Gee, Dana can’t figure out why only drug users want to work for him?
Maybe it as something to do with the wages that are offered?
When you sell yourself as a low-wage state, you bring in low-end employees.
While there is only 6 employees in the Economic Development office, salaries add up to over $500K. Even the lowest paid employee of the department, the administrative assistant, makes over $49K a year. The department seems management heavy.
What surprises me about the department is how slim it is on office staff. I think the department has become very ‘tight’ or should I say ‘tight-lipped’ since Huether has become mayor. I guess the fewer people in the department, the less likely there are leaks.
Here is the full doc: 2017-Wages
Today we will look at the Health Department.
Did you know that some of the highest paid city employees are dentists?
The city health department employees 4 dentists with combined salaries of $620K. Seems odd, doesn’t it? When we think of snow plow operators or police officers, we think of direct service to the public, or at least most of it? But you wouldn’t likely use a city employed dentist unless you had to go to community health because financial restraints. In defense though, as I understand it, the community health department does try to receive some kind of payment. Sometimes through Medicare or Medicade. I would be curious how many patients are served by our city dentists each year?
It also seems the Health Department has many high paying jobs in the department besides dentists.
The Director receives $157K and the Chief Medical Officer about $205K a year. Oddly, even with these positions, the Director has 2 managers that receive the same wage of $88K a year. There are also 13 other mid-management that receives approximately between $80-$100K a year. The clinic even has its OWN finance director (even though the city has a well staffed finance division already) that makes $97K a year.
What is odd about these wages, that are probably not out of line of with a community our size is that many of the minions don’t even receive a living wage. Approximately 15 workers receive under $17 per hour (defined by Thrive as a living wage in Sioux Falls). With the remaining staff making a decent middle income of about $47K. The Sioux Health department has some of the highest wages (in management) of any department in the city) yet Sioux Falls continues to rank average or below average on National health rankings, especially when it comes to obesity and lack of exercise.
Here is the full doc: 2017-Wages
I’m finding some interesting arguments on the topic. This one from Washington State that says chartered cities like Sioux Falls could implement the rule, especially for APPOINTED positions (Like City Attorney, Finance director, etc);
Most cities probably do not have residency requirements for their employees, even if they can. Is it a good idea to require residency? Residency helps build a bond between employees and the community they serve. The public may expect city employees face the same restrictions, taxes, policies that they do, and that’s only possible if employees live within the same community where they work. On the other hand, requiring residency limits the size of the pool from which good employees come – probably the strongest argument against requiring residency. The smaller the city, of course, the more that becomes an issue. Ultimately, it is a policy decision, one that needs to be carefully considered.
Finally, note that, if the affected employees of a proposed residency or response time requirement are members of a union, this would be a matter that would need to be bargained.
I also find this argument from Minnesota about elected officials being required to live within the jurisdiction, then why not the employees?
Elected officials must maintain a city residency. Under the Minnesota Constitution, a candidate must live in the city for at least 30 days before a city election in order to serve as a mayor or councilmember. If a mayor or councilmember fails to maintain a city residency, state statute provides that a vacancy in office is created.
There are a ton of reasons for and against, I guess my argument would be ‘customer service’. Wouldn’t a city employee who lives in that community have more pride in the job they do? This would be an interesting debate to take up with the Charter Revision Commission and a possible ordinance change.
Remember the argument the city unions gave to proactively pay them? They said the money had already been budgeted. In other words the approximately $150K was already sitting in the account.
As the mayor reported on B-N-B’s show this morning, a resource officer at a local school recently shrugged off the mayor and wouldn’t look at him. Gee, I wonder why?
So what happens with the money now? I asked a local reporter and several city councilors to ask the same question several weeks ago, and haven’t gotten an answer.
One of the councilors had the idea of using the extra money on some training programs within the Police Department.
Not sure where it is, but I am still waiting on an answer, because knowing this mayor and administration, it certainly didn’t go back into the reserves, it got distributed, but if not to the unions, then to who?
l3wis