IT Manager Speaks Out Against Commissioners’ Political Meddling
Another ex-county employee lashed out against the commissioners as former County IT Project Manager Phil Pease penned a letter describing (sort of) the issues surrounding his resignation. As usual you can expect the typical establishment-biased coverage of this in the traditional media. If anything they will interview Commissioner Nelson Peters or Bill Brown for a passing sound bite. Here at FWP we try (probably futilely) to tilt the playing field back towards the individual citizen and taxpayer by bringing you a different perspective - one that is anti-establishment most of the time. You can download Pease’s the full letter here (PDF).
During more than 4 years serving as a Project Manager for Allen County the most prominent impediment was not a lack of processes or poorly articulated needs from requestors nor was it inadequate funding. In point of fact the largest impediment was a pervasive undercurrent of various forms of punishment should questions or actions not remain in alignment with the power structure.
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It widely known that the top leadership in local government (elected officials) are largely driven by political motivations, so what do you think happens when some foolhardy employee seeking to introduce efficiencies winds up shedding light on areas not necessarily in alignment with said political motivations?
Revisionist History Regarding the City’s “Fiscal Responsibility”
I’ve been looking at public pension obligations lately (another post on this coming soon) and it has reminded me how lucky the city was to have the state assume it’s pre-1977 pension obligations. These pensions were massively underfunded with the total liabilities over $90 Million. The city had saved up $20+ million in its general fund to pay down these debts but clearly they were in a precarious situation moving forward.
The state assumed these obligations as part of the property tax reform legislation that city officials continually bitch and moan about. Yes the state reduced the city’s levy by the same amount, BUT the city got to keep it’s $20 million! So that is where the highly touted “fiscally responsible” city got its bankroll from.
It wasn’t because they were particularly wise - quite the opposite. It’s because they were so far in the red regarding their unfunded pension obligations that they had to start saving cash. And then they got a lucky break because the state was stupid enough to come along and assume those obligations without taking any of the banked cash with them. Also, keep in mind that the actuarial assumption for rate of return on these pensions was 6% - think they’ve seen that over the last 3 years? Fat chance. The city would likely be dead broke right now had the state not foolishly saved their bacon…
Be Careful About Reading Too Much Into the State of the City Address
Yea, yea, I’m late to the party with this - what can I say? I’ve been busy.
I thought this was an excellent piece of speech writing. The delivery was off, but let’s face it, the mayor isn’t the best public speaker (he’s getting better). I thought last year’s speech was well written as well, but this year’s was by far the best of the three. Although to be fair, there was a little bit more to talk about this year than last which always makes the writer’s job easier.
In general, the speech did a great job touting his accomplishments but I think there’s one particular point that hasn’t been appropriately dealt with anywhere else in the media. There had been some talk about forcing non-profits to pay fees/taxes for their services as way to increase revenue for cities and towns. Henry backed off that position during his speech with this statement:
That does not mean I am not concerned about property tax caps and how they will affect our future budgets, but Fort Wayne is well positioned financially. Other Indiana cities are discussing new revenue streams, but this is not needed in Fort Wayne. Let me reassure you, I will not put any additional burdens on our nonprofit organizations, who are creating jobs and delivering important services.
I would be very cautious about reading too much into this statement. It seems to me that it was crafted explicitly to make it sound like he’s against tax increases without actually saying that. What Mayor Henry says is that new revenue streams are not needed but he didn’t quite go as far as saying that additional revenue won’t be needed. Until he says otherwise there is no reason to believe the mayor isn’t fully committed to raising the income tax if that’s what he has to do to balance the budget…
Senator Bayh
Senator Evan Bayh, in a news conference just before the filing deadline to run in the primary, announced his retirment from the US Senate.
Reaction from Indiana Democrats has been interesting to say the least. Senator Bayh’s announcement appears to be a shock to the entire Democratic establishment. Senator Bayh kept his retirement secret and shocked even his own campaign manager.
Nadia Bashir called me today and I did a short interview with her in my office; part of which will be aired on WFFT-TV tonight on their 10 PM news on channel 55.
I have several observations about this retirement:
1. His last minute retirement is a slap in the face to The Indiana Democratic Party and to Indiana voters. Now the Democrats will have to appoint a candidate and there will not be a Demcoratic primary. That is shameful.
2. I think it is very likely that Evan Bayh would have won re-election. I personally think the only Indiana Republican that could have beat Senator Bayh was Mike Pence. Unfortunately Mike Pence decided not to challenge Bayh.
3. I now think the Republicans will win a second Indiana Senate seat in November 2010.
4. I think Bayh’s “retirement” will serve to energize the Indiana Republican Party and will tend to hurt the morale of the Indiana Democratic Party. I think whoever wins the Republican Primary for US Senate will win in November fairly easily.
Mike Sylvester
County Government avoids mistake
On this blog we discussed the proposed bribe incentive that some County officials were considering paying to GM employees who chose to buy a house in Allen County.
This was a terrible idea…
Luckily the County had a realistic financial impact study done and has decided not to pursue this terrible idea.
Now if we can just get the Henry Administration and Congress to start using realistic financial impact studies…
Mike Sylvester
My Thoughts on FWCS Budget Cuts
The Fort Wayne Community School Board has requested that the administration come up with $15 million in potential cuts by the end of the month. To put that into perspective it is roughly 5% of the total 2010 budget.
First, let me point out that I believe that the district has the financial problems it does for a variety of reasons - flight to the suburbs, changes and uncertainty at the state legislature and poor management and oversight from the administration and the school board. In a district that was performing academically the administration could (as Southwest Allen County Schools did) go to the taxpayers and ask for a tax increase. However, the majority of taxpayers are unlikely to support such a measure since they do not have the confidence in the Superintendent or her administrators to solve the problems we face.
Next, I think it’s important to note that attempting to whitewash the district’s academic problems by focusing on “New Tech” highschools and other such programs only serves to exacerbate the problem and cost the district millions of dollars. The real focus should be on ending social promotion, improving parental involvement and fixing the academic issues at the elementary schools. Focusing on high schools just won’t get the district the bang for the buck they need right now. Too many kids are promoted on without learning the skills they need, and by the time they get to high school it’s simply too late.
Having said that I have come up with a list of items that I feel should be implemented to reduce the budget while minimizing the impact on academics. I recognize that some of these will be difficult and require an adept administration to pull off. I also realize that many of these will be unpopular for various groups. Unfortunately, we are in a position where these cuts are necessary. It isn’t a matter of how much will get cut; it’s a matter of what will get cut.
I believe these items can help bridge the financial gap but I recognize that more will be needed in order to turn around the academics. The administration’s latest plan of “blame the teachers” is self-servingly fool-hearted and won’t do anything to solve the problems we face. I’ll have more on that in a future post but for now here are my ideas. Feel free to let me know what you think of these items or post your own suggestions:
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Mayor Tom Henry does it again, good grief
The Administration of Tom Henry has been painfully hard to watch. The Administration has largely been dysfunctional and ineffective.
Kevin Leininger has a must read column in the Thursday News-Sentinel entitled “Is Purcell salary pay for work or a gold parachute?”
Basically Deputy Mayor Purcell resigned earlier this week on Monday. He resigned to return to Michigan and care for his elderly mother. I certainly wish Mr. Purcell well and hope that he is able to effectively care for his mother and wish both of them the best of luck.
That being said it is hard for me to imagine that the Deputy Mayor warrants being paid his full salary and benefits for an additional three months so that he can work on a part time basis for the City from Michigan.
I believe the City of Fort Wayne has a policy in place that all of its employees live in the state of Indiana and be Indiana residents. I am pretty sure that you cannot live in Ohio and be a City employee…
I wonder if the City is waiving this rule or if they just “forgot” that they had such a rule?
Mike Sylvester
