Sunday, June 27, 2010

Second Verse...Same as the First

We received this from a resident who either attended or caught the video re-run of the recent budget hearing held on June 21st. Enjoy.

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All indications are that the district spent this year doing the same thing they did last year—motivating the “wrong” people to show up to the October meeting. Between now and October it appears that they will overpay for a pool manager. Though it is difficult for most people to evaluate the wisdom of most expenditures made by the district, each of us has a pretty good idea of what a pool manager should make. If someone really cares, they could do a job search and find out what pool managers are making these days.

What they would find is that Milwaukee YMCA is hiring a manager for aquatic facilities at 2 locations, with a budget of more than a half million dollars and responsibility to about 10,000 members. They are hiring this individual in the $38k-44k range. Further searches show that that is about average nationwide for the position (a position less complicated than the one we need to fill).

to fill a pool manager position that pays 20% less everywhere else in the world. Since this is a number that is pretty easy to evaluate, it serves as a proxy for how smart they are being with our money. If they are being that careless with that money, they are probably overpaying other places too. Actions like this will make the October meeting a tough one for board members.
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SP-EYE's take. We agree with what this resident presents. However, one teensey weensy little fact makes up for the apparent discrepancy in the hiring salary. You see...our Pool Manager (sorry...we're not falling for the touchy feely, use-big-words-to-justify-an-exorbitant-salary trick) will be an employee of a school district (ours). School districts are the Exxon-Mobils of the education game. Recession proof. Big Pay. Oh... and the CEOs cost us a fortune.