{"id":603,"date":"2014-09-15T23:11:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T04:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/truthinaddison.com\/?page_id=603"},"modified":"2014-09-15T23:19:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T04:19:54","slug":"603-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/truthinaddison.com\/?page_id=603","title":{"rendered":"Addison\u2019s Budget: The Price of Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Addison\u2019s Budget: The Price of Politics
\n<\/strong>By: Susan M. Halpern
\n<\/strong>(Addison Councilmember 1992 – 99)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The budget adopted by Addison\u2019s City Council left a significant part of Addison\u2019s employee compensation problems unaddressed and unresolved. Specifically, compensation for non-sworn employees remains well below the average for similar employees in benchmark communities. As to these employees, Addison will continue its ill-advised non-strategy of trying to maintain its staff and fill vacancies with non-competitive compensation packages.\u00a0 Sound like a bad plan?\u00a0 It is.<\/p>\n

The Council had the means and the ability to fix the problem in this year\u2019s budget, in a manner that would, unquestionably, be sustainable. But Mayor Meier flexed his political muscle and insisted on reducing the tax rate by one cent per hundred dollars of value. One cent<\/em>. A penny<\/em>.\u00a0 Do you know what that amounts to?\u00a0 For the average household in Addison, about $20-$25 for the entire tax year. The price of a burger dinner.\u00a0 Meier orchestrated this savings at the expense of Addison\u2019s dedicated employees, once again refusing to solve the compensation issue that has plagued Addison all during Meier\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

Why would Meier insist on reducing the tax rate in such a meaningless way? Because he plans to run for reelection next May and he is keen to create issues for his reelection platform. My prediction is that Meier will try to exploit this issue during his planned campaign, pandering to Addison voters by claiming that he worked hard to lower Addison\u2019s tax rate. And, while the statement about a lower rate will be literally<\/em> true, it will obviously be misleading.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another prediction: in typical fashion, Meier will avoid specifics and he will certainly avoid telling Addison voters the rest of the story<\/em>.\u00a0 Voters won\u2019t hear about how the reduction in the tax rate was de minimus, there won\u2019t be an analysis of the cost of employee attrition, there won\u2019t be a discussion of the added costs of training new employees, and Meier certainly won\u2019t address the vacancies Addison can\u2019t fill because its compensation is not competitive.<\/p>\n

Does this mean that the current budget is awful and the sky is falling? Clearly not.\u00a0 There are many good things in our budget, much of it made possible by our economic recovery and the hard work of the aforementioned underpaid employees.\u00a0 For example, the current budget allocates funds to bring public safety employees up to the average paid by benchmark communities. But it is important to understand that Meier\u2019s original instructions to City Manager Lea Dunn included no such allocation.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until AFTER significant political pressure was brought to bear on the Council by the Addison police and fire associations and by Truth in Addison that Meier finally relented. As has come to be his trademark, Meier arrived at the right result but only for political<\/em> reasons, and not until after he created significant ill will along the way.<\/p>\n

The failure to address compensation in a comprehensive manner sets Addison up for a day of reckoning at some point in the not-too-distant future. Addison is chasing its tail as benchmark communities continue to institute employee raises on an annual basis. Each year that Addison ignores the issue, it falls further behind and makes fixing the problem more difficult.\u00a0 Certainly, bringing our sworn employees to average is helpful.\u00a0 But, ignoring the low pay of non-sworn employees is shortsighted and injurious.<\/p>\n

The reality is that an investment in all<\/em> of Addison\u2019s employees would have paid dividends into the future by reducing employee attrition and enabling Addison to compete with benchmark communities for employees to fill positions that, in some cases, have been vacant for well over a year.\u00a0 Had Meier done what was best for Addison, the Council could have sent an important message to Addison\u2019s employees, recognizing them for the efforts they make that are the backbone of Addison\u2019s success.\u00a0 It was and is the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what Meier is about. On this and other issues, Meier continues to \u201clead\u201d the Council based on what is politically expedient for him rather than what is right for Addison. As a result, the road that is Meier\u2019s tenure is littered with lost opportunities.<\/p>\n

All of which has a price that will be paid by employees and residents alike. On employee compensation, that price includes low morale, attrition, the costs associated with new employees and in connection with police and fire, it means a safety staff weighted with inexperience.\u00a0 No doubt, such consequences are difficult to measure.\u00a0 But they are no less real.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s before we even begin to address the question of whether compensating Addison\u2019s employees at the \u201caverage\u201d will foster the innovation and creativity that has historically driven Addison\u2019s unique development.<\/p>\n

Addison has been blessed over the years with many councilmembers who understood that their role was to set policy and then get out of the way<\/em> of the competent and professional management personnel who actually run our town.\u00a0 Meier has upset that balance with his heavy-handed tactics and his never-ending campaigns of misinformation and propaganda.\u00a0 Addison\u2019s residents deserve better, starting with leadership that does the right thing because it is the right thing to do<\/em>.\u00a0 In the meantime, Addison\u2019s residents (and its business community), will pay the price for the political gamesmanship of this mayor and those councilmembers he worked so hard to elect.<\/p>\n

As we approach the prospect of next year\u2019s election, we urge Addison\u2019s residents to think about Addison\u2019s future, which we urge can only be secured when the price of political gamesmanship is imposed at the polls upon those who choose to play pointless political games.<\/p>\n

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