Charter revision in 2010?
I doubt it. And whether or not some things could / should be changed... with the pool, police and other issues facing the Council... I don't see a Charter revision happening anytime soon. And that's fine with me.
Tim White
5 comments:
1 good charter revision would be to revamp the bidding process. How many times do we need to be burned by low bid over quality of work? How many times has low bid work been redone at the pool? How many low bid boilers failed because of lack of quality?
Another good revision would be to impose a salary increase cap based on economic climate. I suggest that if the economy is doing well, allow upto 4% raises. If the economy is ok, but can get worse or better in a second, offer upto 2%. Current conditions where the economy is in the tank and the town is scrambling for funds, make it a no raise year. Also do away with retroactive pay increases. Unions are delaying contract votes in hopes of getting large retro checks for the members
These two items do NOT require a charter revision.
A bid is not awarded to the lowest bidder, but rather, the lowest QUALIFIED bidder. Shame on staff, and commissions if they do not write/approve a sufficiently detailed and specific bid document. Further, the qualifications of the bidders should be investigated to assure that they have done quality work of a similar nature for other municipalities. But this is just common sense and good business - not the subject of a town charter re-write.
Secondly, to "carve into stone" salary caps via a charter amendment is like taking your grocery list and doing the same. The wild ride of recent economic conditions requires flexibility, not a set of financial handcuffs. There was a time quite a few years ago when non-union town employees received BOTH a merit raise and a cost of living adjustment.
Retro-active pay checks are NOT a bonus to employees - they are their settled pay increases going back to when the previous contract expired. There is NO advantage to the unions for this for two reasons. One, when the retro checks come, the employee gets whacked with a higher income tax withholding for the larger than normal retro check. And two, if the employee had their pay raise on time, they could possibly have saved or invested the increase. So again, public employees get crapped on. When times were good, the public sector never caught up with the private sector. When times are bad, all of a sudden, the public employees now must have parity with the private sector!
"...So again, public employees get crapped on...."
Excuse the language but shouldn't this really have said - - - So again, TAX PAYING PUBLIC gets crapped on.
We should definitely do Charter Revision, now that we finally have 7 level headed people who are in the majority on the town council.
"We should definitely do Charter Revision, now that we finally have 7 level headed people who are in the majority on the town council."
Oh, really? Charter changes are not made on a whim and certainly are NOT done because the balance of power on the Council has changed! There is a cost to doing this and it still would have to go to the public for a vote.
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