City of Sioux Falls Big Salary increases even with slow tax revenue

1. Was told that directors and other non-union city employees are eligible for step increases like the union employees get. Any idea if these numbers reflect that?

2. good to see mmm running the city like a business. raises for executives, and wage freezes for the regular employees. we are then told that management “needs” the raises to keep them, and the other employees are told if they don’t like it, quit.

3. Directors should be ashamed for selling out and taking handsome increases while police got nothing. The Parks Director should be fired for mismanaging the golf contract. With 70 Parks employees, why can’t they manage golf. The Finance Director has yet to present actual numbers and excessive debt. The Fire Chief lives out of town. He got a raise but doesn’t pay taxes here. Even with a raise the city attorney resigned. The new one got a raise before doing anything. I wonder whether most directors bother to report to work. I’ll defend the Public Works Director. He got a raise but has performed well and prevented Huether from robbing from his budget for more play places.

4. Calculating the percentage instead of just the amount of the raise this looks in line with a step raise amount. Pretty normal stuff the city has been doing for years for both Union and management employees.

5. Pretty standard for Mike. Reward the directors. Piss on the small guy. I’ve heard the unions are being told the City is budgeting for 0 percent growth and the upcoming contract negotiations will reflect that. Only positive is that Mike will be gone and penning his memoir before those negotiations start. Turbak earned his 16K with all the lies he’s told the last couple of years.

6. You may be partially right about the step increases, but I don’t think you step from a $10K raise one year to a $6K the next. If you look at some of the other director raises over the past few years, they have stepped from $2K to $4K. Either way, step or no step, Huether has final say on what their raises are and can override any increase. He also approves EVERY new hire, doesn’t matter the title.

7. Sandman. Last year when the front line police officers were told to eat cake, I did some checking around. Omaha is considerably larger than SF, and has considerably more fulltime city employees. Yet SF has considerably more employees that make more than six figures. Why do you suppose that is Sandman?

8. Heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes all continue to increase in our growing city population. Are you going to blame that on Jill Franken?

9. If I worked for the city how could I find something to do? Even with coffee and long lunch breaks with 4 weeks vacation you must do something some of the time. Oh, I forget the time clocked in for fully compensated dental and doctor appointments. 70 people in the Parks department? I’m medically retired but I’d hate to have to go to work and play cards or dominoes all day.

10. WP – Easy.

11. first mayoral candidate who says they’ll immediately fire kearney, turbak, ketcham, and franken has my vote. i’d throw cotter in there as well after his department allowed this asbestos fiasco with hultgren to happen. i’d also like to see at least a 2 year freeze on all directors salaries.

12. While I agree with you, I would go a few steps forward. I would replace Matt Burns with a person from a national search that knows how to combat drug crimes. I would also liquidate the entire city attorney’s office. And there would be a mass exodus on middle management. Some say that could be legally sticky, but I don’t think so. With the economy the way it has been and sales tax revenue, you can easily cut those positions (which are costing us the most). Just look at the Fire Department, that is swimming in middle management.

13. I heard the PD put another officer on their drug task force recently and drug arrests and seizures keep going up per the media. Seems like our local cops are doing a decent job with it. Seems like there’s a lot of drugs everywhere. Maybe the feds need to work harder keeping it out of our state?

14. I agree. I wish the Feds, DEA, etc. would work more with local authorities to come up with a serious game plan. But that also takes leadership from the SFPD to take the bull by the horns.

15. observer, I would add Mike Cooper to that list.

16. Just so we have it straight, when it comes to drugs you want the city to tell the feds what to do but when it comes to the Copper Lounge investigation you want the feds to tell the city what to do. Clear as mud. Where do you come up with this stuff?

17. I want them to work together. Just because the Feds are investigating the Copper Lounge collapse is NO reason why the city can’t be a part of that, or our states attorney.

18. “Just because the Feds are investigating the Copper Lounge collapse is NO reason why the city can’t be a part of that, or our states attorney.”

    My guess is that some within the City are a part of it as they are or were questioned by OSHA, OSHA’s Inspector General, and maybe the FBI.

    As far as the State’s Attorney, well, there should be a grand jury into this, regardless of the Feds, on a potential criminal negligence inquiry at the state level, but then again, our local SA is too busy dealing with the City’s “meth strategy.”

    Remember, the next time a state or local politician calls for more local control make sure to remember the circumstances surrounding the building collapse, then ask yourself if the “locals” are ready for the control or have the means and where for all to use it and get it done.

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