THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
Eye On City Staff Costs...Cuts?
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Reporter
In the Broadway musical, "Sound of Music", a song asks, "How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand?"
Park Ridge officials are asking the same type of question about their budget, specifically a "moonbeam" called personal services, or staff costs.
The problem has become so fluid and complex that the City Council's normally efficient committee process has been unable, so far, to resolve it.
At Monday night's (Sept. 18) City Council meeting, committee chairman Ald. Don Crampton took the unusual step of telling his fellow aldermen that the committee needs help in trying to move forward on the issue.
Earlier this year, as it put together its 2006-07 budget, city officials went the "increase revenues" route, increasing building and inspection fees, sales and gasoline taxes, property taxes, and building permit fees, to balance the budget.
Now, officials agree that they will not do that again.
This leaves the cost of people, in laymen's terms, as the only option for budget-balancing. About two-thirds of the city's $45 million budget goes for staff compensation, benefits, and related expenses. For years in Park Ridge and most other municipalities in the area, this area of city operations has been considered sacred, with towns fearing that job or pay cutbacks would adversely affect city services and bring the wrath of taxpayers down on their heads.
Well, that mind-set isn't necessarily true any more.
Many Park Ridge aldermen have apparently decided that they want to do "something" about controlling staff costs, but they are far from agreeing on just how to accomplish it. There is talk of generating a higher level of productivity (but little agreement on how to measure or define it), hiring freezes, more aggressive out-sourcing of services now provided directly by staff members, early retirement programs, more creative personnel compensation systems, reduction of overtime, all the way up to direct layoffs of workers.
Crampton asked the council Monday night to assist the committee by making a basic decision either to pursue staffing controls, or continuing with the revenue enhancements as in past years.
In a rare departure from custom for the usually voluble council, his request was met with silence. Aldermen will no doubt have plenty to say on this subject later, but Monday night, they weren't prepared to comment.
Ald. Kirke Machon suggested that the council meet as a "Finance and Budget Committee of the Whole" to discuss the subject. Crampton responded that he would be willing to do that, but no date was set for such a meeting.
"I don't think we should discuss this here, we need to schedule a Committee of the Whole meeting to see if we can come up with a plan," said Machon.
"I think we'll have such a committee meeting soon," said Ald. Rich DiPietro as he left Monday's meeting. "We're still a long way from figuring out what we're going to do with this."
Crampton was quite candid in his report Monday night.
"The last budget cycle was characterized by the council's inability (or unwillingness) to reign in its program requirements, and the administration's inability (or unwillingness) to secure additional, improved work productivity," he said. "The result was a (whole bunch of) revenue increases. I believed earlier that the Finance and Budget Committee needed to address the issue of personnel cost controls. Since about two-thirds of the city's operating budget is for personal services, it was sensible for the committee to come to grips with personnel costs. Failing to do so will mean that the city will have to face either real cutbacks in services or significant increases in property taxes, or some combination of the two."
He said that the staff has held firm in its position that no improvements in productivity are available.
"It contends that the staff and the operating departments are now operating at or something approaching 100% efficiency."
Crampton added that some committee members agree with the administration, some believe productivity improvements are possible, but don't know where to find them, and some believe that productivity "targets" need to be mandated by the council for the administration to implement. He said he is part of this last group.
"It is quite unlikely that the administration will take the need to address these matters seriously without the council taking a stand on this issue," he concluded.
City Manager Tim Schuenke told the Journal this week that, while he is willing to consider additional staff control actions, he "honestly" believes the staff has already demonstrated that the current staffing level of the city is below that of most other communities in the area, and that significant additional controls, or reductions in staff, will adversely affect delivery of city services.
"We are all committed to not repeating a tax increase policy in the future," Schuenke said. "But we aren't a manufacturer, we don't make widgets. Government is different from a corporation. We can't close up shop, or lay off people in wholesale numbers. We can't decide to have policing half the time, or fire protection only part-time. I understand the council's concerns and we will work with them to hopefully make some useful decisions."
He also pointed out that defining and implementing a productivity program is very difficult in a municipality, mostly because the term is so difficult to define.
Like a "moonbeam."