By: Diane Benjamin
Since the biggest expense the City of Bloomington has is employees, I took a look at the employees in 2012 and four years later – 2016.
The payroll was $6,196,593 higher in 2016 than 2012. But why?
Total compensation per year is on the City website: http://www.cityblm.org/government/advanced-components/documents/-folder-170
2017 is really for the year 2016. 2013 if really 2012. These are PDF files, so the first things I did was turn them into Excel spreadsheets. Then I deleted everything other than Job Title and Total Compensation. Then I sorted the data by job title. For some reason the Mayor and Aldermen salaries were left off the 2016 report, so I added them.
The comparison still isn’t an exact science because employees leave or retire and a replacement is hired. Just because one year shows more employees with the same job title doesn’t mean there were really more employees in that position.
This comparison does show what jobs didn’t exist in one year but did exist in the other. You can see the comparison HERE All the “yellow” jobs match between the years. I still have no way of knowing the total number of employees because of turnover.
Some of the increase is pay raises of 2-3% per year. Some jobs appear on 2012, but not on 2016. Here are two:
| CORPORATION COUNSEL | $150,137.15 |
| COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT MANAGER | $67,035.67 |
Corporate Council is a BIG one because now the City sends the money to Springfield – at least $850,000 a year. They could hire a staff of local attorneys for far less.
Community Engagement Manager may have transformed into Director of Community Development.
It’s very difficult to say what jobs have been created, but here are some I’m positive were created and others I’m suspicious about. For some the job title could have merely changed. Since the City finances are far worst now, even with many tax increases, are the new positions a help or a liability?
| COMMUNICATION MANAGER | $86,568.13 |
| DIRECTOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT | $165,824.40 |
| DEPUTY CHIEF OF FIRE ADMIN | $169,939.01 |
| EMPLOYMENT COORDINATOR | $77,802.87 |
| GRANT COORDINATOR | $77,167.57 |
| JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT | $44,218.06 |
| OFFICE MANAGER – WATER | $51,486.39 |
| MOBILE HOME INSPECTOR II | $54,384.59 |
| OFFICE AND BILLING MGR | $5,743.94 |
| PAYROLL COORDINATOR | $37,178.51 |
| PAYROLL SUPERVISOR | $65,444.23 |
| PROCUREMENT MANAGER | $117,749.76 |
| PRODUCTION MANAGER | $85,293.87 |
| PROPERTY AND RECORDS TECH | $26,755.78 |
| SAFETY AND RISK MANAGER | $99,195.61 |
| SIGN MAINTENANCE COORDINATOR | $138,202.43 |
| SUPPORT STAFF IV – CITY CLERK | $48,203.49 |
| SUPPORT STAFF IV -BDG SFTY | $60,924.58 |
| TALENT ACQN & DEVELOPMENT MGR | $45,466.51 |
| TICKET OFFICE MANAGER | $75,637.06 |
| TRAINING COORDINATOR | $51,293.75 |
| VOLUNTEER & CONCESSIONS COORD | $55,172.78 |
| WTR JULIE CWLD | $118,790.09 |
| ZOO BUSINESS MANAGER | $68,960.80 |
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The list appears to show more Police Officers, Fire Fighters, fewer EMT’s, but more Paramedics. Public Safety staffing is a good thing,.
If the Council is serious about cuts, they need to start with this list. If the jobs didn’t exist 4 or 5 years ago, they don’t need to exist now.
Since the discussion has already turned to tax increases, the Council isn’t serious about cuts. Backbones are not required to run for office. Does the Council know people are leaving Illinois? Would they really tax fewer people more? I thought they cared about poor people, especially if they are illegal!
I love how Steve Rasmussen gave them the facts yesterday and told them it isn’t staff’s job to cut for you. David Hales only gave options of cutting police or raising taxes.
The total Budget for FY 2013 was $167 million (ending 4/30/13)
That total budget for FY 2017 was $207 million – (ending 4/30/17) https://blnnews.com/2017/02/08/bloomington-20-million-in-cuts/
Of that $40 million increase, only a small part is employee salaries. Part is massive increases to pension funding. The Council needs to find out where the rest is and determine where cuts can be made.
For the record $0 dollars went to roads. I learned today that the extra .005 tax for Roads totaled 2.3 million and the additional .04 fuel tax totaled 2.3 million. That’s 4.6 million designated for streets, yet only 4 million was budgeted and spent onstreets. I’ll need to research this a little more…apparently 10% of that went to ramps. It doesn’t add up. We are all paying more for less.
I’m waiting for my reporters here! The other one hasn’t checked in.
The LMFT is being used to pay for the $10M Bond issued for street resurfacing and sidewalks. MFT dollars can be used for things other than just street resurfacing. In order to get the Street quality up to “fair,” $8M/year needs to be spent for the next 6-8 years. Mayor, where is your campaign promise of “Streets 2.0?”
Gas taxes were raised to fix the streets that can’t be fixed until the money borrowed to fix a few gets paid back. Oh, and the streets also can’t be fixed because the sewers need repairs first. The 20 years plan will mean rotten roads for many decades because the ones that do get fixed won’t still be fixed 10, 15, or 20 years from now. Got U-Haul’s phone number?
Spending $2.4M for property acquisition for downtown economic development in FY2017 is a higher priority. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is considered balancing the budget.
What is a safety risk manager? I just drove through the St. Joes/E Washington intersection. I guess I know know why they need a safety risk manager. What a crock! What nitwit suggested this and what bigger nitwit approved it? I’m sure the builder of the intersection contributed to the administrations campaign… is that the same as a bribe?
The handy work is a result of Bike BloNo.
Actually, only $3.6M was actually spent on streets as when ramp cost is subtracted. Engineering has a 20 year (Complete Streets) plan to maintain roads. They need $8M to satisfy this plan, but as Angie shows above, are only getting 1/2 of that. They are assuming only $3.6M for FY2018 as well. There is no money coming out of General fund except for the $800K for 3.5 miles of brick streets. Also, they didn’t know how the $10M roads bond fund (spent in 2010) is being repaid. We should be getting that info after the holidays.
Thanks Other!
I would love compensation of $138k as a “Sign Maintenance Coordinator.” I’m not sure what that even does, but wow, think of all what could he done on sewers and roads for that.
I have personal experience with the “sign maintenance coordinator.” Long story and won’t go into the details here, but my blood pressure rose dramatically when I saw the salary. Just another overpaid government bureaucrat making life difficult for others while collecting fees to the city coffers.
I’d like to see government salaries or raises tied to cost savings in government and population increases/decreases. Of course, we know that will never happen.
When you have a lot of free money coming in, you can spend money on silly positions like we see here. As our economy declines with State Farm’s downsizing, they will have much less money to throw down the drain. In another 6 months, they will be looking for people and services to cut. You can forget about the roads here… what you have now is what you will have in 5 years (except for more and bigger holes of course). Yes, you will need a dune buggy here soon with heavy duty shocks just to get the grocery store. Thanks Tari! Can we get another bike path somewhere? Maybe one lane on Veterans could be chalked off for a test? What could go wrong?