Why isn't the City of Seattle cutting more staff?
So far, Mayor Nickels is sparing high-salary administrators and departments with strong unions. The reason: it's easier to cut services than personnel.
You can be sure there is a recession when your neighbors tell you that their pay was cut by 10 percent and that they were forced to take off one day a week without pay. The carpenter across the street hasn’t had more than a week's work at his trade in the last two months. Two other neighbors were laid off.
Tough times have finally reached the Emerald City. Last February the U.S. Labor Department listed Iowa at a (very low) 3.2 percent unemployment rate and Seattle Metro area with an unemployment rate at 8.7 percent. In May, another source listed Seattle’s unemployment at 11.5 percent. There are so many variables that no number is exact.
It’s abundantly clear that private corporations are laying off people. Even seemingly healthy businesses are tightening their belts, as have local counties. King County, Starbucks, Boeing, and Microsoft (just today) all have either cut people or plan to or offered unpaid furloughs. The exception is the City of Seattle, whose belt tightening doesn’t even amount to one notch. What gives?
Seattle as of late 2008 had 11,201 employees with a payroll of $743,195,514. Mayor Nickels proposes cutting around 59 people in 2009, with half of that number vacant positions that won’t be filled. Since the Mayor hired over 1,000 people during his tenure in office this level of trimming employment seems a minor gesture. The Mayor's plan, not yet approved by the City Council, would cut $13.3 million from the City’s 2009 general fund. The forecast of Seattle’s revenue shortfall for 2009 is closer to $29.5 million, far more than he plans to cut. He would make up the difference with Seattle’s Rainy Day Fund, a kind of piggy bank against future emergencies. To save more money the Mayor claims he will furlough some professional staff, reduce overtime, and cut back on office supplies. That’s a lot of paper clips.
Cutting staff at the City is tough to do, while cutting services is easier. Cutting out the swollen middle-management levels means taking on labor contracts, which can't be broken unless unions agree to any cuts in pay, and there are numerous other legal restraints. Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Labor statistics suggest that City of Seattle public employees, especially those in administrative positions, are among the highest paid employees in the state and exceed the average pay of similar positions in the private sector.
The Mayor says he will cut the pay of 100 top administrators, many of whom lie outside union regulations, though he seems mostly to have in mind forgoing scheduled pay increases. Currently the top 100 highest paid public employees all make above $134,625 per year, topping out at $225,057. Seattle pays 689 employees who make $100,000 per year or more. By far the largest chunk of payroll money is between around $65,000 and $125,000. Nickels hasn’t been specific about cuts in this area aside from saying that he won’t cut public safety or funds for people in need.
Public Safety means Fire and Police, both represented by the most powerful unions in the City. The Fire Department has 32 executive positions or chiefs, who make over $125,000 per year, none of whose job requires they enter flaming buildings. The Police Department has 26 chiefs or executives who make $125,000 per year or more, none of whom work the streets.
Seattle Transportation Department has 728 employees and Seattle Public Utilities has 1,389 employees. Sea-Trans has 7 executives above $125,000 and Seattle Public utilities has 11 executives above $125,000. If we add up all the Mayor's top executives it comes to 61 people.
In order to achieve cuts, 23 of the city departments have been given percentages of their budgets which must be cut. The details of the proposed budget cuts are listed here, and give the impression that most of the budget cuts will be reductions of public services, along with the usual curtailment of consulting contracts, travel, and professional development costs. It appears that only minor cuts in the salaries of our highest paid employees are part of the Mayor's plan, with perhaps Police and Fire top brass excluded.
There are other strange anomalies in the pay scales of Seattle public employees. Take the Library, for example. Their 690 employees represent proportionally the highest educational level among City employees, yet library employees, as a group, are the lowest paid public employees in the system. There are only two library administrators with pay above $125,000 and they supervise 345 people as against the Fire Department administrators who supervise only 65 people on average. Library management is more efficient it seems.
Eventually, the City will have to face facts and make cuts. So far there is every indication it will occur in services offered to the public rather than from the salaries of City employees. Moreover, some City departments like the Fire Department will get a 0.32 percent cut while street repair will get a 5.4 percent cutback.
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Comments:
Posted Tue, May 5, 9:26 a.m. inappropriate
I doubt City Hall has any real plan other than hope the economy turns around and revenue growth resumes toward infinity. I went 3 months with little work. While I always anticipate a seasonal slow-down, I usually have income. Not this time. Things are very busy right now for me, but I am planning for the worse case again this winter. Why? I'm being overwhelmed by work prepping houses for the market. People are looking to get out. The fear is palpable. Not to mention, Commercial construction is set to come to a virtual stand still. I have friends scrambling to get onto government projects, because that's all there may be for some sectors by the end of the year. Things are set to get much worse. Government can't grasp this because they don't rely on their own productive activity, but on public subsidies.
Posted Tue, May 5, 2:32 p.m. inappropriate
Good piece, Kent. Cutting management is very hard for management to do. They'd rather cut the line workers and that's what they will do, reminding us we need to pay higher taxes to keep all these services. You imply that private industry does better and I think I agree but the human impulse is to protect your own.
Posted Tue, May 5, 2:42 p.m. inappropriate
Don't let your city end up like mine; bankrupt Vallejo. Public Servants, i.e. fire and police officials make enormous sums of money. The Police Chief makes around $250k. Publish the city officials names with their salaries next time.
Nice article and good luck.
Posted Tue, May 5, 2:57 p.m. inappropriate
In reading about this, not just this article/comments but others, it appears that Nickels has taken the approach of cutting as much as possible with least impacts to warm bodies. In some cases these are employees, while in others they are the recipients of services. Never have I seen neighborhood advocates calling for public safety cuts (which is not just police/fire but also EMT), because they often equate to lesser levels of service such as longer response times, and if your house has been burglarized or is on fire you generally want somebody to come immediately. Yet I have the impression that's what Kammerer is calling for, at least in part.
It puzzles me that it is somehow more acceptable for a public rather than private sector employee to be out of work, yet that is a typically seen reaction.
Finally, it always astonishes me how little people know of their government. On a different article on this same topic, someone dissed Nickels for getting to make the choice. Um, it's called a strong mayor form of government; he is the CEO; of course he gets to decide. I don't envy him the decision where there's always a critic.
Posted Tue, May 5, 7:18 p.m. inappropriate
The whole idea of public employee unions is a joke. As if these are poor workers exploited by an evil corporation. Public employee unions are the government organizing itself to extort above-market pay and benefits from the citizens. They should be banned. They make it impossible to fire incompentent or unneeded workers. They extort absurd pension and other benefits that are unheard of in the real world. The only reason they get away with it is gutless politicians like Nichels, who just pass the unfunded debts for these outlandish contracts onto the next mayor and so forth.
Posted Tue, May 5, 9:30 p.m. inappropriate
Who put the picture of Peter Griffin from Family Guy in this article?
Posted Tue, May 5, 11:34 p.m. inappropriate
i love the grainy and totally unflattering shot of the mayor in this piece. genius. i think everybody thinks he's a hack and just isn't willing to say it.
he's a hack
Posted Sun, May 10, 12:03 a.m. inappropriate
How about a look at the SPU warm bodies who "manage" the Cedar River watershed through such niceties as "eco-logging?" Eco-logging that loses money and leave behind a mess. And you thought there was no more logging there? Silly you. Eighty plus employees need to justify their paychecks.
Can you say "sinecure?"
Posted Sun, May 10, 9:14 p.m. inappropriate
Amazing. 68 million dollars just for the top 600 employes and you have not even bought a bucket of sand yet. That blows me away a I have never earned close to 100,000 in a year in my life and never will and deal with life and death every day I work. I got raised wrong some where.
Posted Thu, May 14, 5:51 p.m. inappropriate
@ jettkrash - Here's a link to the 2007 names/salaries for city of Seattle employees. That's the latest I could find although you can make a request for the 2008 salaries from the city under the Public Disclosure Act.
http://lbloom.net/xsea07.html
@ Kent Kammerer. - First, disclosure - I am in the Seattle Fire Department but not a top manager that you reference. Your point that the city doesn't value library employees as evidenced by their pay is valid. Your point about library staffing versus fire department staffing is, at best, specious. Fire department managers in Seattle of whom you wrote, Battalion chiefs and above, can be required to enter hazard zones such as burning structures and all of them have entered many flaming buildings during their tenures as firefighters, lieutenants, and captains so your statement about their not entering flaming buildings is just false.
Whether or not the Seattle Fire Department's management model is out of line (top-heavy) with other like-sized fire departments, I don't know. If it is, that could be a point of contention but to equate supervising librarians, however well educated they may be, with supervising emergencies with the lives and property of citizens as well as the lives of the firefighters in peril is ridiculous on its face. I would suggest you make an appointment with Fire Chief G. Dean or go visit your local fire station and ask them to explain the scope and breadth of fire managements' duties.
If you think fire department employees are overpaid, you should make your opinion known to the city council and mayor who sign off on the contracts with Local 27 firefighters (including line officers) and Local 2898 representing the chiefs.
@ Dr. Smith, DVM - With respect, I don't imagine you studied veterinary medicine with the purpose of earning 6 figures or higher. I'd guess you are a vet because you care about animals.