PHILLY POLITICIANS- PIGS AT THE TROUGH July 5 2009
While the recession plods forward and the City of Philadelphia asks its workers to swallow no salary increases for the next four years, all elected officials are up for 5 percent raises Tuesday.
Annual cost-of-living-adjustments, or COLAs, are due to the mayor, City Council, and row officers on June 30 under the 2003 law that set current salaries.
Mayor Nutter will give back his 5.13 percent increase, as will 19 cabinet members and commissioners who are scheduled for the increase, a spokesman said yesterday.
Nutter slashed his $186,044 salary 10 percent in November in announcing budget cuts to deal with the worsening financial crisis. The COLA amount is $9,544, for a total giveback of about $28,000. Nutter is also taking a 2 percent cut in the form of a one-week furlough this year – five unpaid vacation days that he’ll most likely work through.
The Nutter administration has asked the four unions representing the city’s more than 20,000 blue- and white-collar workers, whose contracts expire Tuesday, to accept four-year contracts with no raises. In that light, Clarke said, it may be difficult for Council members to accept an increase in their $112,233 salaries.
I didn’t post this for a couple days because I worked through the holiday weekend. In case anyone wondered Independence Day in Philly, especially where I work is a mad house. Hundreds of thousands of tourists pile into the city for the festivities. With the recent fire department cutbacks and closings we are being hammered with calls.
Amid Philly’s never ending, dismal financial situation we get this sickening story of our world class, greedy politicians. While the city is asking the rank and file workers to take ZERO pay increases (While the cost of living by their own admission has gone up 5.13%) draconian work rule changes, and benefit cuts, they are getting a 5.13% INCREASE! Can you believe it? Only in Philly.
Now many of the recipients are stating they are “giving back” the raises. Well that’s up for debate. There is no mechanism for a city employee to refuse their pay. You work, they have to pay you. What you do with that money is up to you. But since this pay raise is automatic, like the greedy Harrisburg politicians, City Council and the rest of the bureaucrats will get their pay raise.
Most like Mayor Nutter and Council will probably write a symbolic check to the treasury for the amount of the raise. This year. But what about next year when no one is looking? While he and City Council may donate the money back to the city, their base pay has gone up on paper. The increase will be there every year from now on. That means their PENSION will go up as well. They will also pay taxes on the money as earned income correct? Or will they? Will they find a loophole as some sort of charitable donation where the raise stays in effect, that way they can collect on it later? No one seems to have answers to those questions. Nor is the MSM asking them. LINK
City Controller Alan Butkovitz said he would not accept the increase “because the city is still in severe financial crisis, the budget is not resolved, the city workers are being asked for substantial sacrifices, and city taxpayers still look like they’re going to be asked for substantial sacrifices.
Butkovitz said he would keep his take-home pay at its current level – his $115,627 salary minus 5 percent, a reduction he volunteered for as part of budget cuts. Register of Wills Ronald Donatucci also gave back 5 percent of his salary.
Donatucci said he would accept the COLA, which will move his salary from $112,233 to $117,991, then give back 5 percent to the city as he has done for the last six months. So, in effect, Donatucci breaks even and will take home about 5 percent more than he has for the last six months.
Aside from the COLA, the eight Council members who gave back 5 percent of their salaries over the last six months have to decide whether to continue that act. Those who took the cut – they had to accept the money in their paychecks, then hand it back to the city – were Verna, Majority Leader Marian Tasco, Frank DiCicco, Wilson Goode Jr., Bill Green, Curtis Jones Jr., Jim Kenney, and Joan Krajewski.
Kenney is the only one who has officially committed to the cut for fiscal 2010, beginning Wednesday, according to the President’s Office. Green said he would also take the 5 percent cut in the form of payroll deductions to the Friends of the Free Library. Last year, Council passed Green’s bill that created such a payroll deduction.
While we can’t keep our firetrucks on the street City politicos are getting raises. In my station three out of three trucks are in the garage for maintenance. Our ladder has been in for months and the brand new engine is down already. We got the ambulance back first day work only to have it break down on the second. This isn’t uncommon. There is virtually no preventive maintenance program fo our fleet. Millions of taxpayer dollars get wasted because basic mechanical issues go unresolved month after month. It’s sickening.
This story just reinforces the position that tax increases are absolutely the worst thing we can do. The only way to truely stop this greed is for City Council to pass an ordinance repealing the pay raises. I’ll let you know when that happens…
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