Looking Good

We have our village council meeting next Monday. One of the things we will be discussing is the payroll ordinance. Last month, pay raises for the village employees and police officers were voted down by three council members and the mayor because it wouldn't "look good". Two council members voted no on a first reading to simply submit an application to obtain financing for the purchase of a new police cruiser. Our older cruiser as of the time of this post is currently inoperable. I guess even looking into buying a cruiser doesn't "look good" either.

You know what does actually look good? Our Village finances. We are in the black. Other municipalities are making cutbacks, we don't need to. Other counties are laying off literally dozens of workers, we are doing fine. That is in no small part due to the 1% income tax and the way that the Village officials, past and present, have handled things. It's not something that happens overnight, or even in one year. If we didn't have the tax we would be in the same boat as the others.

The proposed pay raises amount to a total of somewhere around 3500 dollars. That number is DIVIDED amongst all the workers (seven by my quick count, maybe more), not for each one. Some of the Police Officer raises were based on evaluations and weren't automatic. Some of those funds for the raises come out of sewer and water money, not all of the raise is paid for out of the general fund. It's not a huge raise by any stretch of the imagination.

This payroll ordinance failed on its third and final reading after being passed on the first two readings unanimously, because it wouldn't "look good". Hold on a second, we still have the income tax, nothing has really changed has it? We can sit and talk about all the other towns, townships, counties, whatever, that have had to make cutbacks. WE ARE NOT THEM! We should be pretty proud of that. I am. We need a cruiser and we can afford it. It's what we would do if the tax had passed. Wait, we still have the tax, why should we be thinking of not buying one all of a sudden? Our workers should get a raise, and we can afford the one that was proposed, why did it fail on the third reading?

Here is an interesting note for you to think about. In January of 2008 we voted for similar raises. It passed. I did not hear one person mention they voted against the tax because of that. Maybe it didn't look so bad.

You know what actually does look good? A council and a mayor that keeps the Village running as it should, and not base decisions like this on what "looks good" because of a ballot issue OR whether you are running for council this fall.

Take a look again at my post about Spam. Click here.