Since a couple readers questioned this post, how about this:
There are 318 people on the list. With benefits the total compensation is $35,905,792
$35,905,792 / 318 = $112,911 per person. Happy now?
By: Diane Benjamin
According to City Manager Pam Reece at the last meeting, the financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2019 will be out in September.
That’s a ridiculous 6 months to report information that is out of date when issued.
Bloomington delays their’s even longer. Last year the data was reported on the Comptroller’s website before Bloomington released the information to the public,
If you think local government exists for the benefit of citizens, just not releasing timely financial information proves it doesn’t.
Here is another thing to consider. Normal only releases salary information on employees who earn more than $75,000. This report is not dated, I assume it is calendar year 2018 data since Pam Reece is listed as City Manager: http://normal.org/DocumentCenter/View/14857/Total-Compensation-Report—Town-of-Normal
There are 312 employees on this list.
Since information as of 3/31/19 isn’t available, I have to use what Normal reported to the Comptroller as of 3/31/18.
The Town of Normal reported 387 full time employees.
With the available data. that means 312 of the 387 full time employees earn more than $75,000.
That is close to 81% of all full time employees.
According to this website, the median HOUSEHOLD income in Normal is $56,363.
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/normal-il/
Anybody see a problem?
Let them eat cake?
How else do you think we can raise the median income without making public employees’ salaries (with solid gold health and retirement plans and twice as much sick and vacation time) at least 1.5 times higher than everyone else?
6 month delay, kind of like the bogus story in Pantygraph about the Judy Dome just coming up with 4th quarter figures for 2018. Think it took them that long to realign the books to look better than what reality holds. Figures lie and liars figure.
The 4th quarter ended April 30th, we think alike.
That’s highway robbery. How many of those jobs are unnecessary? How many of those jobs require little if any experience or talent? How many of those salaries are too high for the job? Koos and company, liars and thieves.
It has been recently reported, the unemployment rate has decreased somewhat due to an increase in government employment. Not a good sign!
2 comments – 1) The report clearly states these are the salaries as of 1/1/2019, so the report is dated in a sense 2) it is somewhat misleading to say this represents employees “making” $75,000 or more a year as the list represents anyone whose total compensation exceeds $75,000 – that includes health insurance and pension payments. Now before everyone looses their mind at that distinction, think about the difference between what you bring home on your paycheck and what may be your “total compensation”, a hefty portion of which you may never see. For example, there are police officers on the list whose salary is $58,000, but with insurance and pension his compensation exceeds $75,000 a year. To address Fedups question of how many of these jobs are unnecessary – look at the list! Are police officers and firefighters unnecessary? I haven’t counted, but they make up a large portion of the list at first glance. I know you all hate public employees, but should people be compensated for their work, even if it is for a municipality? Are public employees supposed to work for free or for so little that they have to take other jobs to make ends meet?
The salaries before benefits are also listed. A few are a little below $75,000. I didn’t see that many.
Hate public employees? No, just the ones who obviously aren’t doing it as public servants. Pensions used to be compensation for lower salaries than the private sector. Now they have a right to 80% compensation for not working, and an increase of 3% every year.
It’s pretty clear that you do hate public employees, since you’re posting this compensation list to gin up resentment of their salaries. This includes police men and women and firefighters who put their lives on the line everyday. Included are employees with advanced degrees like an civil engineer who has to be licensed. That engineer could be make much more in the private sector in any engineering firm. This is also true of other positions which require advanced degrees and licenses. What exactly are you contributing to society that you get to look down your nose on anyone who is working for their families?
Hilarious. The salaries are public information and are even published in the newspaper!
Does the compensation report include the value of their benefits in those amounts?? I sure hope that’s why……..and not that the benefits value would make the amounts even higher!
Yes, a few on the list are below a base of $75,000 – not all that many.
That is a total compensation report. Not salaries. So you are not totally accurate.
Read the other comments.
There are some truly outrageous salaries on that list. Holy crap. Like the library administer making nearly $147,000! I got in the wrong profession apparently. That’s insane.
I’m not an expert at statistical analysis, but just an observation. The population of Normal includes ISU students, a great majority of which have little actual earned income. This dramatically depresses the median income figure for the Town of Normal. If you take that into the equation, the income disparity between Town employees and other citizens is not as dramatic as first appears. Full disclosure, I’m a retired firefighter for the Town of Normal.
The population figure didn’t include them, why would income?
Sorry, Diane, I’m not following you here.
The population listed in the graphic doesn’t include 20,000 kids at ISU. Since they aren’t permanent residents, I doubt their income was included either.
The 54,531 figure for Normal’s population includes the 20,000-some ISU students. This has been
my understanding for some time, and I just confirmed it with the Town of Normal Planning Department.
If ISU students were not counted, Normal’s official population would be around 34,000.
Another way to confirm this case is to compare Normal’s graphic with Bloomington. Normal has a much
lower median age and a noticeably higher poverty rate. This doesn’t make sense if you have two communities
with very similar demographics. The only way this makes sense is if ISU students are counted. – this would lower
Normal’s median age and raise its poverty rate because of students’ relatively low income.
(The graphic for Bloomington is an MSA, which includes Bloomington, Normal and surrounding communities. This is how they end up with 189,000 for a population. Still, the MSA numbers should closely align with Normal if they were similar populations. But they don’t because Normal’s numbers incude younger, low-earning ISU students.)
Hope this makes sense.
Best,
Randy
See this site. https://suburbanstats.org/population/illinois/how-many-people-live-in-normal
Go down to households. The population shown isn’t the total number minus ISU students. The ages reflected don’t show many college she kids. Actual residents only number 35,000 for a budget of over $100,000,000? Something isn’t right!
I agree. Something isn’t right. I can’t make heads or tails out of that without someone explaining to me that site’s methodology and how they came up with those numbers.
My approach in these matters is try to compare apples with apples – in other words, stay consistent with the website used for information. You used a particular website in your initial posting to illustrate Normal’s situation. I used the same website to compare Normal to the Bloomington MSA. (Not sure why they couldn’t just use the city of Bloomington just like they just used the Town of Normal.) In any event, those numbers on those websites only make sense if you include ISU students with Normal’s population.
And this makes sense when you think about it. Even if many of those students aren’t registered to vote here or aren’t considered “permanent” residents, the fact that most live here at least 9 months a year means the Town has to include that 20,000 number in its planning for roads, sewers, electrical needs, housing and all kinds of other infrastructure. Thus they are included as part of the Town’s population. Now, could some of these students also be counted as residents where they live with their parents, where they have their driver’s license, where they are registered to vote? I’m guessing that they very well could be and, thus, are being counted twice. Frankly, I’m not sure how that works. But that’s a whole different matter.
Bottom line for me is that Town of Normal employees – as well as ISU employees and Unit 5 employees – generally have higher average incomes that the typical Normal citizen working in the private sector. But if you take into account that ISU students are rather substantially depressing that median household income – ISU students make up more than one-third of Normal’s population – the difference is not as dramatic as first appears. That’s all I’m saying.
As always, thanks for allowing me to participate.
Forget the poverty rate, forget household income. The salaries are ridiculous especially when staff has been paying blockbusters they don’t owe.