Weather Forecast
47°, overcast
One of the argument by the Avedisian administration as well as the three municipal unions is that concessions by the bargaining units saved the city millions of dollars.
Using official City Budget document I decided to analyze the 100 level line items that include the employee Salary, Sick time, OT and vacation, etc. expenses and the employee benefit line items that consist of pension, healthcare and other benefits to determine if real dollars were saved.
Here are my findings.
Expenses related to Salary line items
2009 - $50,258,262
2010 - $47,864,060
2011 - $49,759,926
2012 - $50,224,984
2013 - $50,485,471
2014 - $51,149,635
2015 - $51,863,673
2016 - $54,479,733
2017 - $55,226,802
Expenses related to Employee Benefits line items
2009 - $41,330,889
2010 - $41,660,044
2011 - $44,166,673
2012 - $46,437,558
2013 - $50,782,594
2014 - $51,085,107
2015 - $54,720,143
2016 - $55,605,684
2017 - $56,620,662
Combined expenses & change from previous year
2009 - $91,589,151
2010 - $89,524,104 (-$2,065,047)
2011 - $93,926,599 (+$4,402,495)
2012 - $96,662,542 (+$2,735,943)
2013 - $101,268,065 (+$4,605,523)
2014 - $102,234,742 (+$966,677)
2015 - $106,583,816 (+$4,349,074)
2016 - $110,085,417 (+$3,501,601)
2017 - $111,847,464 (+$1,762,047)
Conclusion: whatever concessions were implemented by the administration and agreed to by the unions resulted in only 1 year (2009 to 2010) where expenses were reduced. Those saving were wiped out in the 2011 year as expenses increased by $4.4 million.
Bottom line: Expenses related to the 3 municipal union salary and benefits have steadily increased at times by very significant amounts year over year and whatever concessions that were agreed to DID NOT reduced overall employee expenses.
Please explain the inappropriate content below.