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Undeterred by this month’s hiring freeze veto,
Republican aldermen continue to keep employee head count and salaries at
the forefront of the city budget discussion. They’re taking an especially hard look at one
document that names all of the people hired by the city of Springfield from
October 2007 through January 2008. More than half of the 45 listed
positions are police and firefighters, but aldermen say they’re
interested in talking about some of the temporary employees and their
salaries. According to the new hire list, two of the newest
temps work in the public-works department, one earning nearly $23 and the
other almost $30 an hour. These figures seem high for short-time employees,
says Ward 7 Ald. Debbie Cimarossa, who now wants each temporary position
and its attached salary broken down in the city’s proposed 2009
budget. Currently, the budget includes only the total amount of temporary
salaries paid out yearly by each department. “If we have 100 temporary jobs, where are they
located and what are they doing — that’s what everyone wants to
know,” she says. “They can hide people and salaries in
temporary money, and it looks like that’s what they’re
doing.”
Not only are Cimarossa and the other aldermen
investigating the salaries of temporary workers, she says, but
they’re also asking a lot of questions about full-time new hires that
came with steep price-tags. Several — including Rick Shelton, the
city’s new horticulturist — are earning more than $20 an hour.
Shelton, who is married to the mayor’s executive assistant, was hired
in October and makes nearly $23 an hour. Matthew McLaughlin, the $24-an-hour assistant zoning
administrator hired in January, became a topic of last week’s
public-works budget hearing. Aldermen heard that he was brought in to
support the department’s zoning administrator and deputy zoning
administrator. Another new hire, David Fuchs, is paid nearly $23 an
hour to work as an administrative assistant for the police department.
Fuchs filled the position as a civilian in October after a police officer
who was performing the job was assigned to different duties. The council’s Republicans contend that
controlling positions and salaries may be the only way to sidestep the
mayor’s veto, but Ernie Slottag, the city’s communications
director, says this may only lead to more financial trouble. “If they do routine city services, we need to
fill the spot,” Slottag says. “It costs more to go without
hiring someone, and it could save in overtime that we’d have to spend
if we didn’t fill it.”
Other veteran aldermen, such as Ward 3 Ald. Frank
Kunz, a Democrat, have sided with the city and identify hiring as strictly
the mayor’s responsibility. Kunz says he has no reason to doubt that
the mayor fills necessary positions or pays employees the appropriate
salaries. “I’ve served under two mayors, and I
never once questioned who they hire or why they hired them,” Kunz
says. “I’m not about to start now.”
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2008.
