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Thread summary:

Seeking opinions on what services people would give up for lower taxes, school sports, clubs, extracurricular activities, school taxes are large portion of bill

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Old 09-27-2007, 06:25 PM
 
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VTP -

The only thing that I have to say to your post is that I only pay about $1100 annually towards local government (village tax), the vast majority of my taxes is paid towards schools , which again I will probably never use because of the excessive taxes. The famous Catch-22

SGC
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Old 09-27-2007, 07:01 PM
 
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[quote=sgc from LI;1589451]If the problem stems from "lifelong" benefits including defined pensions , then what suggestions do you have to change them?

Simple, change the rules for all new hires as of a certain date. 401K's with generous matches for all new hires . Retirement health insurance only until you reach the age for medicare. Salaries between public and private companies are not as far apart as in the past where you needed the exceptional benefits to make up for the far lower salaries the public sector made.

If this doesn't work, do like they do in the private sector, outsource as much of the work as you can. Let's use the "global economy" to our advantage for once.
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Old 09-28-2007, 09:24 AM
 
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As I previously stated, I have been employed by the NYCDOT and I have read your suggestions , here are my thoughts -
As far as NYC (not exactly sure how village/county/town governments work) they are completely against a matching 401K (they have, however began to waiver on this in the last few years but only to the point of matching 1-3%), Retirement health insurance for uniformed services only until medicare - uniform retirement begins at age 40 , so that still brings in 25 years of compensation.
As far as comparable salaries based on private sector - there is a VAST discrepancy between the two. For an example, our dept just hired 78 maintenance workers (but let me stress that this specific title does heavy duty construction and rigging on highways and bridges, they are only maintenance because the city creates their own title structure)and they are paid less than $28K annually to start( the salary goes to around $45K after 8 years) ,these titles in the private sector pay well over $75K so we have hired much less competent people and that may be why you see 4-5 men standing around while only one is working (in my experience, the one that is working is usually either the most experienced or the least experienced)
Outsourcing - my division (borough engineering) controls signs, markings, and lighting for the city and we always used private contractors to do the vast majority of the work. About 10 years ago , the had a managed competition between the contractors and the civil servants who do the same work .... well, the first fiscal year the city saved over $16M (yes, $16,000,000), while the previous year paying out a total of only $42M (that's close to 40%). So, now the unions know that either the civil servants work harder than they seem or the private sector was SCREWING the city more than anyone was aware. In either case, there is no way to lessen the benefit package and get the unions to agree, the phrase that is used is "hurting/killing the unborn" which basically translates into giving new or future hires less than current employees but in order for negotitaion to happen on these policies there must be some giveback to current employees... since money is not an option for the city, they have nothing to give but benefits... so , again , with the unions fighting for current employees to gain money/benefits and the "killing the newborns" being your option , current employees would GAIN a lot before any savings would be seen. Remember , by current employees I mean anyone on payroll , even one year, so helping current employees and lessening the new hires would take over 25 years to show a real benefit and nobody in politics wants to be the one to spend more now so that the future politicians can show a savings !

Sorry about the runons but I was in a bit of a rush here LOL

SGC
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Old 09-28-2007, 10:24 AM
 
62 posts, read 205,066 times
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An update on the "outsourcing" idea -

I had an office worker pull an older sign installation contract (1994 , one of the last contracts). It shows that the contractor charges per unit installed not per hour worked so there is no way to correlate the data exactly but I will give it a shot -
For 1 "complete" installation (sign & support) the contractor charged $141 per unit
1 support only (which I cannot see ever happening?) charge of $98 per unit
Remove and replace sign on existing support - $41 - $45 per unit
In comparison , our crews (which earned at that time approx $160 per manday) would install 8 supports and 26 signs per 2 man crew . If the contractor were to use these numbers , an average day would cost approx $1800 while our inhouse crews (the socalled lazy workers) would run at a cost of approx $320 (excluding the cost of the rail, the sign and truck expenses which as far as the price I would say the total would be less than $300 ) , so each individual crew saved the city over $1000 per day over outsourcing. I know that seems bizarre but there are only 5 or 6 contractors who are large enough to handle the sheer numbers we deal with and they apparantly using supply and demand with pricing. Also , not dealing with pricing but a very important issue, there was a new law passed that states that all life protecting signs (stops, one ways, do not enters) must be replaced within 3 business days of report. There is no way for a contractor to do that since there is no network for them to receive the calls that quickly and we would need some large number of inspectors to verify that they were in fact being done in a timely fashion. I am also quite sure that if we would place a "deadline" on certain installations their per unit fee would skyrocket

I know this is only a minute portion of city tax but look at what the alternatives, that were in place for over 40 years, had cost the city taxpayers while outsourcing. I would have to believe that if I check other contracts and other governments around the area the same would be true. So, outsourcing of production ,teleservicing or some off site work may be beneficial in cost analysis, these services are actually much cheaper to be done in house as I'm sure are most civil service projects
These are actual numbers , not estimates although they are over a decade old I am sure they are still comparable to todays costs. I picked this contract because I just attended a meeting with the contractor who wanted to be reevaluated for reinstatement and was quickly denied due to cost

hope this sheds a little light on outsourcing

SGC
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Old 09-28-2007, 11:01 AM
 
Location: Little Babylon
5,072 posts, read 9,112,750 times
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I'm not a fan of outsourcing, but the logic behind it is that while I may pay more now for that person, I won't be paying for their benefits and retirement. I also will only need to hire enough people to get the job done and then let them go when I don't need them.
I've been on both sides of outsourcing/contracting and sometimes it's good, and other times it's the dumbest idea in the world.
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Old 09-28-2007, 03:42 PM
 
Location: home...finally, home .
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or ..... teachers could spray for mosquitoes during the summer .......
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Old 09-28-2007, 05:04 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ClarkStreetKid View Post
I'm not a fan of outsourcing, but the logic behind it is that while I may pay more now for that person, I won't be paying for their benefits and retirement. I also will only need to hire enough people to get the job done and then let them go when I don't need them.
I've been on both sides of outsourcing/contracting and sometimes it's good, and other times it's the dumbest idea in the world.
That's also what I mean by outsourcing. You maybe paying more per unit, but you are eliminating the union positions and gaining the savings in health insurance and pension benefits. That is where the savings come from. I'm sure Stop signs can be made cheaper in China than here. How about using the illegals to install the signs? I'm sure they can turn a wrench, and maybe the tax payers would actually get a monetary benefit from having them around
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Old 09-28-2007, 05:06 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nancy thereader View Post
or ..... teachers could spray for mosquitoes during the summer .......
I love it . LOL
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Old 09-28-2007, 06:36 PM
 
62 posts, read 205,066 times
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Using illegals to do civil service work? Hmmm , novel idea...maybe they could also be teachers , why not ...just get the ones that can speak english and all they need to do is transfer the information to the students ...wow, in fact, we can get illegals to do all of the work in government- Politicians, Police officers, Firemen,etc... this sounds like a great plan

All I am trying to convey is that there is a lot more involved than "using a wrench" , let's just say that if they cannot properly read the order and install the supports properly you would be just waiting for millions of dollars in lawsuits. Again , we tried using workfare (welfare recipients) to assist workers and it didn't work in the least , it slowed sown the job to a standstill and then the backlog created a huge overtime burden.

As to the outsourcing being cheaper in the longrun, check my earlier post - I cannot foresee the savings adding up at anytime in the future. I listed how inhouse workers saved $1000's of dollars per day per crew (those 2 workers will NEVER get that in their lifetime, including defined benefits and lifetime medical). Also , if we do "release" the current workers, or soon to be hired workers (trust me, they are barely trained workers) where would they work, the unemployment rate would probably triple, the crime rate would increase, the foreclosure rate would be astronomical ...none of these would benefit anyone and would increase the tax burden to all

And even if all of these things didn't happen , and your ideas are valid, the immediate increase in cost would be so insurmountable that the tax burden would force most homeowners to get second or third jobs. And , as we see , they would have to be illegals to get a job LOL
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Old 09-28-2007, 07:24 PM
 
Location: Little Babylon
5,072 posts, read 9,112,750 times
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Like I said, I've been on both sides of the outsourcing issue as a contractor, as someone who has hired contractors, and as someone who has spent a good deal of time fixing the work of all that cost saving labor in India. Depending on how it's used it can be great, but too many look only at the cost savings and not the quality of the work being done.
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