"public safety" (police, fire, EMS) will consume 70% of next year's $854 million GF budget (even excluding municipal courts), with APD alone representing 42%. Parks and libraries (generally cut first in lean times) together consume 13%; and Health and Human Services (contributing at least partly to "public safety") is another 6%. That's quite nearly everything – and it also bears emphasis that the public safety portion continues to grow, a trend that is literally unsustainable.
Unless, of course, we're prepared eventually to spend our money on police, fire, and emergency services, and nothing else. Failing that, Spelman's hoping that come 2015, at least some of the incoming Council members will realize that while public safety might be a sacred public obligation, public safety spending is not necessarily a sacred cow.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Why Austin property taxes are so high
Austin pays our cops too much, has too many of them, and most of our city
council is in the pocket of the police union. So thanks to Bill Spelman and
Laura Morrison for at least trying to inject reason (and math) into the
city's dysfunctional budget discussions. Reported the Austin Chronicle:
City of Dallas has a similar issue. Police have been the only group to never experience a pay freeze or a loss of yearly bonuses for performance. All other city employees have, and for a while, it was absolutely abysmal for morale.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens with public unions. They end up voting themselves money
ReplyDeleteLaw enforcement unions have pushed for better training and recruitment of officers. Be glad you don't live in a city that doesn't have a professionalized police force. If you live in rural Texas, you appreciate Departments with unionized police that don't hire anyone just to fill the vacancy. Non-unionized departments have issues with the quality of officers and lack of training which leads to major civil rights violations.
ReplyDelete9:01, Austin has more than its share of major civil rights violations, that's not much of an argument.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9/15/2014 08:57:00 AM:
ReplyDeleteHow exactly are they paid a performance bonus? Do they get a toaster oven if they write a certain number of tickets? Where you aware of their pay cue several years back, albeit a small cut?
Anon 9/15/2014 03:49:00 PM:
This is Texas so unions have no such power to vote themselves raises. If you are reading from a state up north where things are different, by all means fill us in.
Anon 9/15/2014 09:01:00 PM:
I'm sure that most people understand the worlds of difference between large, unionized departments and rural departments where the force changes with every administration that hires their family, cousins, and friends. For the sake of argument, do you know how many hours of training, on average, one has versus the other?
Anon 9/15/2014 10:58:00 PM:
Austin is way ahead of the curve in dealing with allegations of rights violations, they just get many more complaints due to the political makeup of their population. If you were forced to trade out with officers from surrounding communities while they took your officers, you'd simply move rather than even try to fix the force.
As far as the original discussion, the easiest route to go is to prioritize what fires and crimes you want focused on. Make it clear that you are going to have to cut positions by attrition or layoffs and require everyone to upgrade their fire safety measures as well as personal protection efforts. As big as some think both fire and police departments are, neither can be all things to all people so no more enforcement of drug crimes unless they are tied to other felonies, no more reports for insurance companies, and no more coming out by either department for anything remotely civil in nature. All fire code enforcement and neighbor protection ordinances get tossed and see how it works out. Fair?
Anon 9/15/2014 08:57:00 AM:
ReplyDeleteHow exactly are they paid a performance bonus? Do they get a toaster oven if they write a certain number of tickets? Where you aware of their pay cue several years back, albeit a small cut?
Anon 9/15/2014 03:49:00 PM:
This is Texas so unions have no such power to vote themselves raises. If you are reading from a state up north where things are different, by all means fill us in.
Anon 9/15/2014 09:01:00 PM:
I'm sure that most people understand the worlds of difference between large, unionized departments and rural departments where the force changes with every administration that hires their family, cousins, and friends. For the sake of argument, do you know how many hours of training, on average, one has versus the other?
Anon 9/15/2014 10:58:00 PM:
Austin is way ahead of the curve in dealing with allegations of rights violations, they just get many more complaints due to the political makeup of their population. If you were forced to trade out with officers from surrounding communities while they took your officers, you'd simply move rather than even try to fix the force.
As far as the original discussion, the easiest route to go is to prioritize what fires and crimes you want focused on. Make it clear that you are going to have to cut positions by attrition or layoffs and require everyone to upgrade their fire safety measures as well as personal protection efforts. As big as some think both fire and police departments are, neither can be all things to all people so no more enforcement of drug crimes unless they are tied to other felonies, no more reports for insurance companies, and no more coming out by either department for anything remotely civil in nature. All fire code enforcement and neighbor protection ordinances get tossed and see how it works out. Fair?