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Paul seriously how can you even claim that step increases and onetime bonuses are not part of a person’s salary? That thinking defies logic.

The July 1, 2014 Warwick Beacon article states, [Some Warwick employees may not take the $1,000 bonuses included in the mayor’s budget after all, because they apparently believe they can do better. According to reports, Warwick Firefighters are balking at the bonus that the mayor proposed as a means of thanking city employees for having agreed to a three-year contract without a wage increase. All three unions agreed to the “zero contract,” as it has become known.

However, the third year of the contract, which the city is now in, includes a wage re-opening clause.

“At this point, this is a line item in the budget,” DePasquale said of the $800,000 earmarked for bonuses.”]

In private industry $0 means no money for a step increase. $0 means no money for a bonus. $0 means no increase in pay. $0 means a job hiring freeze and if you are promoted, no increase in pay. $0 means some employees will lose their job.

What it also means is that if you want to keep your job, you take on the extra responsibility of your co-worker or manager who was laid off, making the same pay and being thankful you still have a job.

And if you ask many of those people they will tell you that during that period of time, massive increases in the cost of healthcare benefits were passed along to them, many had their 401K company match reduced or eliminated, take home pay was actually reduced. None of those conditions was ever experienced in Warwick over that 3 year period.

Did you know that a recent NY Times article indicated that the State of Illinois pension and healthcare benefit cost as a percent of the general fund budget is 33%. The article went on to say that “the State of Illinois is past the point of no return. It does not have the ability to raise taxes or cut spending to the degree necessary to reduce the annual cost of bond and retiree benefits from 33% to a sustainable level”.

Do you know what Warwick’s health and pension benefit cost is as a percent of the general fund budget is?

It’s 28% without factoring in current bond costs and that number is growing each year. And if the city approves the $88 million bond money to fix schools that percent could well be in line with Illinois.

So we can argue over semantics over what $0, $0, $0 really represented or you and all the other municipal active and retired employees can wake up and become part of a process to reform the current system built on a house of cards, before Warwick reaches the point of no return.

And just so you know these warning are not from me. Read what the city actuarial expert testified to back in a June 11, 2015 Beacon Article “Tough choices over costs of retiree benefits”. [“The report reads, “If the cumulative costs are unsustainable, employees should be made aware of this unavoidable fact of life and the consequences of inaction.” It reasons that when faced with the prospect of a “lost decade with virtually no salary increases and chronic workforce attrition, many employees will eventually accept the need for change, especially if the reforms are phased in incrementally and designed thoughtfully.”

Looking at what’s happening in the city, Merolla asked Monday, “Where’s the breaking point? Is there a way to figure that out?”

“I think you’ve been there for a long time,” Cerrone answered. “If this was my business model I would run away from it.”]