I'll get to the Full City Council Newsletter tomorrow. The biggest issue talked about tonight was a focus on the poor Economy by the City's Assistant City Manager/Financial Advisor Warren Wood. He talked about the issues facing the city with the 2013-14 fiscal budget... about it being hard to increase revenues in this economy and the economy that he foresees. He believes that the city must focus on further cost cutting measures and the necessity to use part of the General Fund "Unfunded Balance" for necessary "Capital Maintenance" projects over the next several years.
The focus is on reducing the number of people working for the City by getting people to accept early retirement plans. There are 84 current employees that look to be eligible for this plan. These employees would have to make this decision to retire between July 1 and October 1 of this year. Warren talked about reorganizing and restructuring departments and eliminating and restructuring departments. He talked about keeping healthcare costs in check by instituting an employee compliant healthcare system. If an employee has traits, such as High Blood Pressure, cholesterol, or other issues, and they don't follow medical advice to keep them in check, then they are going to have to carry more of their personal healthcare costs. In other words, much of the burden of cost cutting measures will fall on city staff.
Warren Wood has always been realistic in these presentations. This shows where he sees the economy headed and it wasn't a rosy scenario. Below are some videos about the realities that we face as a nation in the near term future.
Gerald Celente on The Tom Sullivan Show - FOX ; Business News 19 March 2012 : we are in a severe recession here , this recovery is a paper recovery says Gerald Celente , , history is repeating itself only names and places have changed he added if we go to war with with Iran this is going to be the beginning of world War III.
Giving Voice to the Silent Majority - In this formal speech, Warren Pollock demands change in America on behalf of the Silent Majority of Americans. Please spread the word and join me in reforming policies of the United States both domestically and abroad. Lets give voice to the Silent Majority now being overrun by pervasive fraud and lawlessness.
Gerald Celente - The Banks have No Money - Everything Financial Radio - 18 March 2012 : they are flooding the markets with cheap money and as long as there is cheap money the market should continue to go up , until reality strikes , what will make reality strike , what made it strike the last time , we got have to see evidence of the fraud before it hits reality.
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2 comments:
A troublesome report to be certain. I'm not sure that Warren's modernized view of shifting more of the cost of healthcare to the employee is such a good idea though. I worked with someone once who was genetically predisposed to high cholesterol. They ran, worked out, ate right, and still had to take meds. My point here is you can follow medical advice to the letter and it still doesn't benefit you since you can't beat DNA. Now in this proposed paradigm, that would equate to ignoring medical advice, since lab reports don't lie either and this person would have suffered under the weight of increased medical costs, simply because of who their ancestors were.
This likewise comes at a time when wages have not shown an increase, thus increasing the burden on the person working and the household income, all to cut costs. In 2006, Hickory reported to the NC Treasurer that it had $27.7 million in cash and investments. In 2011, Hickory reported to the same entity that it had $51.2 million in cash and investments. Almost doubling your money in that amount of time isn't too bad in my view. I'd bet everyone reading this would like to grow their money at that rate as well. But do you accomplish this on the backs of the people who do the work to provide some benefit and service back for that money taken in from the taxpayer?
I like Warren, he's always demonstrated himself as being level headed and very intelligent. I also understand that he has orders and directives to follow from persons to whom he is accountable.
Workplace reductions through early retirement? Perhaps. But that is simply shifting the burden onto another system. I wonder too if this plan is to rid the City of higher paid workers to recruit a flock of lower paid ones, subject to new fiscal and health rules, of if the City plans on leaving those positions vacant as being non essential. I guess we'll see.
I wonder how much of those premiums would have been offset with the money shot on the Union Square Big Top?
Gee, things have sure changed from a few months ago when things were doing better and we could afford City worker's raises this year. Now people have to be shed. The economy must have gotten worse quickly.
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