By: Diane Benjamin
The League of Women Voters/WGLT debate last night was held in a horrible room. Many people trekked to Uptown to see it, but the room was too small to hold them all. University Gallery staff were busy telling people they weren’t allowed to lean against the walls. A lot of people didn’t have much choice because no chairs were available. A huge room at the DoubleTree was packed for the last debate, I guess LWV and WGLT didn’t notice people might be interested.
Ian Bayne decided not to participate. I consider that a huge mistake.
Tari Renner again claimed the City of Bloomington has 100 fewer employees (750) than it did in 2009. I don’t know why he continues to promote this lie when it’s so easy to prove him wrong in a number of ways.
Start here – this is the payroll approved at the February 23, 2009 Council meeting: http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=2734
Total payroll was $1,118,066.
Now look at the payroll approved on February 13, 2017:
The TOTAL includes what taxpayers chip in for benefits, so the first column has to added manually: $3,399,122
Both payrolls cover about 2 weeks. The 2009 dates left out weekends.
Even with the generous raises Bloomington doles out to employees, how did the payroll go up more than $2.2 MILLION with 100 fewer employees in 8 years Tari?
More proof:
How many employees did the City report to the Comptroller’s office for 2009?
599 Full time!
Source: HERE
In 2008 the City reported 690 Full time employees: Source
Tari has stated numerous times the current 750 full-time employees is 100 less than in 2009. Did the City report fictitious information to the Comptroller in 2008 and 2009 Tari? How many employees did the City report for FY 2016 (which ended close to a year ago)? We don’t know because the City still hasn’t filed that information!
So who is lying Tari?
You can listen to the debate here: Debate
Tari’s comments on the number of employees are at 11:25.
The WGLT story at this link provide a good recap of what was stated by the candidates.
More on the debate next.
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Facts don’t matter to liars.
Not sure how this would affect the numbers–sometime between 2009 now, the reporting changed from full-time equalivent to full-time. Sometimes Renner says “equalivents” and sometimes not.
Maybe they dropped 40 hours a week to 37 like the state. It wouldn’t surprise me. Or, under ObamaCare – 30 hours a week is full time. It doesn’t explain the $2.2 mil though