Wonderful letter to the editor from Tricia Crane: Stop Feeding the Monster Editor, I am one of many residents who are grateful to Bill Bauer for his bold column “In house or out house?” (Sept. 1, 2014). In a city where a full half of the budget is spent on salaries, the economics of outsourcing city labor is a topic requiring serious economic analysis. While some who watched the last City Council meeting might have found it touching to hear Councilmember McKeown direct staff to find a way to bring outsourced workers in-house so they could join the “family” of Santa Monica City workers, I found myself thinking of other metaphors that would be more appropriate. Thanks to Bill Bauer for having the nerve to articulate them. Truth is, our City budget is a monster that is already bloated and needs to go on a diet. Studies show that Santa Monica has a much higher ratio of City staff to the number of residents than do cities of comparable size and that our staff are more highly paid. Add to this the fact that all of those workers are promised pensions when they retire and we face a situation where the monster is sure to grow and the more it grows, the more we will need to feed it. I know it’s election season and everyone running for office wants to court the unions and impress the voters with their expressions of earnest concern, but members of the public who must foot the bill would be more far more impressed if public officials left the soapboxes outside City Hall and called instead for a thorough cost/benefits analysis of the options. Where is Bobby Shriver when we need him? Tricia Crane Santa Monica
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 14:01:52 +0000
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