Sioux Falls Charter Revision Commission throws out Council Raise proposal
l3wis I felt a little bad, just before turning in last night, I saw this story;
Both recommendations were brought to a vote and rejected. Zokaites’ was shot down in a 4-0 vote and Zylstra’s was rejected in a split vote.
I totally forgot about the CRC meeting yesterday and to my surprise they threw out the proposal. The interesting part was the vote was a gender split. The two women on the CRC, Chair Anne Hajek and Catherine Dekkenga both voted against the proposal siting the freaking obvious, voters just rejected this and we should essentially listen to the vote.
Members Carl Zylstra and Larry Long voted for the proposal. Since it needs all 4 votes to move an item to the ballot, it failed on a 2-2 vote.
I will agree with Carl on one aspect, the council pay does need to be looked at, and I encourage the new council to put together a commission to study it. As I have said, the inflation/deflation works well and I would keep that part in check, because it keeps the council away from giving themselves or future councilors a raise. What I think needs to be adjusted is compensation for doing actual work. I think the SF School board gets paid for meetings. In other words they are paid for how much they show up. And they have to submit their time to get paid. If I had to guess, a school board member probably makes around $400 a month. (it’s been years since I have looked at this, so I am not sure how it works now, and I can’t find anything on the District’s horrible, horrible, website) If that pay was a deterrent someone needs to tell Kate Serebetz who has sat on the board for 14 years.
Once the council commission puts together a proposal, they should immediately move it to the 2026 municipal election ballot and let the voters approve the changes.
I think voters would approve a base pay with supplementals.
One thing that was NOT pointed out during the discussion is that this is a terrible time to be talking about giving elected officials raises. We may not be in a recession, and we are coming out pretty fast but the last 3 years have been Hell on folks personal finances and they are NOT in the mood to hand out raises.
This didn’t stop the lead city attorney to suggest that the language for Mr. Zylstra’s proposal came from a national municipal governing organization.
While I would agree that is a good place to start to put together model legislation the irony is staggering.
The council and mostly administration has ignored national recommendations on building codes, climate change and sustainability, public transit, and so many I could barely count. But when it comes to raises, we should really follow the advice of a national organization? Why start now?
I will give you a recent example. Several national organizations have offered to help evaluate the Delbridge Museum mounts. The city ignored these folks and hired the janitor from Cabelas to review the collection. (he really wasn’t the janitor, but you get the picture).
They also took a wrecking ball to the internal audit department essentially jobbing out our INTERNAL audit. WTF?!
I recently ran into a prominent citizen advocate who is working with several different advocacy groups in Sioux Falls. At a recent meeting that some councilors attended I asked this person what their involvement or input was, they said, ‘The council has had plenty of time to do something. To heck with them.’
And they are right. The council has had their hands tied during this administration. What people don’t understand is that council must work with city staff and directors to create policy, and if the mayor’s office rejects such assistance, there is little the council can do except pout. And if we paid them for pouting they would be millionaires. This is why I have suggested that when they hire an executive assistant, that person should also be a paralegal. They also need their own attorney. The back and forth with the mayor’s office is ridiculous and the council can put a stop to it. I have even suggested they put in ordinance that city directors MUST correspond with councilors DIRECTLY to form policy. While councilors would be limited as to what they can make this person do, it would hold their feet to the fire.
We have a power vacuum in city government and the only solution is more cow bell . . . I mean we need to put the charter in the paper shredder and start over (maybe ring a cow bell to over power the noise of the shredder). The system while designed well has led to massive corruption because of this power vacuum. I expect a little noise in 2024 when it comes to this topic. And when they have the presser to announce the petition drive to overturn the charter, I would surround the podium with paper shredders and have several volunteers shredding the charter.
