March 31st, 2008
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1. Bert Fish Hospital pays its executives less than Halifax, another public hospital with authority to tax you so that they can always claim they operate in the black. Remember, Bert Fish raised the tax rate last year at the same time they gave another half a million dollars to the CRA in NSB for their new parking lot. The following numbers were from 2006, and we bet dollars to donuts that they got a raise last year and this year. You may have a bad year, but they do not. It costs a lot to pay the executives at Bert Fish: the CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, $246,000; the CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, $160,000; and the head of MARKETING, $115,000. There is usually an additional cost of 30% for benefits. You should be thankful you are not in the Halifax tax district since they must look at what we think as excessive pay at Bert Fish as chicken feed. We asked for their current salary level, but they did not return our telephone call on Friday. The CEO at Halifax is paid $350,000 plus benefits.
2. Remember when Dick Cheney was asked to search for a vice presidential candidate and after an extensive search found he was the most qualified? After convincing the State Legislature to fund a Volusia County literacy campus for Florida State University for about $1 million big ones, State Senator Evelyn Lynn searched for a person to direct it at $120,000 a year and found herself most qualified. (She also receives $37,000 annual pension for her years of teaching, and $30,000 as a State Senator.) There is no question she is qualified for the job, but it stinks nonetheless. She now says she will work for free, but, given her last bad decision, this just might be a ruse to keep the slot open until she is ready to take it as a paid position.
3. Commissioner James Hathaway is wrong. You can make $150,000 to $200,000. Get the State legislature to fund say a study on food delivery route efficiency, set up the economics group as a part of an FSU program to study it in Volusia County, and make yourself its executive director. You do not have to work for the City for peanuts when the State pays big money. Hey, Commissioner Hathaway, run for Lynn's job and make a bundle.
W-2S REVISITED
The W-2's published over the last few weeks are again presented this week as an EXCEL file so that you can manipulate the data as you wish. Additionally, we provide a number of analyses regarding pay and benefits. We have added charts in columns showing each employee and the percentage of increase that includes the benefit package for each employee.
NOTES
1. The new Governor of New York, David Patterson, has now revealed drug use in the early 1970s as well as more recent extra-marital relationships. These revelations continue to titillate the public, but apparently the only real criticism seems to be that he used his campaign fund credit card to pay for a couple of motel rooms. He says he will pay the campaign back. Honest he is. He admits all. No hypocrisy there.
2. The Shadow seems to be gaining in its effort to have a debate on some of the issues. Indeed, we are now seeing fireman put forth their arguments, including what we call in the trade, “credentialism”, to justify salaries that are for the most part, higher than all mid-level government officials in the State. Their pension program is simply unafordable, and totally out of sink with any rational government plan, since we note that those paying their compensation are required to work into their sixties to draw pensions or Social Security. We must admit our amusement at the suggestion that the real world should be governed by recruitment incentives offered for those willing to live and work in Alaska. In case you haven’t noticed, this is Florida!
“Best Blog of the Week”
(Edited for grammar and punctuation)
A POTPOURRI OF CITIZEN COMMENTS IS
AGAIN PROVIDED THIS WEEK IN ORDER
FOR YOU TO GET IN TUNE WITH THE
MOOD OF OUR READERS
Another Cash Toilet planned by Commission
Monday, 3/24/08, 8:59 AM I wonder how much money a fee boat launch would take in today. Proposed cash waste by old HS would not make payroll most days of the week. If you doubt me go look at trailers sitting at free launch ramp. DO NOT let the city put in another launch ramp and cheat us again. City commission spending money like drunken sailors. Unfortunately their loot conmes from us. Ask yourself if you want to pay for somebody in Orlando to launch his boat?
Freedie Flounder
Monday, 3/24/08, 1:57 PM I am not sure where our council gets information or how it is disseminated through the media. The news paper reports I have read continue to keep an idea that many jobs will be created by the proposed fish farm at the old high school. I believe the farm is a good idea, along with new boat ramps and parking to alleviate the congestion at the two existing ramps. I can not vision what multiple high paid jobs will be created unless this adventure is another MDC. I can hear the sucking sound of the general fund now. It has been rumored that some friends and family will soon be in need of employment and various actors are positioning for hire. Will our council expand our horizons and portray the possible number, kind of and what impact the fish farm will provide NSB? Please mayor, tell us! And how is that Anglers Club lease going? With a proper tax base the city
Monday, 3/24/08, 5:15 PM
The local Fire Union has no incentive to declare an impasse and risk losing the "built in overtime" article in the labor contract. The IAFF would never go to impasse until it's sure it had three votes on the City Commission. Now with Amendment #1 we all know it's a plausible reason for the Fire Union owned Commissioners (Mackay, Plaskeet, Richenburg) to change their minds.
Friday, 3/28/08, 7:11 AM
<<<<<The reason the firefighters are vandalizing the site is they cannot come up with one reason the city should be paying firefighter's 60k went there are ready, willing and qualified workers willing to do the job for 30k>>>> Is that really the reason? Think again. "willing and qualified workers willing to do the job for 30K" . Have you ever heard of a word called "expierence"? You pay for expierence. When your mother or daughter or wife is trapped in a bad car crash, who do you want cutting them out? A brand new guy, only makeing 30K,(because as you said he is qualifed)? Or a guy making 60K thats been doing it for 10-15 years??? I'll take the expierenced guy any day! To the guy who said police cant stand firefighters, that may be true to some extent, but some firefighters for the same reason. Its a power trip mostly by the cops. Cops and firefighters are allies.For the most part the older, more "expierenced" ones view it that way.
Saturday, 3/29/08, 10:16 AM
I read the Shadow maybe once a week. But I also get tons of e-mails from people who have copied things that somebody has seen on the Shadow homepage and or on the Shadow the blog. And most of these e- mails I get have at least 10 or more other e-mails addresses on them and most look like they have been forwarded several times like a lot of e-mail jokes are. So from that I figure a lot of people are reading what is on the Shadow, without ever actually going to the Shadow web site. I also think that a lot of people who get these e-mails don't realize that they came from the Shadow and they probably have never heard of the Shadow. So from the e-mails I have seen this stuff that is on the Shadow has spread all over the city. And I know for a fact that a lot of people in town are talking about our firefighters salaries. Now where does everybody think that conversation started? The News Journal? No, the Shadow knows! And so does the Fire Department. And the funny thing is that they can't stop it from spreading like wildfire.
Sunday, 3/30/08, 7:50 AM
FS Chapter 112.3143 (3)(a) does prohibit a public official from voting under certain conflict of interests. The term "inure to the benefit of" seems to be the focus. That's why he was "prohibited" from voting on the union contract while is wife was employed.
DEAR JOHN
We know of the limited resources available to John Hagood, the City Manager, and to his inability to get all of the important letters written that he would like to send. So we decided to help him and provide him drafts that will simplify his tasks and free him up for more important tasks.
March 31, 2008
TO: Mayor Sally Mackay
FROM: John Hagood
RE: Gasoline purchases
I thought we agreed to buy regular gasoline for all of the City’s needs since our cars and SUVs have been setup to use regular fuel. Somehow it appears we are still buying Plus at a cost of about 12 cents a gallon more than regular. I have tried to track down the culprit so far without success. In addition, it does not appear that all of the fuel we put into City cars is used only in City cars. Perhaps it is a bad habit left over from prior times. I am working to stop it.
Since the City Commission seems to be inserting themselves into the business of managing the City, I would appreciate it if the Commission would direct me to buy only regular gas and that we immediately institute a program to track vehicle use versus fuel use. It would also be helpful if we had an independent review of the video tapes made of who uses the City pumps to fill their cars.
Thanking you in advance for your assistance,
John Hagood
TELL THEM NOTHING
We think we have been doing fairly well over the last two years in ferreting out information that is clearly available to all citizens for the asking but that has been sparingly disseminated by the City. They never wanted to make it easy, but now they are deliberately trying to make it harder. The City has apparently decided to restrict our access to public information in ways that may or may not be legal, but either way are down right unfair. Case in point. Mr. Hagood, it appears, has informed City employees not to talk directly to the Publisher of the Shadow. The ostensible purpose is to conserve time and resources of persons who work for the City. We think it is to slow down the flow of information.
We do not know if others seeking reasonable access to information are treated in the same manner as the Shadow. However, we have problems; information is sometimes delayed or forgotten, and occasionally provided in an obtuse fashion. For example, the City Manager has “excel” spreadsheets or something like it showing all salaries and perks for every employee going back we think for at least 10 years. He does not print them out, so he is not required by law to provide them to the Shadow in that form. Nevertheless, although if he needs to check on anything, he can access this information in seconds on his office computer screen. The State Sunshine people say we cannot insist on having it on a form he does not use. However, believe the Shadow when we say the reason we do not get it is because the City will not give it to us in a friendly electronic format. There is one chart that shows the salary increases and benefit costs for say Cindy Richenberg tripled over a six-year period and ballooned her pension, and that the salary for Battalion Chief Coates was over $101,000 with a total cost to the City of $171,000. You could see all of these numbers at a glance if the City complied with the thrust of the Sunshine laws and did not hide behind legalisms. As it is now, you have to open both W-2 links.
Another step of obstructionist procedure is to require that information provided to the Shadow be filtered trough the City Clerk. In other words it is not good enough that they are told what we ask and provided a copy of anything we are given, they want us to funnel everything through the City Clerk. She will ask say the finance office. Why? Because then they have a chance to delay and even better influence the reply. Take the PDF for the purchase of gasoline. We know that starting in October they were supposed to be ordering only regular (87 octane), but someone told them to deliver PLUS (89 octane). Now we legally can still send requests, verbal or written, to the particular person we believe has the information, but since we care about the well being of the employees we do not want to just willy-nilly put them on the spot. However, it is you who will suffer, since information is what we try to supply, and anyone who restricts that flow hurts you. You would thing you work for them, not vice versa.
A FIREMAN SPEAKS
The following is a reprint of a blog posted on the Shadow’s opinion page. Our standing offer to print and article written by you, unedited, remains in effect.
We do not agree that the arguments below should carry the day on the question of whether the wages and benefits for our fireman are out of hand, but this is the point of view that is advanced to support the current salary levels and justify the extra personnel.
Steve
Monday, 3/24/08, 8:34 PM As a firefighter I am disgusted by your opinions. Like the wise man once said "opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one", but unfortunately I don't care for yours. On the front page of your site there is a comment - Friday, 3/21/08, 8:11 PM Police and fire are blue collar occupations that do not require a great deal of skill. They are far from the most important people in our society. Most people living in rural areas live essentially without police and fire protection. Isn't that like half the country? So, police and fire--shut up! It's interesting to me because those "rural" areas this person speaks of are the exact places covered by those "county" firemen and deputies. Also, I am quite displeased by the fact that anyone would assume my "profession" doesn't require any skill. I, like most of my brother and sister firefighters, are constantly enrolled in courses designed to give me more skills so that when John Q. Public NEEDS my help I can do my best. It is always funny how people don't feel a need for firefighters, that is until they have an emergency and then the firefighters can't make it to them fast enough. Now I would like to discuss the pay I receive as a firefighter. Please understand I work 24 hours, then have 48 hours off. My pay cycle breaks down to 56 hours per week. My rate of pay is 11.55 per hour......I made more as a valet parking attendant when I was 18 years old. The difference, for me, between becoming a firefighter and working as a valet attendant is the benefits. As long as I can remember the best jobs were always government because even though the pay wasn't great it was subsidized by the benefits. It is my understanding that the "Shadow" used to be a judge, I bet you probably didn't cost the tax payers more than what.........$100,000 OR MORE per year. I forgot though, as a judge your an "important" part of our society. Of course you don't help the 52 year old man having a heart attack or stop a brush fire from burning down someones home or go into a burning house because a mother's child is still inside or do you use the "jaws of life" to help a person entraped after a motor vehicle crash? NO, last I checked judges don't do that, me and every other firefighter do though! Lets talk about 2 and 3 man fire trucks. First, NFPA states minimum of 4 personnel on every truck, therefore we still don't meet the NFPA recommendations. The reason we have 3 people has a lot to do with safety. I have to say you were right with your comment regarding the time it takes to get to the truck and get it rolling. It doesn't matter if we have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,or any number on the trucks, we are going to leave the station at the same time. However, with 3 men on a truck if we pull up to a house fire with a person still inside, 2 firefighters can make entry into the house to perform a rescue, and the third person can operate the pump, prepare tools, act as a safety officer, and should something happen to a firefighter he is then going to help get that firefighter out of the house safely. On a medical call with 3 firefighters, all of whom are either EMT or Paramedic certified (just another one of those classes we take), 1 firefighter begins by gathering information, 1 begins taking vitals, and the third either performs Advanced Life Support maneuvers or Basic Life Support maneuvers to assist the patient. Then EVAC arrives on scene and the firefighters help the personnel on EVAC load the patient into the med unit. If needed 1 of our firefighters can go with the med unit. This now leaves that fire truck with 2 people. Now, if we get a call before we get our third man back we only have 2 people. Of course, you have the "stats" regarding how often that occurs and I think it's great that someone has that much time on their hands.
We will publish articles from fireman that discuss issues. We will take off repetitive articles, lengthy not on point postings that are primarily designed to change the subject or bore the reader, and the garbage that some of the less intelligent members of the union, or their supporters, use as clutter. We should leave it on because it makes them look bad, but we want them to address the issues and not look bad. Last, the ad hominem against the publisher has no place on the blogs. Even if the publisher was the devil incarnate, it would neither add nor detract from the force of the facts. The fact that the City buys Plus gas when it said it wouldn't is not affected by the fact that the person who told you so is a nice or evil man.
PROVIDENCE AND THE FIRE DEPARTMENT STUDY
In response to the following blog, we thought it would be useful to provide you with the study referenced by the blogger. Please read it and draw your own conclusions.
tsk, tsk Litt Monday, 3/24/08, 4:50 AM There you go again. Making inane comments about firefighter staffing. I wonder, would you have allowed such supposition in your court without concrete evidence to back it up? I doubt it. I see you just spout the same ol garbage. I guess you didn't read any of the links I posted eh? I have a feeling that if someone was in your court room making wild accusations, that you'd tell them to proverbially put up or shut up. It's a shame you don't.”
The fire department supporters continue to state that there are studies that show why you need more than two fire man in a station Southeast Volusia County. Please go to the link and carefully read the Providence study. It is totally inappropriate for the City of New Smyrna Beach fire department, and does not address the issue of public safety or staffing in towns of 20 to 25 thousand people, with our demographics. It was written by a fireman employed by the Providence Fire Department, and submitted to the National Fire Academy as a part of its Executive Fire Officer Program. THE AUTHOR IS A FIREMAN WRITING A “PAPER” FOR HIS OWN ORGANIZATION. (see LINK)
As a start, look at the description of Providence, R.I. as an aging industrial town of 160,000 people, with a large number of three story wood structures (tenements), a large industrial base of small jewelry manufacturing firms using volatile chemicals, and a port that handles a significant volume of those materials.
Second, the study was designed to see if the number of injuries or loss time to fireman decreased if there were more on the job, and the statistical study, to the extent it is decipherable at all, is directed to that end. The paper is an effort to convince Providence that workers compensation costs can be reduced by hiring more personnel.
Third, not one word in the report, even if germain, addresses any increase in public safety if more personnel are added to the station. The report concludes that fireman are safer if there are more at the scene of the fire. This is no surprise. The Port Orange Chief stated that he needs 16 personnel on the scene to fight a house fire and 23 for a business fire.
Fourth, the statistics are very thin, the survey was limited in time and numbers, and none of the reduction in injuries resulting in time off duty is quantified.
We have mostly one and two story houses on individual lots, no significant manufacturing, and no port where we move hazardous material, much less bulk hazardous material, through town. Our NSB fireman responded to 17 house fires in 2006 and all of them were a total loss. We heard of no one that has been injured, nor are we aware that any of our local fireman have been placed on workers compensation as a result of a fire. Someone has said that their biggest risk is a heart attack from eating a large deli sub from Publix.
Down the Toilet
We do not have the correct numbers, but think the City of New Smyrna Beach bought Hi-test or Plus gasoline for the last six years after all cars, including the Crown Victoria and all SUVs, were designed to use regular gas. LINK
Our cost estimate is based on the City receiving deliveries of about 25,000 gallons PER quarter, or about 100,000 gallons per year. Multiply that by six years, 600,000 gallons at 12 cents a gallons difference for Plus, and you have about $72,000. Add another 12 cents, and if it were Hi-Test and it would be $144,000, or a cost per taxpayer of $1.14 per year. We know its chump change. But when you add up all the “itty bitty bits” of waste, it isn’t chump change anymore.
Assuming that all of this fuel goes into authorized vehicles, and that heretofore there has been no pilfering by those having access to the pumps, at the current price of $3 per gallon there may now be reason to worry. It would be easy enough to siphon off only a few gallons a week from an 18 or 20-gallon tank for anyone dishonest enough to think of it as payback for being underpaid. Think about it!
PLUS GASOLINE AT THE CITY PUMP
Several weeks ago we ran an article on City automobiles and the fuel they used. We were informed that the City did buy high test in the past, but now buys regular (87 octane) for its pumps. We were going to publish that the City used regular gasoline after October 1, 2007, but several of our posters and a few of our independent informers said that the City had not changed its profligate ways and was still using Hi-test.
We try to ensure accuracy, so despite the fact that we have never been misled by Public Works in any way, we asked for the purchase invoices (SEE LINK). The City apparently intended to stop buying Hi-Test (92 octane) last October. However, at least through February 22, 2008, it was still buying Plus (89 octane). Could it be that the Public Work's decision was changed by someone, like someone at the Police Department who still thinks that the Crown Vic runs better with more expensive fuel? Or was it one of the SUV drivers? We would like to know and if someone could find out who it is. They might even tell us since we do pay the bills. (By the way, the Crown Vic engine is designed to operate on 87 octane fuel, and since 2001 we are informed that regular low octane is all that is needed.)
It seems that the City has only two big storage tanks at Public Works and a split 500 gallon tank at the Sports Complex (250 gasoline and 250 diesel). At the main Public Works tank one holds diesel and the other holds Plus gasoline. We did not receive all of the invoices, but the ones we did get show almost all of the fuel is Plus. We have asked for the purchase orders and , if provided, we will see what the City ordered and who signed the orders.
We have suggested that the City can save a lot of money by reducing its fleet of SUVs, cutting back on the gas, and buying cars for the police department that cost less and cost less to run—like the Impalas run by the Winter Park police force and the decision to buy Impalas made by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. The City saves the tax money per gallon, but that gasoline still costs almost $3 per gallon and we are using it by the tanker load (7,000 thousand gallons) a couple a times a month. Add the cost of take home cars for the police department that still go to Ormond Beach and Titusville, and think of your tax money going out the exhaust tail pipe.
School Board
School Boards all over Florida are being told to tighten their belts and not ask the State for big handouts. We have no sympathy for our local school board because in all of the hullabaloo over high tax rates last year, they gave a 6.5% increase in pay in a year where there was only a 4% inflation factor. The taxpayers were hurting and the school board saw no reason to cut back. We believe that an increase in teachers' pay is appropriate, the employees in the classroom—the people who teach the kids, but there should be reductions for the administrators (representing we are told 51% of the total budget). There was no reason to significantly raise the pay and perks for the school superintendent, but they did both.
A couple of months ago we also tried to alert the world that the Volusia County School Board would claim they needed money regardless of whether there was an increase or decrease in school enrollment. They seem to think that bleating poverty and claiming your kid’s education will suffer if they do not receive all they money they proclaim is necessary to run the school system justifies whatever the cost to the taxpayer. They seem to have no clue about how to save money, only how to spend it. Moreover, it has come to pass. First, what we said, and then what was issued by the Volusia County Tax Reform committee recently.
What we said in August:
“Now we go to the School Board. The School Board still 'needs' the money they collected last year plus the mandated 7.2% mandated by the State. The School Board's share of the 19.54 mill rate was 7.685 and Bert Fish took 2.216, or roughly 9.9 0 1 mills which is half of the property rate you paid last year. This would not be touched by the current actions of the State legislative body. Bert Fish 'needs” the money so that it can tell the newspapers that it runs in the black. Well this puts tax reform in negative light because the School Board was mandated to collect another 7.2%. By the way, it probably spent that money last week with a 6.5% increase in teachers pay. If these institutions do not cut their spending, over half (in fact, almost 60% of what you think you will save) will be collected back by raising the mill rate from 19.54 to about 25.00. This raise will be to “compensate” the School Board and Bert Fish for the loss of revenue from devalued non-homestead property. They are planning to give the Superintendent a big pay raise on top of her current over $200,000, pay and benefits. You might tell them to cut expenditures and this is not the year to raise administrator’s high salaries even if deserved. What a novel idea.”
Now the Legislature is proposing a Constitutional Amendment to take the School Boards out of the property tax equation. Interestingly, the proposal is to replace it with an increase levy on the volatile sales tax receipts. We note in passing that the IAFF sees the property tax cuts as harmful and is proposing to get a part of the sales tax receipts---follow the money and suck out your share.
