Slick Eddie Indeed

I need to set the record straight about pay and staff at the city. David K wrote an interesting piece in his blog earlier this week where he mentioned that City Rep Eddie Holguin has two staffers that work for his office full time.

As David K puts it:

Of course, Holguin has a perfectly good explanation for the size of his staff - their pay comes out of his office budget. Okay, problem solved. Obviously, he is saying that it's okay for him to have more full-time staff because they are paid out of his "office budget."

Wait a minute....

All staff for all of the representatives are paid out of their respective office budgets! We've been tricked!

Or have we?

Nice try Mr. Holguin. I guess you didn't think we'd realize that your inclusion of the obvious was just a way to cover up your big spending. It's easy to vote against the budget... it's harder to actually live by the budget cutting mantra. You remind me of Haggerty - always against spending money when it comes to your vote, but happy to participate in the spending of the money when you don't get your way.

That's interesting because I did a little digging of my own. Here's what I was able to find out. ALL city reps, yes even the ones David K likes, get the same amount of money in terms of operational budget.

There is no money being "saved" by sharing staff. It's not like they are returning the money to council.

Over the last few years, their operational budget, which includes staff salary, incidental expenses like printing and publication, etc., has gone down every year.

And thanks to City Rep Ann Lily, the discretionary funds each member of council is assigned has been cut in half.

The money that would've gone to another staffer remains in each council member's budget. The question becomes, what does that money get spent on?

Interestingly David K also rightly points out that "Representatives Quintana, Acosta and Holguin all have two distinct staffers with Holguin being the only one with two full-time employees."

Which is also interesting because Representative Robinson has one employee, but two offices. He has one at city hall and one in the district.

Representative Holguin had some interesting things to say about David K's version of the facts when I bought the piece to his attention. He said, "I don't care if he doesn't like me, but he should at least call because he doesn't have a command of the issues. He's obviously upset because I've had to correct him before."

Holguin also said, "...he's still upset because the last time I was on the radio with him I whooped him..."

Holguin says that everyone in council gets the same budget. When asked about why he has two full-time staffers while others share staffers he said, "I chose not to degrade the level of service that my constituency is used to".

But while we are talking about reduction in staff that could make a difference in the city's balance sheet, lets examine City Manager Joyce Wilson's office. The City Manager has an Executive Assistant, 1 Public Relations person, and 4 Deputy City Managers. Those salaries amount to $850,000 annually. Holguins assistance make less than $80,000 per year...COMBINED.

That $850,000 doesn't take in to account the subordinate administrative personnel that each Deputy City Manager has on their staff.

Holguin runs his district with two subordinates that cost the tax-payers less than $80K combined. The City Manager's staff costs the taxpayer's $850k.

Slick Eddie indeed.