Wednesday
March 31, 2004

I have done some further research and have located the data I was seeking re this subject. In the library copy of the 2004 City budget, there are several sections out of order (they are in 3-ring binder form) and one section missing, but loose in the back of the binder. The loose section was the missing pages for the city attorney's office. Apparently someone besides myself was interested in reading the city budget. I am encouraged about that fact. In addition, KPU is not specifically labeled as are the other departments, but if you read all of the pages of the various departments, you eventually get to the KPU Manager section, which I finally found.

The compensation figures for all these positions are listed as follows:

City Attorney is a 1 person job which pays $90,300 per year plus benefits of $56,900 (a hefty 42.7%) and $50,000 for professional services, which I assume is to other attorneys for legal work performed when the city attorney is out of town as is sometimes the case.

City Manager is a 1/2 person job which pays $63,600 per year plus benefits. KPU Manager is a 1/2 person job as well which also pays $63,600 per year plus benefits. City Manager and KPU Manager are the same person. No other officer of the city is allowed to hold 2 jobs, if I read the minutes and rules correctly. This is allowed only for the City Manager to do. The $8,000.00 per year KPU manager job I previously noted was for the manager only of customer services, and curiously, is also a 1/2 person job and was in the wrong section of the binder. Perhaps this person also has another 1/2 position but if so I was unable to locate it in the various sections of the KPU budget pages.

Interestingly, the Assistant City Manager job is a 1/2 person job paying $45,838 per year plus benefits and the Assistant KPU General Manager job is also a 1/2 person job paying $45,838 per year plus benefits. The City Administrative Assistant and KPU Administrative Assistant jobs are likewise each listed as 1/2 person jobs and each pay $18,086 per year plus benefits. The rules must have been amended somewhere to allow this, but if so I was not able to find that reference in the minutes/by-laws/charter provisions etc.

So, the City Manager/KPU General Manager combined compensation is $127,200 plus benefits, the City Attorney is compensated at the rate of $90,300 plus benefits, the Assistant City Manager/Assistant KPU General Manager receives$91,676 plus benefits and the City Administrative Assistant/KPU Administrative Assistant is compensated at $36,172.

With this clarification, several questions remain:

1. Is one person going to be able to divide his/her time between management of what is now city business, KPU business and what is also now borough business to manage the new municipality? Ditto for the Assistant City Manager/Assistant KPU Manager and City Administrative Assistant/KPU Administrative Assistant? Sounds like a lot for each of them to handle.

2. If not, will the new manager have to drop the KPU management job and if so, will the new municipality be actually able to attract a new KPU manager for only $63,600 per year ?

3. Can the 1/2 person KPU management job be done adequately in only 20 hours per week?

4. If one manager is hired to manage the new municipality, one or both of the current city/borough managers will either take the new job, resulting in the other one leaving. Is there any golden parachute or deferred compensation liability that would then be due the departing government manager?

5. If one manager is hired to manage the new municipality and leaves either the city manager job or borough manager job to take the new municipal manager job, will the old job be terminated and will this also result in a requirement to pay a golden parachute or deferred compensation liability to the new hire as well?

6. Would the same questions arise from the city attorney and borough attorney offices re golden parachutes or deferred compensation liabilities?

It may be too soon to answer these questions, but if consolidation is successful, these will become budgetary and personnel issues to resolve, sooner or later. Might as well start thinking about them now and getting the information required to get the answers needed.

Keep up the good work. I appreciate having this open forum for discussions, opinions and questions. Democracy is sometimes messy but it works better than any other system.

ML Dahl