In today’s DDN the “Professional” manager is asking for crowd sourced solutions to the budget problem:
City revenues are down across the board through April as income tax collections continue to slide $1.5 million below already conservative projections, according to information the finance staff gave city commissioners Wednesday, May 26.
“We are at the same income tax (collection levels) as we were in 1994,” Assistant City Manager Stan Earley said.
Revenue from investments is nearly $400,000 off budget predictions as a tough European economy has helped returns slide from 3.5 percent in 2008 to 0.7 percent so far this year.
City Manager Tim Riordan will embark on a “listening tour” next week to hear suggestions from citizens about how to strip $6 million from the city’s $155 million budget in order to plug a deficit.
Riordan and Mayor Gary Leitzell or a few city commissioners will be at the Southeast Priority Board, 2160 E. Fifth St., at 7 p.m. June 3 to hear ideas from citizens on what Riordan called “difficult options.”
The options being considered are to:
• Raise new revenue, including a possible income tax increase.
• Cut expenditures by reducing or eliminating services.
• Stop investments in infrastructure, technology, equipment and development.
via Dayton wants your cost-cutting ideas as it faces big revenue loss [1].
Yet, documents provided to me from November of 2009, show employees within the Department of Parks and Rec’s had turned in suggestions outlining nearly a million dollars in savings to the city- only to be ignored.
The concept centers around reducing the Department of Parks and Rec back to a division- underneath Public Works- and cutting out a bunch of top management- including that of C. LaShea Smith- a city hall insider who doesn’t have a recreation background. From the City Website- they still list a Director and an Acting Deputy Director- who also have an “Executive Secretary”
LaShea Smith, Director
Robin Williams-Waller, Acting Deputy Director
Joe Parlette, Golf Manager
Stephan Marcellus, Senior Recreation Program Coordinator
Brittany Collins, Senior Athletic Program Coordinator
via Staff | City of Dayton Ohio Recreation | Staff Members [2].
And although the City didn’t renew his contract, Mr. Donnell Gregory, PhD was the “youth czar” for a year- and paid $60,000 with no tangible benefits to the city. He was hired as a contractor outside of Civil Service- and is a fraternity brother of Commissioner Williams. He’s now employed by the University of Dayton. His video still appears on the Youth Commission website [3].
The “Friends and Family” plan has been working in the City of Dayton [4] for a long time- attempts to do a FOIA request to include street number and name- to cross reference employee households was denied.
But, if City Hall is really interested in saving money- why didn’t heads roll about the retroactive pay raise former City Manager Rashad Young gave himself [5], without a vote of the City Commission? And why wasn’t the step raise to middle and top management retracted [6]– since we were in a crisis?
Here are the three PDF documents suggesting a million dollars in savings:
Presentation for budget proposals [9]
It’d be interesting to hear what the City Manager’s response was- and why these cost savings plans aren’t being implemented.
73%
I’m impressed by the proposals made by the recreation department staff ! Now that this information is public (would help if the newspaper or TV stations picked up on it), let’s see if it forces the city manager and commission to acknowledge it.
Troublesome (from slide 7):
We need to coddle you and make you happy so that you show up to work?! I’m sure the civil service rules they go on about in the letter make it difficult to fire people just for not showing up…
That said, eliminating middle management positions to get to a flatter organization full of ‘doers’ is probably a good idea (though the proposed org chart on slide 10 is 5 levels deep). Why do you need to add a secretary (slide 9)? Type your own memos, answer your own phones, manage your own calendar.
Ideally, they’re outside working in our parks !
We need to coddle you and make you happy so that you show up to work?!
Trust me, this mentality isn’t limited to the City of Dayton or government work more generally. HR departments and specialists long ago figured out that a well designed carrot is actually a more efficient tool than a well-designed stick, for most classes and categories of workers anyway.
djw:
Sure, sweeter carrots for the fancy stuff like improved productivity and innovation, but I kind of thought the paycheck was enough to get people to at least show up, silly me. If the boss is paying you to be somewhere and you don’t go, then you are a thief at the very least, and most likely a liar too. Usually you fire those types, and spend your time motivating your honest employees with all those juicy carrots. Unless you’re in government, then you make excuses for the inexcusable, and worry about whether you are properly motivating this sh*tbag who doesn’t mind collecting a paycheck, but can’t be bothered to show up to work…
Ideally, they’re outside working in our parks !
Hall,
The Dept of Rec. and Youth Serv. does NOT work outside in the parks. Rather, in general, they staff various programs as directors and helpers. It is Street Maintenance’s sub-division of Park Maintenance that works in the parks, providing mowing, ball diamond maintenance, etc.