Zucal/Lautenschleger Retroactive Pay Increases Endanger New Philadelphia Budget

       City Council, under the direction of John Zucal, is pushing hard to pass a piece of legislation which will increase the salary of the Fire Chief by almost double his current salary.  The chief, by the way, hasn’t objected.  But there is a problem or two, which Mr. Zucal has not brought before council.

First, what is the cost of this pay increase going to be and how will the city be able to pay for it?  The cost is unknown.  After repeated requests from council members and others, Zucal is unable, or unwilling to disclose the actual cost of such a pay raise.

Second, where is the money coming from to pay for such an exorbitant increase?  Zucal has this one figured out in that he wants to rob the ambulance fund, which is mandated to pay for equipment purchases and repairs plus overtime due hourly fire fighters who man the ambulances, not for salaried fire chiefs.

Third, how much will the Police Chief’s salary be raised, or the Service Director, or the Water Department Supervisor, or…well, you get the idea.

As far as the money is concerned, there’s no problem according to Zucal and Councilman Lautenschleger.

Lautenschleger isn’t concerned about financial problems until the end of 2014.  That should put our minds at ease, unless you live to 2015.  Isn’t this a lot like the wife coming in and saying,  “We have a hundred dollars in the grocery fund money to last into next month so why not buy a new plasma television for six hundred dollars today?  I mean we have it now and we’ll worry about next month when it arrives.”  Sounds a lot like the housing bubble that broke the economy a few years ago.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  You remember them and how buying homes without being able to make the down payment, let alone keep the mortgage payments, caused home foreclosures on a scale not seen in most people’s life time.  Cities are no different than personal finances.  The message here is if you don’t have the money, or another source of income, don’t spend money you don’t have.  If you do, it will always lead to eventual bankruptcy.

So where is the money coming from to pay for pay increases?  Actually, there is no problem here according to Zucal.  The Fire Chief’s salary increase won’t cost the citizen anything.  After all, he says, the money will come out of the ambulance fund.  Wait a minute.  Where did the ambulance fund come from?  If you guessed that it came from fees charged by the Fire Department for ambulance services, you are correct.  If there is enough money to pay for wage increases in the fund, why does the Fire Department want ambulance service rates increased by some 30%?  What am I missing here?  If Zucal and the Fire Chief say the ambulance fund is going to cover the costs, where is the revenue from increased ambulance fees going to go?

Even more questionable, if there isn’t a financial crisis in the city now, why was it necessary for Zucal and Lautenschleger to push so hard for a .75-percent income tax increase on last November’s ballot?  As you may remember, the citizenry decisively defeated that one.

A major concern, ignored by salary increase advocates, is where do the increases stop?  The reason given for the Fire Chief being granted an exorbitant wage raise is that he should be paid more than those fire fighters he supervises.  Wait a minute.  How far will this logic go?

If the Fire Chief is paid $90,000 a year, what about the Safety Director?  By law the Safety Director is the administrative head of the Police and Fire Departments.  Therefore, the Safety Director, following the logic Zucal uses to provide the Fire Chief with a salary of eighty three thousand dollars a year, that is the Fire Chief should have a salary in excess of what fire fighters make, the safety director should be salaried for at least $95,000 a year.  That being the case, the Mayor, considering that both the Safety Director and Fire Chief would be earning more than he does, and he does supervise both, he should receive a salary of at least $100,000 annually.

One more thing to take into consideration is the not mentioned by proponents of this legislation is that Zucal wants these pay increases be made retroactive to January 1, 2013.  Anybody out there really think we can afford this?

Zucal’s push at this time is to get the third reading of the legislation, which would give the Fire Chief the largest salary of any New Philadelphia city employee, made on the floor this year, in hopes of getting it passed before the balance of power shifts with the seating of Councilperson Cheryl Ramos in Ward One.  For this reason, he has called a special council meeting on Wednesday, December 18.  Call your Councilman and ask him to vote against this ill-advised legislation.  Zucal doesn’t know what the final cost of this action will be.  Nobody knows where the funds to finance it are coming from.  A tax increase will unquestionably be asked for if the legislation is passed.

Call your councilman and ask that he does not vote to pass any legislation which will raise taxes because of salary increases.