by Suzanne Bremer in City Finances, Health Care, Workers' Rights
Posted on June 22, 2010 at 11:37 am
Last Modified on June 22, 2010 at 7:47 pm
loading…
“In budget-cutting season, politics can be brutal,” wrote the author of a recent View from Prospect Hill column in the Somerville News. With an $8.1 million budget gap, it is imperative that the city cut costs. However, the current, shortsighted approach, with its focus on outsourcing hourly jobs, will sow the seeds of discord for years to come.
In his opinion piece, “Beacon Hill is not a Monolith”, Mayor Curtatone writes of the city’s staggering health care costs, and the saving that we would realize if city employees and retirees received health insurance through the Commonwealth’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC). Unfortunately, the Mayor tells us, many of the politicians on Beacon Hill lack the courage to give mayors unilateral authority to move employees into the GIC plan. Changing to the GIC plan requires renegotiating the city’s contracts with the unions that represent many municipal employees. The Mayor reports that this would take up to 16 months to negotiate, and that 70 percent the city’s union current employees and retires would have to agree to the change.
Cities and towns in Massachusetts have been able to join the GIC health insurance plan since 2007. While negotiating labor agreements, or any agreement for that matter, takes time, and requires the hard work of honest give and take, it is possible to negotiate changes in health care insurance. The town of Brookline has done exactly this. Why not Somerville?
By proposing to fire the custodians and outsource the custodial services in our schools, the Mayor undermines the city’s relationships with its union employees, and sets the stage for the city’s lawyers to square off with lawyers for SEIU Local 615. In this time of economic crisis, is litigation a wise use of the city’s resources? Wouldn’t working with the unions in an atmosphere of mutual trust make it easier to move to the GIC insurance plan?
The Mayor has asked for suggestions on how the city should cope with the budget shortfall. I suggest that furloughing senior managers would save money, and demonstrate to hourly employees that the burden of the current crisis will not fall exclusively on those who have less. This would put the city in a better position to work with union members to move to the GIC plan, and perhaps achieve other cost-saving measures. The Mayor might also improve relations with labor by taking the proposal to outsource the city building custodians and the sign crews’ jobs off the table.
The city’s health care insurance costs are the largest single item in the budget, and there is no end in sight to these rising costs. The savings that would be realized by outsourcing custodial services are peanuts by comparison. Moving to the GIC health care program is the big enchilada. As the writer of the View from Prospect Hill points out, Mayor Curtatone has built up a lot of political capital in six years as mayor. The city’s long-term interests would best be served by Mayor investing his political capital in working with the members of the city’s 17 unions to score the big enchilada.
loading…
Great post!
I compared the 2010 budget to the 2011 and saw significant pay increases. Our mayor, alone, received an over $24K pay raise.
Did you know that if just two people are let go out of the Mayor’s office, he would save over $100,000 in the budget?
loading...
Who the hell gets a $24,000 raise? He doesn’t deserve a dime!
loading...
I’m sorry, our Mayor alone received over $4,000 more than last year with his staff getting raises, as well.
loading...
At the budget hearing tonight, it was announced that the city and the custodians’ union were going back to the budget table, so that’s a good first step, though the story’s certainly not over yet. Courtney, Suzanne, and many others provided strong testimony.
I don’t think it makes sense for the city to lay off some workers while at the same time giving raises to others, as Courtney mentioned above. Also, I wonder if the city could save a significant amount of money by cutting out some of the publicity/media pieces? I have a few city of Somerville t-shirts from different community events, a few city water bottles, etc. Don’t get me wrong — I like the t-shirts and water bottles as much as the next guy, and community civic events are important, but if it comes down to cutting out publicity or cutting jobs and services, I would have to choose cutting publicity.
Now I haven’t looked at the budget as closely as I should, and maybe a lot of the publicity items are paid for by outside funding, so it’s just a thought, but I hope the aldermen and the mayor will work every angle to avoid outsourcing and layoffs during the final days of budget deliberations.
loading...
The assertion posted above that there were pay raises amongst the staff in Mayor’s office is false. The increases in the salaries line items were due to the furloughs taken last year. The dollar amounts now reflect level funding before the furloughs.
loading...
Somerspeak, the furlough info is not in the budget. That info might have helped. Also, seems to me there are MANY vacant positions that should be subtracted from the budget. And, why are there 8 operators working for 311? This department can be cut as well as people from traffic and parking. I have a copy of the budgets from both last year and this year. How can we afford another program for $85,000? There are way too many redundant programs in this city.
loading...
The Mayor’s office salaries total over $300K annually because he has 4 people working underneath him. That is too much money to be spending on one office when you’re considering outsourcing and layoffs.
Sacrifice should be across the board.
He could cut two people off his staff, hire and pay two interns-still save money and still have the 4 people it takes to put on his dog and pony show.
loading...
Janine@ I agree with you that the info regarding furloughs should have been front and center to alleviate the uninformed from making uninformed assertions.
As for 311, I like the program. If the 311 service representatives are handling as many requests as stated(I would like to have seen a “customer satisfaction” and “complaint resolution” document also), my question would be : Why we need as many aldermen if 311 is now handling the majority of the routine requests that used to go through the various alderman?
Think of the cost savings to the city by eliminating at least 5 Alderman salaries, their benefits and their pensions.
loading...
Somerspeak-
For an entire week, I called 311 regarding a hornet’s nest with tons of hornets at the park outside the high school. This park is used by myself and the two day cares on Highland who have many children. My first statement was to Dennis Sullivan who called it in on Saturday June 12. I called Monday June 14, twice on Tuesday 15 (an was told my call on Monday was never documented-WHAT??) and Wednesday June 16. On Friday June 18, I called Sullivan about it again because it was still there and he called the city. Went to the park Saturday June 20 and it was still there. On Monday June 21, it was finally removed. Is this effective? I think not.
And the woman who made the comment that she works for 311 and she handled all those calls with one other person, why did so many operators call off that day? That is ridiculous. I would like to see a record of the call for that day.
loading...
I agree. Seeing some of these salaries is astounding. The people possibly being laid off make little to nothing and should not be laid off. There are many others who should be let go.
loading...
Boston has Citizen Connect and there’s See…Click…Fix online. I’d like to see a true comparison of how much 311 costs compared to other avenues.
loading...
I think the hours these people are expected to work should be documented too. I understand there is a person with an assistant who works 30 hours (or less) a week and is making $52,000.
loading...
Edited for bad grammer. One person works under 30 hours and makes $52,000 also they have an assistant working under them.
loading...