This is the second round of mergers that are a result of
the Mayor's Task Force; the first being the merger of the Legal
Department and the Personnel Department. At the
time of that merger, it was put forth the combining of those two
departments would produce significant savings to the taxpayer.
The vote last week came down 9 to 1- with Councilwoman Linda Salafia (R) the only person o vote against the merging of Park & Rec, Senior Services, and Public Works. Councilwomen Hope Kasper (D) and Deborah Kleckowski (R) were absent.
For the previous merging of Legal and Personnel the vote in May was 10-2 with Kleckowski (R) and Salafia (R) in opposition of the consolidation, which according to the end of the year fiscal analysis, in fact, proved more costly to tax payers.
*Editor's note: The chart below is an example of expenses for the last three fiscal years for the separate Legal and Personnel Department. Since the merger, the last last column under Total shows that for the 2013 fiscal year, the combined legal/personnel department with additional attorneys and staff has had an increase in spending despite the claims of the merger saving money. Outside counsel from other attorneys has cost the city even more money, despite new personnel hired in the Legal Office. So far, the merging of the Personnel and Legal departments has not saved money, but in fact been more costly to tax payers.
Chart showing budgeted amounts for the legal and personnel
departments for the last five years.
Year ending 6/30 Personnel
department Legal department Total
2010 $253,164 $363,867 $617,031
2011 $262,491 $340,841 $603,332
2012 $211,582 $391,606 $663,188
2013 $225,346 $420,279
additional appropriations
12/2012 70,000 $715,625
2014 $146,477 $487,769 $634,246
Sorry guys, I don't understand the chart?
ReplyDeleteA few corrections on your story. The vote was held on 8/5, not last week; the vote was 9-1, not 10-1 and Linda Salafia was the only person to vote against the merger, not the only person NOT to vote against the merger.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments, we cleaned things up and added better explanation of the chart.
ReplyDeleteMay be the Mayor can know work on the City's three Fire departments. A city this size should only have one Fire Service. They all show up to the same fire anyways. To many Chiefs for this size town
ReplyDeleteMayor Drew isn't showing the public cost savings because there are none. Nice to see the D's taking care of Billy Russo.
ReplyDeleteHe lets tens of thousands of dollars slip through his departments fingers every year by letting others take scrap metal from the recycling center. He is a good choice to be the boss of another department!
ReplyDeleteI think Russo is a silent owner in a Middletown bar? He should put the same effort into his city job.
ReplyDeleteCome on... let's not be too harsh here. First of all the Public Works Director has great hair. Secondly, he is magical as you can never find him at the office in person or on the phone but he and he alone single handedly clears the roads, fixes bridges and saves babies. Third, if you watch Council meetings you quickly are aware of the fact that he can't answer any of the questions asked of him... even if they are scripted. So one can only assume there is a learning disability at play. Its a damn good thing he is connected.... to Batman or some other super hero democrat in power. Oops, I almost forgot.. he was also almost famous for his years playing baseball. Give it a rest folks. Obviously he has paid his dues and is a highly trained professional of some sort that is going to make a boat load of money.
ReplyDelete