Last Thursday’s actions and vote by the Peachtree City Council reflect yield to the pressure of the self-serving and money-grabbing interest of the city’s employees.
During that meeting, the behavior of a boisterous and intimidating self-serving audience, representing but a minute fraction of PTC’s residents overcame reason and reality.
I do not believe the PTC Council to be ill-intended in serving the city and its residents vs. the interest of a small portion of self-serving; hence I conclude their vote represents a yield to a well-orchestrated pressure.
No other way to phrase it, the Oct. 2 PTC Council meeting was simply an employee money grab. Nearly everyone in the audience, perhaps 100 or so, were city employees looking to greedily pad their pay, and they made their presence count by loud and hostile conduct.
The alleged reason for the demands by the city employees was that they claimed to be underpaid. The employee’s claim was rationalized by the results of a survey. Unbelievably, said survey was conducted by a surveyor the employees themselves selected. This is wrong beyond acceptance.
To add insult, the survey was paid by the city at a cost of $40,000, and was approved only by the city manager, Jim Pennington, and not by the council.
Not surprisingly, the conclusion of the survey availed the objectives of the PTC employees; consequently the survey conveniently concluded that PTC employees were being paid in the 35th percentile of the labor market.
The conclusion of this expensive and statistically invalid survey was biased. To wit:
• Of all PTC employees 83 percent reside in cities close to PTC. However, only 1 of 17 cities covered by the “Survey” were areas where PTC employees live. Instead, the remaining 16 cities were high-cost metro Atlanta cities, where, of course, the pay for employees is much higher.
• On Aug. 21, at the budget hearing on the FY2015 budget, Councilman Imker showed salary data for comparable cities (where 83 percent of PTC employees live). It revealed PTC employees were the best paid, even before the raise!
• Exodus of good employees was cited as a problem. Yet, the turnover of PTC staff for the last several years has been one-third of comparable cities, evidencing there is no dissatisfaction. Yet, a senior firefighter spoke to say if the raise wasn’t given, employees possibly [would] not do their jobs as good because morale would be in the tank. That is bordering on extortion.
Notwithstanding, Mayor Vanessa Fleisch and council members Mike King and Terry Ernst relied on the biased conclusions of the survey that the employees were being paid in the 35th percentile of the labor market.
As a result of Thursday council vote the PTC employees will receive raises ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent. This will increase the operating cost of the city by about $1 million per year.
Furthermore, the bulk of the $1 million for this raise will be going to the highest paid employees. The lowest paid will get much less. I guess the rich get more and the poor get little is acceptable to those that voted yes for the salary increase.
Most disturbingly, the council didn’t have a plan on how to fund the salary increase. It is almost inevitable that to cover this additional $1 million, the PTC Council must now vote for a tax increase, and pass the burden on to the residents of PTC.
During the meeting, several attempts by council members Imker and Learnard to discuss factual data to counter the survey and the expectation of the crowd were met with hostile boos and disrespectful interruptions. This makes me want to think twice next time I see a city employee.
The decision by those who voted in favor of the pay hike — Mayor Fleisch and council members King and Ernst — becomes even more unconscionable when considering that despite pleas made by dissenting council members to hold the vote until the survey’s conclusions and recommendations were fully assessed, and legitimate questions answered, the council moved with haste to vote yes to pay hike.
This is an irresponsible act by the PTC Council led by the mayor. Truly embarrassing, but it garnered roars of approval from the self-serving city employees’ crowd at the meeting.
A summary scoreboard looks like this:
• PTC employees, of which more than three-quarters live outside the city limits and don’t pay city taxes are now the beneficiary of the biggest pay grab in the history of PTC.
• PTC employees — who have nearly 100 percent job security — get above market pay and benefits and a most generous retirement plan.
• The salary disparity between PTC and comparable cities like Newnan and Fayetteville gets wider in favor of the PTC employees.
• The council acted in haste and without a plan to fund the $1 million cost of the pay raise.
• And of course, PTC residents must pay higher taxes.
Sadly, PTC is stuck with this crop of council members for another three years before they as voters can question them on their actions. Hopefully this will be campaign material when Fleisch, Ernst and King are up for reelection.
Franco Artiles
Peachtree City, Ga.
