Author Topic: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage  (Read 6940 times)

Jamie B

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 2,866
  • I am Abynormal
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/scranton-minimum-wage-city-police-firemen-140229063.html

Quote
Last week, Mayor Doherty abruptly cut pay for all 398 city employees to $7.25 per hour, saying it was the only way to keep Scranton solvent.

According to the paper, Scranton—which faces a $16.8 million budget deficit—had $133,000 in cash on hand as of Monday, but owed $3.4 million in various vendor bills, including health insurance.

Evidentialy a result of a budget dispute between the Mayor and the City Council.

While the new wages are a creative solution, it will probably not survive the union lawsuits.
Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength - Henry Ward Beecher

The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess, but He’s pretty sure you’re f**ked! - Stephen

zxcvbob

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 12,296
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2012, 02:09:58 PM »
His own pay too?
"It's good, though..."

Perd Hapley

  • Superstar of the Internet
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 61,539
  • My prepositions are on/in
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2012, 02:14:22 PM »
They'll all get jobs selling paper.
"Doggies are angel babies!" -- my wife

Jamisjockey

  • Booze-fueled paragon of pointless cruelty and wanton sadism
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 26,580
  • Your mom sends me care packages
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2012, 02:35:00 PM »
The wages aren't usually the problem. It's the ridiculous benefits and retirements many of these city workers get after sometimes as little as 10 years of service.
JD

 The price of a lottery ticket seems to be the maximum most folks are willing to risk toward the dream of becoming a one-percenter. “Robert Hollis”

cassandra and sara's daddy

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 20,781
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #4 on: July 10, 2012, 02:41:16 PM »
its a democrat mayor too
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


by someone older and wiser than I

makattak

  • Dark Lord of the Cis
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,022
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2012, 02:42:24 PM »
its a democrat mayor too

Who wants to raise taxes. When you add that part, it all makes sense.
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

Jamie B

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 2,866
  • I am Abynormal
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2012, 03:08:07 PM »
The wages aren't usually the problem. It's the ridiculous benefits and retirements many of these city workers get after sometimes as little as 10 years of service.

Bingo!
Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength - Henry Ward Beecher

The Almighty tells me He can get me out of this mess, but He’s pretty sure you’re f**ked! - Stephen

Fitz

  • Face-melter
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,254
  • Floyd Rose is my homeboy
    • My Book
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2012, 03:58:24 PM »
Sounds like a good way to quickly lose some skilled folks. IT people, for example
Fitz

---------------
I have reached a conclusion regarding every member of this forum.
I no longer respect any of you. I hope the following offends you as much as this thread has offended me:
You are all awful people. I mean this *expletive deleted*ing seriously.

-MicroBalrog

Tallpine

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 23,172
  • Grumpy Old Grandpa
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2012, 04:17:50 PM »
Figuring out which services really are essential would be too hard, I suppose ...   :facepalm:
Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.  - Ursula Le Guin

Azrael256

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 2,083
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2012, 11:44:05 PM »
Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour?!?!

MechAg94

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 33,946
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2012, 09:23:20 AM »
Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour?!?!
I thought it was higher than that in a lot of places. 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-san-bernardino-bankruptcy-20120712,0,2433019.story
Looking at this article about San Bernadino, they could solve some of their money issues by moving out of that fancy building and putting it up for lease. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,744
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2012, 09:43:16 AM »
The wages aren't usually the problem. It's the ridiculous benefits and retirements many of these city workers get after sometimes as little as 10 years of service.
Wrong - it's Bush's fault.

California's union contracts that allow government workers to retire at age 50 and continue to collect 90% of their pay for life (with annual cost-of-living adjustments!) have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the fiscal difficulties being faced in that state.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

mtnbkr

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 15,388
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2012, 09:46:19 AM »
Looking at this article about San Bernadino, they could solve some of their money issues by moving out of that fancy building and putting it up for lease. 

Only if there's someone who'll lease it from them.  Hell, it may cost the govt more to move out of that building and into something else than to remain there because the alternatives may not be much cheaper and there's the cost of moving and setting things up to meet your needs.  It's not as easy as just moving people into new digs.

Chris

roo_ster

  • Kakistocracy--It's What's For Dinner.
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 21,225
  • Hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2012, 11:04:16 AM »
Only if there's someone who'll lease it from them.  Hell, it may cost the govt more to move out of that building and into something else than to remain there because the alternatives may not be much cheaper and there's the cost of moving and setting things up to meet your needs.  It's not as easy as just moving people into new digs.

Chris

IOW, "sunk costs are sunk."
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

RoadKingLarry

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 21,841
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #14 on: July 12, 2012, 11:32:03 AM »
The dominoes are starting to fall. First the cities, then the states.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Samuel Adams

mtnbkr

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 15,388
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #15 on: July 12, 2012, 11:45:07 AM »
IOW, "sunk costs are sunk."

I don't believe this qualifies as a sunk cost per se.  Only if the building is owned and fully paid-for (ie no lien) by the govt would the cost of the current residence be a sunk cost.  Even then, it's not the cost of that building that would keep them from moving, but the amortized expense of moving combined with the recurring cost (a lease) of the new location minus any income realized by leasing or selling the current property.

The bottom line is that, given the current economic climate, it probably isn't possible for them to vacate that property and improve their bottom line in the near term.

Chris

RevDisk

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 12,633
    • RevDisk.net
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2012, 12:38:14 PM »

I would not be pay if my pay was substantially cut with no notice for work already performed. If I have a contract for $X per hour or X salary, I expect to be paid for work performed. I would certainly not stay, and I would try to sue for unpaid wages. 

A businessman once told me, "Never mess with a man's money, and never mess with his wife."  Sound advice.

"Rev, your picture is in my King James Bible, where Paul talks about "inventors of evil."  Yes, I know you'll take that as a compliment."  - Fistful, possibly highest compliment I've ever received.

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,744
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #17 on: July 12, 2012, 01:14:02 PM »
The dominoes are starting to fall. First the cities, then the states.
The problem is that government's sheer size is unsustainable by taxes on the private sector. I remember seeing an economic analysis that said the practical limit of government's size (or cost) is about 19% of the total gross national product; we're well above that now.

And much of it is not really needed; I was living in Minnesota a couple of decades ago when most unionized state workers went on strike.

Virtually nobody noticed outside of some college students who had longer lines to stand in during registration. Lights and water stayed on, police, firefighters, and paramedics kept working, roads were repaired, planes continued to fly, garbage was picked up . . .

This said a lot about how much of government is really essential.

Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

brimic

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 14,270
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #18 on: July 12, 2012, 02:57:03 PM »
Quote
The wages aren't usually the problem. It's the ridiculous benefits and retirements many of these city workers get after sometimes as little as 10 years of service

Yes.
This is the issue that gave or Gov Scott Walker his meteoric political rise.
He exposed the Milwaukee county pension system where the county board was creating schemes with huge payouts to retirees- often times multi-million dollar lump sum payouts.
The scheme was that a worker had to work X number of years and was paid Y based on their salary in the last year of employment. Politically connected workers would slog away for the requisite number of years to be 'promoted' to a very high paying position in their last year of employment. County board members simply just voted themselves bigger salaries for their part time jobs.
I'm too cynical to think that Milwaukee politicritters were smart or creative enough to come up with this scheme independently of what other cities in the country are/were doing.
"now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb" -Dark Helmet

"AK47's belong in the hands of soldiers mexican drug cartels"-
Barack Obama

Nick1911

  • Administrator
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,492
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #19 on: July 12, 2012, 03:01:38 PM »
The problem is that government's sheer size is unsustainable by taxes on the private sector. I remember seeing an economic analysis that said the practical limit of government's size (or cost) is about 19% of the total gross national product; we're well above that now.

That's interesting - do you have a cite for these?

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,744
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #20 on: July 12, 2012, 04:47:36 PM »
That's interesting - do you have a cite for these?
I don't have the exact article before me, but I think it was in context of the Rahn Curve. The premise was that a certain about of government taxation and spending are beneficial to economic growth, since government provides for the common defense, establishes a monetary system, the rule of law, etc., the basic functions of government. As taxation increases, further improvements in economic growth become incrementally smaller. Additional taxation increases actually decrease growth.

There's some debate as to what the slopes and inflection points are, but the bottom line is that the private sector will only financially support so much government.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

slingshot

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,031
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #21 on: July 19, 2012, 11:31:16 PM »
That 19% fits right in with some economists that feel the government expenditures should not exceed 20% of GNP except during extordinary times such as a world war where it is a do or die scenario.

I do believe it is the benefit packages that are paid.  But part of that were the assumptions about the growth of retirement investment funds.  For the most part, there has been little growth for the last 5 years.  It started in the last year or so of Bush's presidency and continued through the entire Obama presidency.

My brother is a teacher.  He's retired now and very dependant on getting his teachers pension.  If the state or counties run out of money, they will have to cut pension costs unless there is sufficient growth.  But the growth generally has been pretty anemic for the last 5 years or so for most regions.  The South is rising and has been rising mostly because the unions aren't well organized in the South.  Folks in the South know they will eventually loose it the unions control costs.
It shall be as it was in the past... Not with dreams, but with strength and with courage... Shall a nation be molded to last. (The Plainsman, 1936)

seeker_two

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 12,922
  • In short, most intelligence is false.
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #22 on: July 20, 2012, 12:25:53 AM »
Wonder how much city property will be acquired by employees as "compensation" for the pay cut?....
Impressed yet befogged, they grasped at his vivid leading phrases, seeing only their surface meaning, and missing the deeper current of his thought.

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,744
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #23 on: July 24, 2012, 11:47:45 AM »
Wonder how much city property will be acquired by employees as "compensation" for the pay cut?....
And how much city property tax they'll be expected to pay on their compensation . . .
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

AZRedhawk44

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,991
Re: Scranton mayor slashes pay for all city workers to Minimum Wage
« Reply #24 on: July 24, 2012, 03:09:20 PM »
And how much city property tax they'll be expected to pay on their compensation . . .

I think by "property" he was thinking more about laptops, lawn mowers, and other non real estate components of property.  Gas siphoned from government cars.  Private vehicle maintenance done in government auto shops.  Tools disappearing from worksites.  Things like that.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
--Lysander Spooner

I reject your authoritah!