With a glance to Daddy’s Little Girl sitting on the sofa busily texting on her phone while somehow navigating the Internet on the computer, I received the answer via a smile and wink to my soon-to-be-posed question to her mother:
“New purse, honey?”
It was followed immediately by the usual reply: “Oh, this purse, no. I’ve had this for a while, you just never noticed it.”
Which, from all accounts, translates to: “When I snuck the purse in the other day after hiding it in the trunk for a couple days, you didn’t catch me.”
Perhaps my wife didn’t catch the part of our conversation last Saturday that there have been some substantial changes at work that will require our household to tighten up spending.
Perhaps that’s why she purchased her new status symbol not long after I learned at work that my sales bonus would be 90 percent less than it was a month ago and our medical employee contributions would increase by 35 percent. Maybe the smell of new leather blocked out the fact that our 401(k) company match is dropping and that, after a recent reorganization, many of my peers and coworkers were added to the historic California unemployment number?
As we continue to struggle with a challenging economy, most of us are faced with tough decisions and personal sacrifice. Even strong, well-led companies like the one I work for have to make life-altering decisions to remain leaders in their industry.
Businesses must not be complacent. For that reason, tough decisions are made that impact the lives of employees in the hopes that, in the long run, the business will be better prepared to survive and succeed.
While for many individuals the change at my company was difficult and devastating, it was, in the eyes of the company, necessary to remain strong.
Thumbing through a recent copy of the Tracy Press, the headline “Pay, benefits stretch city budget” immediately caught my attention. Is the city of Tracy also making the tough sacrifices needed to remain effective? Will its employees be faced with life-altering change that will require not only tightening the household budget, but perhaps even starting over?
What I read in the paper got me thinking. It wasn’t the large salaries of the fire department or the unsustainable retirement plans, but the overall sense of entitlement I infer from the public sector.
As my company was forced to act swiftly by changing compensation plans and making decisions about employees based on how well they perform, the city paid out 25 percent more overtime than last year, pushing 75 percent of the firefighters’ salaries over $100,000 a year.
While my company chose to negotiate with its health care providers a more cost-effective deal that requires an employee contribution of 35 percent more, the city is paying 50 cents in benefits for every dollar of employee wages.
My company made the decision to limit the company match to our 401(k), while the city funds a financially unsustainable retirement plan that, based on the length of the employee’s tenure, will pay 90 percent of their salary during their retired years. While most non-city employees are personally accountable for investing for retirement, public employees in many cases simply have to stay employed until they are 55.
In our current economic crises, my company runs lean while demanding the presence of our employees, while first-year city employees and department heads earn 37 and 53 paid days off, respectively.
I understand the individual employee’s desire to have the best possible compensation plan. And knowing that many of these jobs require people put their life on the line to protect, serve and rescue, I feel they should be handsomely rewarded. Just not at the behest of the taxpayers through irresponsible benefits spending.
While my wife, with her new purchase, might not yet realize the financial crunch we are personally going to feel in the upcoming weeks, what she will soon realize is that the miniscule amount of funds available on that debit card contained within her new purse will soon give her a wakeup call.
As I finished reading the article in the paper, I was struck by this quote by City Manager Leon Churchill: “Tracy is a very good place to work,”
After thinking about the benefits offered to city employees — including those 53 days off, or 20 percent of their shift paid days off — we may want to rework that quote to read: “Tracy is a good place to not have to work”
Tracy should compensate its employees fairly, reward performance and offer a benefits plan that is in line with the realities of being competitive in any economic situation.
• Brian Williams, a Tracy resident since 1993, is a husband and father of two who works as a supervisor in the cable, phone and Internet industry. He’s among a select group of local Town Crier columnists in the Tracy Press.
Should we be paying for folks' lifestyle at 90% of their salary after their employement ends at 55? Or should there be a retirement option like 401(K) that allows the employee to build thier own retirement with a City match perhaps?
Should we pay for a new employee to have 53 paid days off a year? That is 20% of one's working days. Or think of it this way. Its like getting only 80% back for something you paid 100% for.
Should we be granting cost of living 5% raises for employees regardless of how they performed during the past year? In private industry people are compensated for how well they do their job. Its like giving your waiter his/her 20% tip not based on the service, but because he/she qualified for the tip only because he or she made it to work and was not fired before you finished your meal.
Should we be paying for overtime that drives payroll costs through the roof or should we expect manpower and hours are managed to keep spending in check? Should OT be simply a granted option that moves 75% of a work group over 100K a year, or should it be managed to the exception and not the rule?
Cities could tighten up their belt by looking at how employees are compensated. Specifically unsustainable benefits.
Companies doing well are reactive to markets as you said, but that's not the same as what you recommended in your letter. Now you are talking two different things.
How are you saying the city can react to the market? What is it we can do that is positive? Or are you suggesting negative actions be taken. You said there are companies that are strong so I'm sure there must be something positive you can think of?
Its not about the cable company specifically, the point is comparing a private company that reacts quickly to changes in the market. Not a company that is failing, but a company that unlike many that have failed,is doing quite well. The company in question took the steps needed to continue to be strong. The issue is that the city unlike private industry fails to react or better yet be proactive with their decisions.
So while the company in question made tough decisions that affected their employees, they actually protected thousands of those affected employees with sound business choices.
City or the public sector are slow to react and are limited with options due to labor contracts that allow for limited cost cutting outside of simple layoffs. Simply looking at total compensation payouts that are so much outside the norm outside of the pulic sector could be a way of saving our money and more of their jobs.
I too think the city could do a better job of cutting expenses, but the fiscal downturn was not created by them, it was created by the irresponsible actions of the private sector. The mortgage companies approving a mortgage for anyone who was breathing regardless of their credit history or income; the banks and insurance companies for underwriting these questionable mortgages; and the homeowners for trying to get more than they can actually afford to pay.
The city did work hard to squirrel away money (some $35 million) over a 10 year period, to anticiapte a rainy day but they never anticipated this type of downpour.
Couple this with the fact housing values have dropped to half of what they were, and property taxes have also taken a significant decline, and you have the same problem that is impacting people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
When your income is reduced you have to reduce expenses, but in the city's case, we also demand they continue to provide a high level of service. If you do the math, this is not feasible. The cost of goods and wages have gone up and it costs more per employee today than it did 10 years ago. The only way to reduce expenses is to reduce people, and that will cause a reduction in service. If we're willing to accept that then we should be OK. If not then we've got a problem.
So here's the bottom line, if we think the city needs to reduce expenses then we need to make that known by speaking with our elected officials, whether we believe in them or not. They were elected by a majority of the voters and if you didn't vote for them then maybe you should rally your friends and supporters and make the change during the upcoming election cycle. We hold the key to making things different through our ballot.
If we want the same level of service for less money then we need to reconsider our expectations. We're paying half the taxes we were three years ago and yet we continue to complain about the people who are trying to give us the same level of service with less funding.
That's like our children complaining because we're not eating out every evening when Mom and Dad are trying to get by on unemployment.
Just my two cents worth.
I did not mean it directed at anyone specific. It just seemed to me that everyone was commenting on the cable company analogy being a real cable company. I just thought he was using an analogy and not talking about a specific real company.
Yes I agree the city is not on a sustainable plan and they have not been doing it for years. Too bad we could not change "providers" when it comes to our city. The only thing we can try to do is vote new people in. Unfortunately politicians are not the most honest of people and they could promise one thing to get elected and do another.
Everything else is secondary(fairytale land) and pure speculation of Frosty/Shelly and Hawk.
The future is financially negative for city hall. Exposure of excessive abuse of payroll, benefits plans and retirement is just the tip of the proverbial iceburg and they are going down fast!
No, you're wrong.
The cable company didn't know their market or in other words, they didn't know (intimately) who was purchasing their product from them. It is important to know everything you can about your customers and your competition. The competition was in China. The cable company didn't do their homework.
The analogy is how to run something efficiently. Something that the Politicos can't seem to grasp. And I'm not picking solely on the city. The state and the feds are just as bad.
You are also condescending in your statement about using your brains, which I take as being directed at me.
Where do you get your thinking from? Why do you point out a failed cable business as an example? That was an example of a failed company run by people without a sound business plan.
Yes, businesses come and they go. Those that go where started by someone without a sound business plan. I can point to many companies that operate as though it's a hobby and not a money generating machine.
Your quote -
"Governments need to have more stability than vollatility. That's government. And that's the difference between government and business."
Explain the 'difference' you refer to. Are you trying to say that businesses need more volatility than stability? If so, you are wrong.
Your quote -
"First, you need to understand the difference between how a business runs and a government runs. Till then, I don't see any valid point."
Pretty condescending, don't you think?
I don't see from your writings any hint that you know how to make a comparison (see above).
Maybe, just maybe, Politicos should learn to run whatever gov't. entity they are in charge of more like a business model. There are businesses that have a long history of getting it right.
The problem as I see it is that the city didn't have their eyes open to the economy at the beginning of the recession. They even stated that the savings would get us through it all, and then continued for 18 months or so to spend as though everything was okay. It's not until recently that the cuts have gotten serious, at the same time they are floating out ideas to raise our taxes. That is what makes me mad. They are asking me to come up with more money to pay for their shortsightedness. Why do you think they pulled the tax increase ballot measure off the table? They know we are mad. They know we are not happy with the way they have been spending OUR money.
And Adios is right. Until the city can balance it's sheets (memo to Frosty - just like a business), it's still business as usual.
The point was not business vs government. Or business as usual. Business is very unusual right now. Times are cyclical. Up and downs happen. The point is the economy is a roller coaster. And government has to be flexible, or it would have been bankrupt. They are not.
By contrast, business like cable companies have gone to China. In fact, there was a cable company in San Joaquin County. They closed the doors because the company they built cables for started ordering cables from China. That's business as usual. Restaurants come and restaurants go. That's business.
Governments need to have more stability than vollatility. That's government. And that's the difference between government and business.
In fact, Policies of City Hall are always changing. That's also government. And probably a good reason you are not involved in making those policies.
First, you need to understand the difference between how a business runs and a government runs. Till then, I don't see any valid point.
You probably don't have the patience to read up on it, but have ever you heard the concept of rolling averages?
Also, during the Depression of 1929, which was a result of businesses operating without checks and balances, government was forced to step in (under FDR) and get the nation back on track.
I agree that government can do a better job of controlling spending and balancing the budget, even here in Tracy, but to say that government should be run like a business is the same as allowing the fox to watch the hen house, because the fox will keep those darned chickens in-line.
All City, County, State and Federal employees ARE emergency responders. During a declared emergency (like the Loma Prieta Earthquake) they are expected to insure the safety of family then proceed to work or the nearest City, State or County office if they are unable to get to their place of work. I speak from experience having been a City employee in the Bay Area for 18 years During that time I carried an Emergency Responder card that stated the above. Immediately after Loma Prieta, we "office types" were used to deliver food to shelters, check on home-bound seniors, direct traffic around fallen trees, etc. to free public safety and maintenance personnel to do their jobs.
And for the record, there was no extra $$$$, it was just part of the job!
If cities begin to operate like private businesses they really would go bankrupt. That is the Measure A mentality. And it's the same thing happening with our Congressmans last vote with healthcare.
Smart and Business is not what I would describe our city hall and council - Until they start operating like a business, they might as well get in line for bankruptcy!
The economy is starting to pick up so if cable companies want to cut pay it's their business. I'm not surprised you are paying more for healthcare. That's what's happening to everyone. People wanted our Congressmen to say NO to healthcare takeover, but they didn't listen.
I make over 100k and I'm not even a manager. Do the city employees get stock options?
I think if you cut their bene' too much it will be a mistake analagous to the mess that Measure A created. At the city level people will leave while the economy is improvimg home sales are improving and will brimg up city revenues here and in other cities in parallel.
And did you write Arnold about your plan to see what's on his agenda before asking me?
City workers are also Union.
oddly,
if you dont read the article in question or better yet, dont jump to assumptions, you may fail to get the point presented.
The article says nothing of cable companies struggles. in fact it says the writer's company is in fact doing the correct thing to stay competative in a down economy. Our local City though is currently struggling financially due in large part because they dont take the steps needed to stay out of the red.
While private and public industries are indeed much different, it doesnt mean they cant operate similar when it comes to providing benefits to employees.
Do we need to pay a city employee 90% of his/her wage after they retire? Do we need to give people 53 paid days off after one year of service? Do we need to give an employee a 5% yearly raise for simply not getting fired the year prior?
Could we not pay for performance, offer a 401(K) and let them plan their retirement and give a reasonable amount of days off a year for example?