On Thursday, the Vanguard followed up on its story from last year on the number of 100K employees in the City of Davis. As the Davis Enterprise reported on Wednesday, the number has risen from 61 to 72 this year. As useful as these data are however, they only tell part of the story. In many ways, in fact, they overstate the magnitude of the problem. We now follow up on Thursday’s story and examine total compensation by department.
The examination of the data finds that 199 of 457 city employees make over 100,000 dollars in total compensation. And the average city employee makes $98K in salary, overtime, benefits, and pension. That number is not distributed evenly by department. In fact, it varies widely depending on the department.
Once again fire leads the way with 50 of 52 employees receiving $100K in total compensation. Police is next with 59 of their 100 employees making $100K in total compensation.
At the bottom just 3 of 18 finance employees and 16 of 129 Parks and Recs employees making over $100K in total compensation.
The percentage of employees making over $100K not surprisingly is strongly correlated with average total compensation. Fire as was reported last week received $142K on average followed by the City Manager’s office at $106K and Police at $103K.
Meanwhile Finance received on average just $78K and Parks and Community Services $79K.
Looking at it another way, all of the other departments are fairly close in terms of total compensation except for fire which is considerably higher.
We also compare the percentage of employees to the percentage of total employee expenditures and percentage of the number of 100K employees.
Fire accounts for 11% of the total employees in the city, yet it accounts for just over one-quarter of those who make over $100K in total compensation.
Police accounts for 22% of total employees but 30% of those who make $100K or more in total compensation.
Combined, public safety accounts for one-third of all employees, but 55% of those making over $100K in total compensation. They also account for 40% of total expenditures.
What is striking about these data is that all of the other departments are pretty proportional in terms of their percentage of employees and percentage of total expenditures.
Parks and Community Service is severely underrepresented among it’s percentage of the $100K total compensation employees, accounting for 28% of all employees but only 8% of those making over $100K. The other four departments are within a percentage point or two.
The same holds for percentage of the total expenditures. Parks and Community Services is underrepresented with 23% of the total employee expenditures by the city compared with 28% of the total employees. The City Manager’s office and Community Development are both equivalent. Public Works and Finance are off by a single percent.
Finally, the 199 employees who make over $100K in total compensation account for $25,488,397 of the city’s $44,848,621 expenditures for total compensation to employees. In other words, 44% of the top employees account for 57% of overall total compensation.
As previous data has shown, that number has risen dramatically over the last decade.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Just curious why you picked $100K as the threshold. Why not $90K or $110K? What’s the significance of $100K?
Just a round number I suppose. Back in August I merely replicated what a large number of other publications and organizations were using as a base measure. But I think your point is that it really is arbitrary is accurate. However, I think for illustrative purposes, it emphasizes the point well.
“Just curious why you picked $100K as the threshold. Why not $90K or $110K? What’s the significance of $100K?”
Although it is indeed arbitrary in a certain perspective, $100K seems to be a good odometer-type benchmark that many might easily use to compare salaries. Just like a millionaire represents another common but arbitrary benchmark, or billionaire.
A volunteer fire department would be a good first step for reigning in these costs. For those who say that we need “professional” response simply haven’t worked with a VFD. Generally, the VFD is every bit as qualified, motivated and responsive. Given the lack of structure fires here in Davis, the VFD would probably even be bored. The existing fire fighters have very little to do so they had to add all kinds of services that have little to do with their actual mission.
Is a salary of $100k too much money? What would you suggest is a fair total compensation package for someone working in Davis? It would be nice if you (The Davisvangaurd) could look into and identify what it costs to live in the City of Davis. How much does it cost per year for a family of four, two adults and two children to own a house (average cost), two cars (Hondas) and have their children actively involved in either sports or a club. How much for a comfortable living in the City of Davis? How much to live and shop just in Davis like everyone wants everybody to do. How much to purchase groceries, cloths, home furnishings, household items, you know, stuff you need, in the City of Davis? Also, could you identify your opinion on one parent staying home to raise the kids or do you feel both parents should work to make ends meet?
You do so much reporting but never give your opinion. You seem to write in a way that is very suggestive and often one sided but never really come out and identify how you see it. You seem to want to help the citizens of Davis by keeping them informed but never identify the whole story. How much does your household make in a year? Does your wife make more than $100k? What does it cost you to live in Davis? It just seems like you should identify what the costs are for someone to live in Davis before suggesting a total compensation of $100k is too much.
$100K is ridiculous compensation for a position that will have hundreds of qualified applications at half that amount. Simple supply and demand.
I don’t care what it costs to live here- not my problem. I care that our city doesn’t go broke supporting the Firefighters Union.
Just a round number I suppose. Back in August I merely replicated what a large number of other publications and organizations were using as a base measure. But I think your point is that it really is arbitrary is accurate. However, I think for illustrative purposes, it emphasizes the point well.
I’m not sure what point it’s illustrating — is it too much? Compared to what? What is the value created by those employees? How do such salaries compare to other cities if similar size and complexity? How do they compare to similar positions in the private sector?
I think your main point is that the city seems unable to afford its current work force, which may be true — especially in the current economy. But simply aggregating data by an admittedly random threshold does very little to aid understanding of the consequences of various policy choices to align city costs with available resources.
[i]”How much does it cost per year for a family of four, two adults and two children [b]to own a house[/b] (average cost), two cars (Hondas) and have their children actively involved in either sports or a club.”[/i]
While I understand the notion that it is a part of “the American dream” to own a house, that is really not what any economist considers part of “the cost of living.” Owning real estate is being an investor. The number you need to examine is the rental price of housing. The question is: can someone making $100,000 a year afford to rent quality housing here? The answer is: yes. (If we built more housing — esp. apartments — rental prices would likely decline, making Davis more affordable.)
It’s also worth noting — though not a good reason to reduce their gross income — that 80% of Davis firefighters (and some other highly paid city employees) don’t choose to live in Davis. They certainly can afford to live here.
One thing which makes Davis less affordable than other communities is our high level of local taxation, much of which supports the very high incomes of city employees. If we had never passed so many tax measures, the city would pay less to its workers, and Davis would be more affordable to more people.
Is $100,000 too much? Who cares if people can’t afford to live and work in this city. Sacrifices or adjustments have to be made by people everyday. Why should our city go broke just to make sure that Bobby Weist (president of the fire fighters union) is making lot$$$$ of $$$ on overtime along with others and potentially bankrupting our city.
Do we appreciate the work they do? Absolutely, but it does not mean that other services have to be cut while the city risks going bankrupt just to feed his coffers of Bobby and company. It’s time to start holding them accountable and hold council members accountable who agree to these lavish salaries. We can begin with the Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor.
How about if we start asking Saylor to explain our the city’s budget problems and justify these overgenerous salaries that contribute to the problem.
“I think your main point is that the city seems unable to afford its current work force, which may be true — especially in the current economy. But simply aggregating data by an admittedly random threshold does very little to aid understanding of the consequences of various policy choices to align city costs with available resources.”
Not David, but I think you are taking this out of context a bit. If all he did was examine this data, you would have a point. But his consistent critique of the city is that we spend so much on employee salaries that we cannot afford other and perhaps more important city services. The growing pile of unmet needs are alarming to say the least. That is unrepaired streets and unimproved infrastructure.
More importantly, the 100K exercise is a simple lesson in accountability through visibility. It illustrates in a very simple but effective way the problem of growing city salaries.
How effective has it been? Well the finance director last October had to account for it in his report to council. The local newspaper took up the language of the initial study in running a follow up.
So I think you sell this short on the one-hand as a tool to demonstrate to the community and on the other hand you take it out of context and fail to understand that there is a growing narrative on this blog and in this community that is looking into issues of employee salary and city expenditures.
Yes we want employees to make a good salary, but at what cost to the tax payers? Why do we continue to have UNMET NEEDS like streets that are deteriorating and potholes. All the while lavish salaries are being handed out like candy at Halloween. The trick has been played on us long enough. We are the voters and tax payers and must tell council members like Saylor enough is enough.
[i]”Why should our city go broke just to make sure that Bobby Weist (president of the fire fighters union) is making lot$$$$ of $$$ on overtime along with others and potentially bankrupting our city.”[/i]
For the record, Weist’s overtime represented 12.89% of his gross salary (base + OT) in 2008, tying him for 23-24 out of 46 firefighters. Thus, it is wrong to infer that Bobby Weist personally took advantage of OT relative to his colleagues, somehow using his position in the union for his own gain.
I don’t know Mr. Weist personally. I have questioned the political activities of his union. I realize that he is, as the head of his local, fair game to attack for anything he does in his public position. Yet it’s crass and unfair to single him out in the manner “We want accountability” does here. Moreover, to make a personal attack on Weist and then fail to put your name on that attack is indecent. Would you want someone to treat you or a friend of yours in this underhanded manner?
It would be extremely helpful if the figures separated (salary + OT) from benefits and pension. It would help people make comparisons to private sector salaries, and also clarify public employee pensions costs. (For example: if a city employee makes $100,000 for wages + OT + pension + benefits, that sounds like a lot of money. Bu it may be that employee makes only $60,000 in wages and that most of the rest goes to expensive pension and benefit packages.)
BTW, aren’t most of these 100k-ers on salary? and if so, why are they getting OT? That’s for hourly wage workers.
Wow, you really don’t like paid firefighters. Paid or volunteer, here’s some facts (California & National Standards/Laws)about what it takes to have a effective fire department in any city, town, county or district.
First, you must have an effective notification system or 911 system. A citizen has an emergency (House Fire or Heart Attack) that requires the fire department to respond. From the point of receiving the 911 call to the time in which the fire department is dispatched should be no more than one minute (California & National Standard).
Second, you must have a properly trained (California Standards/Laws) firefighters on well maintained equipment that is safe to operate and effective at the emergency scene. The equipment and firefighters have to be at a certain level in order to give or receive mutual aid for the larger emergencies where the local fire department can’t handle it by themselves (National Standard).
Third, your well trained and well equipped fire department must make it to the scene within 4 minutes (1 minute for dispatch + 1 minute to start responding + 2 for travel from the fire station to the patient = 4 minutes) for a person who is not breathing before permanent brain damage sets in. The fire department has to make it to the scene within 5 minutes of a fire starting if you want the fire to be contained within a room or two of the structure that is on fire (National Testing). The fire department response is even more critical when someone is trapped in a burning building or pinned in a crashed car.
Fourth, your well trained, well equipped fire department that got to the scene in under 5 minutes for a fire, must have enough well trained, well equipped firefighters on the scene to effectively mitigate the emergency. The number of well trained, well equipped firefighters has been identified as 23 for a single family house fire by national testing. By law, you have to have a minimum of 4 well trained, well equipped firefighters before two of them can enter a burning building.
The laws in California state that a volunteer firefighter must have a total of 212 hours of various training before they can respond to emergencies. There are many volunteer fire departments that don’t adhere to this and are at risk for law suits. In addition to the base training, a volunteer firefighter would have to spend 120 hours to become an EMT. The volunteer firefighter would spend 500 hours to become a state certified firefighter I. 832 hours to be a minimum trained firefighter.
If you want your volunteer fire department to be capable of doing the job properly as described above they will need to staff the stations 24hrs per day 7 days per week. This includes holidays, weekends and any other days that most people have off.
A few other facts about fire departments. Fire departments respond to all sorts of calls from day to day. Some of the calls for service are emergencies and some are not. In some fire departments, a fire department ambulance response to calls requiring an ambulance. In some fire departments, it’s a private ambulance. The private ambulance only responds if there is a possibility that they will transport a patient. The types of calls that all fire departments respond to are, fires of all types, medical emergencies, vehicle accidents, bike accidents, train accidents, hazardous materials spills, hazardous conditions like power lines down, public assists to pick up people who fall down and can’t get up, calls to help people find out why the smoke detector or CO alarm is sounding, calls to help people figure out why one of their appliances is malfunctioning and smoking or making a funny electrical sound. These are just some of the many calls a fire department responds to.
The Davis firefighter pay could be cut and you would have the same thing happen in Davis that happens at underpaid fire departments through out California. They would hire a new firefighter, give him/her experience, training and watch him/her leave to another better paid department. It happens through out California and the nation.
The Davis Fire Department is just like any other fire department in California. It’s not special, it’s the same as many others it’s size. You don’t base a fire department off what they have responded to in the past, you build a fire department to handle the emergencies it might have to respond to.
It’s up to the citizens of Davis to identify what is an acceptable level of risk when it comes to emergency response. If the citizens are comfortable with a under staffed, under trained volunteer fire department responding to emergencies, then that is their choice and I’ll move to another town that can handle it’s emergencies. If they want a paid fire department that meets minimum standards for training, equipment and response times, then they should pay the firefighters accordingly and I’ll stay in this city.
We ran those numbers actually last week–without the benefits and pension.
Click here ([url]http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2694:overtime-is-down-but-100k-club-expands-in-2008&catid=58:budgetfiscal&Itemid=79[/url])
[quote]BTW, aren’t most of these 100k-ers on salary? and if so, why are they getting OT? That’s for hourly wage workers.[/quote]
That’s my thought as well.
“One thing which makes Davis less affordable than other communities is our high level of local taxation, much of which supports the very high incomes of city employees. If we had never passed so many tax measures, the city would pay less to its workers, and Davis would be more affordable to more people.”
I do not understand that comment – aside from the parks tax what tax measures are you thinking about?
“The Davis firefighter pay could be cut and you would have the same thing happen in Davis that happens at underpaid fire departments through out California. They would hire a new firefighter, give him/her experience, training and watch him/her leave to another better paid department. It happens through out California and the nation.”
This is exactly the sort of thinking that got us and many other cities into this mess. It’s like an “arms race” mentality.
And it may have “worked” in the old world where city budgets were increasing and resources more plentiful and job openings were to spare.
This is a new world. This is a world where people are not simply going to be able to get a new better paying job. It’s a world where Sacramento Police are taking paycuts to save jobs and Vallejo is declaring bankruptcy.
It is a world unlike the one we have known for the last ten years that saw city employee salaries and benefits and pensions increase nearly 250% not only in Davis but across the state.
When a job opens for the DFD, we get 100 applicants. If we reduce our relative position, does that applicant pool dry up or the quality go down substantially? In a market like this one, would it matter at all?
More important you talk about acceptable level of risk when it comes to emergency response. What about acceptable level of risk when it comes to road conditions that are not kept at the level they need to be, because we have $13 million in unmet needs in part because of the increasing cost of city employee salaries.
How much of a danger to public safety that present?
What about the threat to public safety due to cuts in education funding because all of the money that comes from the taxpayer comes from the same pot?
As we cut programs to public education and we have to continue to pay huge amounts to public employees, doesn’t that also represent a public safety danger? Don’t less well-educated kids become at-risk to commit violence and perpetrate crime?
It’s interesting, I got a call from a Councilmember from Maplewood, Minnesota a few months ago. That’s the same town that hired Jim Antonen as their new city manager. In the course of our conversation mostly about Jim, he told me that they have an all-volunteer fire department with a professional management component. In other words, the captains and above were all professional, the rank-and-file are volunteer. He in fact serves as a volunteer fireman. He has to perform a certain number of hours per month.
They handle 16,000 calls per year in a town half our size, they get four times the calls. And no problems. He said 90 percent of Minnesota cities are staffed by volunteer departments.
I’m not advocating for it. I would like to examine it more closely. I would like to examine alternative models of staffing. I would like to examine alternative configurations.
“It’s up to the citizens of Davis to identify what is an acceptable level of risk when it comes to emergency response. If the citizens are comfortable with a under staffed, under trained volunteer fire department responding to emergencies, then that is their choice and I’ll move to another town that can handle it’s emergencies. If they want a paid fire department that meets minimum standards for training, equipment and response times, then they should pay the firefighters accordingly and I’ll stay in this city.”
All of your comments sound well and good – until you put them in the context of current city finances. If the city cannot afford the salaries of the Davis Fire Dept., and goes bankrupt, then all your drivel is for nought. Right now, we are facing a huge deficit in this city, where “unmet needs” of road repair and employee benefits cannot be paid for. How do you propose we fund these “unmet needs”?
[b]”One thing which makes Davis less affordable than other communities is our high level of local taxation”[/b]
[i]”I do not understand that comment – aside from the parks tax what tax measures are you thinking about?”[/i]
Not counting Mello-Roos fees, which presumably are figured into a home’s purchase price, we have:
Unusually high rates (compared with neighboring cities) for water, for sanitation, for storm sewer and for sanitary sewer. On my last bill, for example, the “sanitary sewer” charge alone was $68.03.
On top of those, we pay a “municipal service tax” and a “public safety charge, neither of which most in other nearby towns have at all.
Additionally, Davis uniquely has an open space tax ($48), a library tax ($176) and parks tax ($98).
Formerly, we had lower sales tax rates than Vacaville and Woodland. However, we now have the same high sales tax rates — soon to go way up in California — as our neighbors.
In case you don’t know, many labor costs which formerly were charged to the general fund are now charged to an enterprise fund. Where does the enterprise fund get its extra revenues? From the greatly increased utility rates. It’s incorrect to think that utility rates are not equivalent to taxes. They are. The city council simply passes higher utility rates when it wants/needs more money, because we don’t have to vote to approve the higher rates.
One more thing… garbage rates are higher here, too. Because DWR is a private company, I don’t count its higher rates as a tax. Also, it’s a bit of apples and oranges comparing garbage rates with other towns, as they don’t necessarily provide the same services.
Concering safety staff not living here.
This is an issue that has come up on a couple of topics on passing. It gets mentioned when the talk concerns how expensive it is to live in Davis, etc. I don’t think it has been given the attention it deserves either.
If I work in Davis but live in another community, I have no investment in Davis. I don’t care how well the schools do, or how bad the roads are, I don’t care if the city of Davis is having finance issues. All I care about is that my pay check keeps coming. According to what I’ve read here most of the people who serve the community of Davis do not even live in the city, our police, our teachers, our firefighters, our civil staff, etc… They have no roots here, no investment in the quality of life. You might not care, but I think this is a serious problem. None of them care if Davis runs itself into bankruptcy as long as they get paid, and Davis will get there soon enough if things keep up that way.
If these people had the chance to live here, to become a part of our community, to invest their lives and the lives of their families in Davis. Perhaps they’d understand better just how bad things are and they like us might be more interested in giving up a little to save a whole lot more…
“”””Lt. Governor John Garamendi:
“Why is it time to change, because the working men and women of California have taken the short end of the paycheck for too long. In 1965 the CEO’s had a ratio of 24 to 1 on their paycheck. What happened in the ensuing years? In 1980 it went to 42 for the CEO and one dollar for the working men and women. Get your boos together because in 2006 it went to 364 dollars for every dollar. Enough already. It’s time to put equity and fairness back to America and the Employee Free Choice Act is the way to do it.
It’s time for equity in America. It’s time to recognize that the top one percent is getting more than one-quarter of all of the wealth in America. Right now we see in Wall Street. We see it in AIG. We invest billions of dollars and what $165 million in bonuses, for what? Taking America down.”””””
City employees are your whipping post daily , this subject is so stale , you should write two columns per month also .
I love how people compare working people, the type that Garamendi is talking about who make 30 or 40 thousand per year, struggle to make ends me, to the people that DPD criticizes. Those making $142K in total compensation. Those are really comparable situations. That’s not what Garamendi was talking about. I’m for the worker who has to take public assistance in addition to working a full time job. I’m for the worker who makes $10 per hour. But I will be damned if I am going to compare those who can barely make ends meet with those who are living large off the public dole. If you don’t see the difference, then you just don’t get it.
Spank the Blog: Since you brought up the Lt. Governor… I don’t have anything against Mr. Garamendi, I’ve met the man and admire him, this has more to do with the position he now holds. The only job the Lt. Gov. has is to make sure the Governor is still alive. It’s a position that should be eliminated or reformed so that it actual does something useful
See Dan Walters editorial for more information: http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/1714925.html
[i]”According to what I’ve read here [b]most of the people[/b] who serve the community of Davis do not even live in the city, our police, our teachers, our firefighters, our civil staff, etc… They have no roots here, no investment in the quality of life.”[/i]
I don’t believe you have ever read — from any kind of authoritative source on this blog — that “most of the people who serve the community of Davis do not even live in the city.”
That might be true, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it. You include in your litany: “our police, our teachers, our firefighters, our civil staff, etc.”
The only group I have information on is firefighters, 80% of whom do in fact live out of town. For the other groups you list, my guess is that the overwhelming majority of them do live in Davis, especially those who have worked in Davis 10 or more years. (Because buying a house in Davis got so expensive after 2001, newer employees may have, for that reason, bought in Woodland, Vacaville or Dixon.)
One thing to keep in mind about firefighters, which makes them different than all of the others, including police, is their odd work schedule. They are on the job for long stretches each month, and then off for long stretches each month. They don’t have to drive to and from the firehouse 10 times a week, like most city employees. That allows a firefighter to live further away from Davis, if he has a spouse who has to work in some other city, for example, or if he prefers to live in the same town as his parents.
“my guess is that the overwhelming majority of them do live in Davis, especially those who have worked in Davis 10 or more years. (Because buying a house in Davis got so expensive after 2001”
Why guess? – the actual answer would be good information. I know of at least Davis two police officers who have lived in Dixon long before 2001. Davis home prices have always been high relative to other places – many very close by.
I agree the fire schedules allow for longer commutes – I know a few San Jose firefighters who live in Fresno.
As an employer I’d rather err on the side of paying a little too much than too little and consistently fall short on talent. $100K after the employer’s portion is subtracted and the employee’s deductions are subtracted pencils out around $4,200/month. That is not an excessive amount to live on in Davis especially if you have dependents. What’s the problem with paying a decent wage and expecting decent quality. I haven’t heard people say that city employees, fire or police are doing shoddy work. So what’s the real problem? Is it a case of check envy? If the city really can’t carry the personnel load, they may have to cut back. Decreasing salaries and trying to Walmart our city staff is the wrong way to go.
“Why guess? – the actual answer would be good information. I know of at least Davis two police officers who have lived in Dixon long before 2001. Davis home prices have always been high relative to other places – many very close by.”
Good point. I know of at least several in Parks and Rec and several in Public Works who do not live in Davis. I would bet most of the city staff does not live in Davis. DPD, can you find this info out? Also, we KNOW FOR A FACT the CITY MANAGER DOES NOT LIVE IN DAVIS, even tho his job description requires it and he PROMISED TO DO IT. He should either be forced to hold up his end of the bargain or be fired. I would opt for the latter by the way, bc I consider him a total incompetent.
Rich:
I should have been clearer, from the comments on various stories here it sounded like city staff, safety employees, and teachers do not live here in Davis.
[i]”I would bet most of the city staff does not live in Davis. DPD, can you find this info out?”[/i]
The only reason I know — and David and others know — where the DFD firefighters reside is because when individuals contribute money to a council candidate’s campaign, as every Davis firefighter has, the contributor must list his address. Because almost no other city employees have contributed to council campaigns and absolutely no other employee bargaining group has tried to purchase favor from members of the council as the firefighters union has, it is not public information where other city employees live. And it really doesn’t matter, in my opinion.
Why should I care where, for example our “Assistant to the Director” of Parks & Community Services and our “Collection Systems Supervisor” of Public Works live? If the firefighters did not spend so much time and money trying to influence Davis elections (and then reap the rewards from them), it wouldn’t bother me at all that 80% don’t live in Davis.
I take offense to the person that said cutting salaries collectively is worse than cutting a few jobs and the same as the walmartization of the city. This is what really gets me. Obviously this is someone that’s at the top of the pay scale, and would rather someone else lose their job than take less money. The cuts should come from the top down. There are too many people making chump change in the lower rungs of the pay scale. But there are also way to many people making too much money. Someone complained about only making 100k and that it’s not enough to survive. Well when prices in housing was out of control (it still needs to come down) yes, I can understand that, but what do you say to the many people making way less than 50k let alone 100k. There are extremes of poverty and wealth right here in California and in state and local governments. Government unions are acting so greedy and selfish right now and shame of them for demanding higher pay and cola’s in this time economic suffering and need.
If we’re all in this together, then everyone should take a pay cut just like the auto workers had to do in order to save the company.
“Why should I care where, for example our “Assistant to the Director” of Parks & Community Services and our “Collection Systems Supervisor” of Public Works live? If the firefighters did not spend so much time and money trying to influence Davis elections (and then reap the rewards from them), it wouldn’t bother me at all that 80% don’t live in Davis.”
Because it is much easier to spend OTM (Other People’s Money) when it is not your tax dollars at stake, your children at stake, etc. Why do you think there is a caviat in the City Manager’s contract that he live in Davis? So that the decisions he makes are in the best interests of the city, not in his best interests. Get it?
OTOH, there is a provision for the City Manager and not the Assistant Director of Parks. Why is that?
I understand your point about OTM, but the only people can actually spend OTM are the council. They make the appropriations, not staff. Staff may recommend and the council may rubber stamp. However, the people who are accountable to the voters and need to be held accountable are still the city council members.