By: Diane Benjamin
With campaigns now beginning, maybe Tari will mention for the 1000th time how many fewer employees Bloomington has now. Truth?
Below is what was reported as payroll in 2015 and 2016 for approval at the first meeting in November. Tari claims the payroll goes up roughly 2% every year. (whether citizens see an increase in their salaries or not)
If payroll had increased 2% a year, the 2016 number should have been $2,324,902.23. (2,296,962.97 x 1.02)
It’s only off $342,521
Maybe Tari can explain:
- Who got huge raises, if any
- Who got hired and for what department
- Exactly how many people are now employed by the City of Bloomington
Obviously more people are on the payroll than a year ago. Of course, that $342,521 could be just 2-3 people with what Bloomington pays people!
Next, look at the 3rd column. This column includes insurance, pension, and FICA/Medicare for applicable employees. The only way to control costs is to control the number of employees. These numbers are salaries for 2 weeks. This is your money that is no longer available to be spent where you want it spent. Are you getting what you pay for? Think cost under Renner/Hales and this Council are under control?
Something that I learned from a city employee- many employees end up waiting a lon time for theor annual reviews, but the raises are retroactive (they get back pay from when the review was supposed to be. Not sure though if this is due to incompetence, or a strategic tactic to cook the books.
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone
They did that with pre-Tari union contracts, those contracts aren’t sitting around anymore.