Over compensation the new normal?
To the editor:
In both a separate article and in the City Council candidate question of the week the Aug.7 edition of The Breeze raised the issue of another pay raise for city employees to increase salaries up to the 75th percentile of government employees in the state.
Most of the quoted remarks by the candidates and City Council members failed to address significant issues and provided scant analysis. For example, only candidate LaGrasta addressed wage comparisons with the private sector. Only Councilmember Donnell stated what percentile – 66th – city employees are currently in. All failed to mention that the tax-paying residents of Cape Coral are only in the 50th percentile. If the city employees are currently in the 66th percentile and those who work to pay city employees salaries are only in the 50th percentile, I see no reason to consider going any higher.
If, as candidate Stout has stated at candidate forums, it is general policy of the Lee Memorial Health System that their salary range should be in the 50th percentile, I don’t see why the 66th percentile is not more than a fair wage for city employees. Why should those who work for us who already enjoy a substantially higher salary be considered for more on top the 10 percent (Herculean according to Councilmember Donnell) increase they were recently given by a community that makes substantially less? Mr. LaGrasta is correct in his statement that private sector pay should also be part of the equation. However, what he and the others didn’t mention is that salary is only one part of the compensation package. No one addressed the generous retirement packages city employees enjoy – vastly superior to the private sector which, after all, pays all city salaries. How many working in the private sector enjoy a traditional defined benefit pension, as do city employees? Most have a 401K or a similar defined payment plan. Who in the private sector gets a cash payout from the deferred retirement option plan (DROP) of sums ranging from $250,000 to $750,000, in addition to their pension with guaranteed COLA increases, life insurance and free family health insurance?
If, as staff suggests, the current salary is insufficient to retain qualified good performers then it would logically follow that many of those currently employed are substandard and higher compensation should be offered only to highly-talented new hires. Councilmember Erbrick is correct in her statement that throwing money at non-above-market talent will not help us; and that we need to weed out poorer performing employees. Unfortunately, this weeding out almost never occurs with government employees.
Here is my analysis of how those quoted on the 75th percentile question responded: Sawicki – yes; Carioscia yes; Donnell no; Erbrick no; Bogloile have a referendum; LaGrasta no; Repasky no; Cammarota no; Doviak yes; Stout wouldn’t take a position because the decision will be made before the election; Cosden wants a better study since the one the City commissioned appears flawed. Fisher yes; Barrier’s response was the most interesting. He suggested that we should negotiate UP from the 75th percentile, as long as it fits within the budget. Well, staff will make sure it does. With increased home values, the Public Service Tax and the Fire Assessment Tax bringing in millions more, this would be a no brainer. Once in the budget it will always be in the budget; the city does not do zero-based budgeting. The city’s wont is to take the current budget and then engage in add-ons and increases for next year. We simply feed the beast with more green. The best response was from Candidate Cammarota, “You don’t get to tell your citizens we are strapped for cash (to justify new taxes and assessments) while giving city employees a raise beyond what your average citizens are making.”
It is the height of hubris to propose raising city employees’ salaries 25 percentile points above those who pay those salaries when city employees already enjoy a 16 percentile advantage, especially so soon after inflicting the pain of a fire assessment tax and a public service tax on the tax-paying public while failing to respond to the BP oil spill Santa Claus when he came to town. Also, do not forget the $8 million in overcharges for the North RO Plant, as stated by the audit, that the city did not pursue due to unfavorable ambiguities in a contract that the City Law Department approved. It seems above-market pay for below-market performance has become the norm.
William P. Deile
Cape Coral