A Matter Of Opinion

City worker pay

Posted by Gary at 10:07 a.m. on October 14 Comments (44)

I had my say on the reluctance of police to practice shared sacrifice. The loss of 22 officers looms, says the mayor. This is an issue with firefighters and other employee unions, too.

UPDATE: County seeking concessions, too.

Thoughts?

44 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

gmorton on October 14 at 11:32 a.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“Despite exhaustive research, little compelling evidence exists that state health insurance mandates do, in fact, have a significant impact on costs.”

Like the Himmelstein “medical bankruptcy” claim, that is a claim of which a savvy reporter should be suspicious *prima facie*. It implies that one can get a free lunch – that one can add coverages without costs; that one can buy a Lexus for the same price as a Honda. The history of insurance rates in Washington State between 1990 and 1995 should tell you otherwise.

http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Cente…

http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Cente…

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Gary Crooks on October 14 at 12:05 p.m.
Actually, Rutgers wrote that after reviewing several studies. And nobody is saying there are “no costs.”

By the same token, there are health-care savings embedded in mandates. Because without them, people would go without some treatments/procedures, which can lead to larger expenses down the road.

http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads…

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Ron_the_Cop on October 14 at 12:06 p.m.
Gary,

As I said in Community Comment:

“A lot of what Mayor Verner is saying is in governmental speak. There is always a certain number of unfilled positions as people quite, retire et al. Normally you can't offer a position until someone leaves. There is always a lag time to fill these vacant positions. Whether it's a new hire that has to go through the police academy and in house training program or if they hire a lateral from another department. It's always a game of catch up and you will never get all positions filled unless you allow for a budget overfill to counter the attrition.

These unfilled positions are fully funded in the budget. That's the key. This money is diverted to other purposes and is attributed in budget speak as “salary savings.” It's this cushion that that Mayor is cutting.”

As a former police officers' association president (350 members) having negotiated on behalf of our association but also being involved in financial investigations on our city, there is more to this story than meets the eye. The politicians always shove police/fire out front but often are not forced to look at other potential savings in other questionable City services or under utilization of resources.

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Gary Crooks on October 14 at 12:11 p.m.
So the salaries vs. the median income of the area vs. the cost of living here all make sense to you?

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westside on October 14 at 1:12 p.m.
Gary, you are so right, the median salary for Spokane can not support theses high wages, fire dept is very high also. Spokane just does not have the wages and salaries and jobs to support city wages. And police and fire are all tied to the big metro areas,,,Sea -Tacoma-Portland, where their median income is much higher and they can afford to pay high wages to city workers. The time is coming that Spokane will have to issue $100 million bonds..just to pay the salaries of its people. Look we already have bonds to fix streets, buy fire trucks and gear…there is no capital money left in the budget for these expenditures…70 percent of all taxes goes toward Spokane city employees wages, pensions, etc…taxpayers can't afford it.

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spokelooneh on October 14 at 1:31 p.m.
If I were all powerful, I'd cut salaries, across the board, of all City entities:

5% from senior management
3% from middle management
1% from rank and file.

Slash overtime to the bone as well, at least by 50%.

This a lower cost area to live than the west side, and is poorer in general. As I recall, the 3rd Legislative district is the poorest in the state. City employees enjoying salaries on par with the west side will have a comparably higher standard of living here. That luxury is unjustifiable and unaffordable.

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Rifleman__Dodd on October 14 at 1:46 p.m.
Many years ago public servant salaries were way below private industry because they had great benefits, retirement plans, and fewer workdays as compensation.

That crept up during the last 30 years as the negotiators did the ol bait n switch routine attempting to compare the public servant wages to the private ones. Thats why we have public servants making much more money than the public they are supposed to serve.

Just take a walk through the Public Safety Building employee parking lot and you wont find any 62 Ramblers parked in there. Just big brand new SUV's, Monster Trucks and luxury sedans automobiles.

Perhaps our public servants should attempt to live on the same income as the people they are supposed to serve. Perhaps their pay should be tied to the average income of the area?

I'm sure it would take some work to determine the value of the homes that our SPD officers own, but the information is all there in public records. Probably no shantys in Hilyard.

Even at the State level there is inequity. The State Superintendant of Education makes less than most School District Administrators. Ridiculous.

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Ron_the_Cop on October 14 at 2:34 p.m.
Gary,

Re salaries and median income you do have a point. But police are fickle and will go where the salaries are higher even if cost of living may be more. Any agency that is significantly lower than their perceived comparable agencies often will not get the best qualified candidates or retain them once they become proficient. You run the risk of becoming a training ground for other agencies. You lose on both ends.

Don't get me wrong there are many issues with Spokane PD and are you getting your money's worth. I'm sympathetic to the street cops but believe many of the real issues rest with police and City management not effectively leading and setting standards for the department.

The real question is why is the Spokane median salary so depressed in comparison to the rest of the state?

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Gary Crooks on October 14 at 2:42 p.m.
SPD is the highest paying in these parts. It is comparable to many West Side cities. It is CDA, Post Falls, the county, etc., that are the “training grounds.” Those agencies do complain about losing good people because of lower pay.

Wouldn't think it would be hard for SPD to find replacements.

<<The real question is why is the Spokane median salary so depressed in comparison to the rest of the state?>>

That's not something that the council can solve, but in the meantime, it makes it a cheap place to live, which means those officers' dollars go even further.

It's also why it's hard to get a teaching job in Spokane. Cost of living on the West Side kills teachers.

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gmorton on October 14 at 6:38 p.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“Actually, Rutgers wrote that after reviewing several studies. And nobody is saying there are 'no costs.'”

They didn't look very hard.

Blue Shield of Idaho “NowSelect” plan ($2500 deductible, 20% copay. Covers prescription benefits, preventive care, maternity.
Excludes alternative care, mental health, vision, dental):

40 year-old male: $106; female: $153 (rates for N. Idaho)

Blue Shield of Washington “NowSelect” plan ($2500 deductible, 20% co-pay. Covers preventive care, “alternative care,” mental health. Excludes prescription benefits, maternity, vision, dental):

40 year old male or female: smoker: $216; non-smoker: $188

The “NowSelect” plans are the budget plans.

http://www.regence.com/ID/products/me…

http://www.regence.com/WARBS/products…

Idaho has 13 mandates; Washington 57. (Washington does not mandate maternity or prescription coverage for “catastrophic” plans).

http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/res…

Interestingly, many of the preferred providers for the Idaho plans are in Spokane.

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Lewis on October 15 at 9:36 a.m.
Finally what I have been preaching for years is coming to pass. The funnel is blocked. The average family in Spokane makes 35 grand a year, the average city worker makes 65 with benefits. There just is not enough money in the kitty to pay the high wages and benefits the city and county workers make. The buck has to stop somewhere and it is stopping now,

One of the major problem is there are just too many government workers now days. They are the ones voting for the new taxes and such the average guy votes against. They have basically backed the taxpayer into a corner stole their wallets and now want more.

The unions won’t let go of the purse strings and in turn they will lose countless members, because there just won’t be any more money.

And if that isn’t enough the average government worker does not do a good days work for their pay, many of them goof off because they can get away with it. Example on Hb there is a fellow that has admitted working for DSHS (yes I know state) and he is on HB all day long every 5 minutes he is leaving a comment. I don’t care of he is data entry person the time he takes blogging he should be working.

I am in agreement with the person who suggested we stop paying taxes and when the system dies we make a new system that works. Continuing down the path we are on will result in more unemployment and higher taxes.

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spoketucky on October 15 at 9:45 a.m.
I was appalled last spring when school employees and teachers didn't concede to shared sacrifice and save the jobs of their fellows by taking small, temporary reductions in pay/benefits.

District 81 Superintendent, Nancy Stowell makes well more than any elected official in the state.

http://www.salaries.wa.gov/documents/…

Only one high school in Spokane meets adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind dictates. Yet the same school board members are elected year after year, including a president who might soon be facing federal charges for conspiracy.

It's time for a change in Spokane Public Schools and people need to be held accountable for the record of near abysmal failure they've produced recently. The drop out rate is beyond 1/3 and for certain student communities, like Native Americans, it is well beyond 50%.

I've worked in your schools and just below the thin sheen of glad handing and self congratulatory back slapping is a culture of lazy incompetence. 1 out of every 10 teachers is actually there to help your children make educational progress and the remainder have other motives.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 10:37 a.m.
Well, then. There's your solution.

Idaho, 20 percent uninsured. Nirvana!

Washington, 17 percent.

Texas, 28 percent.

Must be those regs!
.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 10:39 a.m.
Eventually, 100 percent of schools would fail AYP, which says more about NCLB.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 10:48 a.m.
CAHI is the insurance industry. Grain of salt with that information.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?…

Rutgers considered CAHI's numbers.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 11:06 a.m.
Here's a good analysis of the winners and losers in ASL (across state lines):

http://www.newamerica.net/files/Polic…

The insurance industry likes it because it means it can better segregate the market of young/healthy vs. the rest. In short, it can do a more efficient job of cherry-picking who do cover and who to reject.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 11:14 a.m.
Should be “who to cover”

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gmorton on October 15 at 1:30 p.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“Idaho, 20 percent uninsured. Nirvana! Washington, 17 percent.”

Washington has a higher median household income than Idaho: $59,119 v. $46, 136. Washington also has its Basic Health program, which currently covers about 100,000 persons. Idaho has no similar program, although it has a premium assistance program for employees of small businesses. It is limited by statute to 1000 beneficiaries. Typical government behavior: make insurance unaffordable by enacting mandates, then create a government program to insure those priced out of the market.

“CAHI is the insurance industry. Grain of salt with that information.”

That is an *ad hominem* argument. I know it is a rhetorical mainstay of the Left, but it is always fallacious.

“Rutgers considered CAHI's numbers.”

The only CAHI number I cited was the respective number of mandates. Is that information inaccurate?

There are a number of markets across the country which cross state lines. They tend to have similar demographics on both sides of the line, and probably constitute a single health care market. Rates should be compared in those cases where, like Spokane, one of the states is high-mandates and the other is low-mandates. That would afford the direct comparisons the Rutgers authors claimed was lacking.

That would be a good investigative project for the S-R – insurance rates in WA v. ID, for different types of plans, especially in markets like Spokane-Kootenai and Lewiston-Clarkston.

PS: Your Newamerica link gives a 404.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 1:35 p.m.
Try this link.

http://www.newamerica.net/pressroom/2…

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 2:19 p.m.
CBO:

“Empirical evidence on the effect of benefit mandates on premiums and coverage is limited. A recent study spon¬sored by the state of Maryland found that the total cost of services covered by the state’s benefit mandates equaled 15 percent of all covered claims.

“That figure overstates the extent to which benefit mandates raise health insurance premiums nationally, for two reasons: first, because Maryland mandates more benefits than most other states; and second, because some insurers would have covered the mandated benefits even if they had not been required to do so (a factor noted in the study).

“On the basis of data on mandated benefits in other states and evidence on the extent to which insurers cover such benefits in the absence of mandates, CBO assumes that, averaged across the country as a whole, existing state benefit mandates increase premiums in the individual and small-group markets by approximately 2 percent to 3 percent.”

The Rutgers research states that many studies fail to account for the above and they fail to account for HC cost-savings because of a mandate that led to access to some technology or treatment.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 2:26 p.m.
<<Washington has a higher median household income than Idaho: $59,119 v. $46, 136. Washington also has its Basic Health program, which currently covers about 100,000 persons. Idaho has no similar program, although it has a premium assistance program for employees of small businesses. It is limited by statute to 1000 beneficiaries. >>

This is why it's dicey to compare state to state, because there are factors, such as cost of services, which are different. Mandates are not among the top cost-drivers.

In any event, no amount of mandate reduction is going to put a serious dent in the 17 percent uninsured number for Idaho, unless you offer bare-bones policies.

You can then declare that people are “covered”, but not much.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 15 at 2:43 p.m.
Gary,

All that being said, it does seem that there is some special interest 'pork' that could be trimmed from state mandates.

I mean … toupees? Spiritual counseling?

On the other hand, I can see how wielding the trimming knife could quickly get uncomfortable. Oh sure, it might not be too hard to tell Bernie that he's going to have to buy his own toupee. But I think it might not be quite so easy to tell June that if she can't afford it herself, she can't have post-cancer breast reconstruction. Especially when the data indicates that mandating that adds “less than 1%” to the costs of insurance policies.

And once you start letting compassion cloud your fiscal judgment…

Maybe it's better to just stick with cold statistics and keep this all at a lofty, theoretical level after all.

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gmorton on October 15 at 4:11 p.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“This is why it's dicey to compare state to state, because there are factors, such as cost of services, which are different.”

That is why markets which cross states lines are ideal study targets. Patients in Kootenai and Spokane Counties will be using many of the same providers.

“Mandates are not among the top cost-drivers.”

Begs the question. But it is certainly not the *primary* cost driver. Health care costs win that award. The ID/WA comparisons directly show the cost of one mandate: Men in WA pay considerably more in WA than in ID, for all ages, because WA does not allow sex-based rates. Women cost more to insure than men, because they utilize more services, even without counting maternity. So men are subsidizing them.

Rates for women in WA are also higher than in ID, because WA requires coverage for contraceptives and mental health services, which women use about 3 times more than men.

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Gary Crooks on October 15 at 4:25 p.m.
You can also say that by government stepping in with Basic Health many big costs have been headed off because those people now have preventive care.

Meanwhile in Idaho, it's off to the emergency room.

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gmorton on October 15 at 8:43 p.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“You can also say that by government stepping in with Basic Health many big costs have been headed off because those people now have preventive care.

“Meanwhile in Idaho, it's off to the emergency room.”

Well, then, it's not working very well. In 2007, WA had 362 emergency room visits per 1000 population. ID had 348.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/compa…

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spoketucky on October 15 at 10:24 p.m.
crooks: Yeah, eventually the might all fail. I'm talking about now and every preceding year the act has been the law of the land. I'm sure NCLB is to blame for horrid graduation rates as well.

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spoketucky on October 15 at 10:30 p.m.
Why does the District 81 superintendent make more in annual salary than the State Superintendent of Public Education?

Why does she earn more income than Chris Gregoire?

Am I missing something here? If Sowell had to run for re-election based upon the performance of her schools would she win?

The entirety of District 81 is top heavy in administration. Every school and every department at district headquarters could be pared of half their admin staff and no one would notice a difference. Well, maybe one difference: Those that remained would actually have to do something or at least get better at appearing they are doing something while accomplishing nothing.

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gmorton on October 16 at 12:26 a.m.
Spoke,

Every public school district is top-heavy in administration. They typically have 10 times the admin costs (non-teaching, central office personnel) per pupil as private school systems. Teachers are also, on average, less well qualified and yet paid more than teachers in private schools.

Bottom line: per pupil costs in public schools are roughly twice those in private schools, and students do less well by most measures.

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Gary Crooks on October 16 at 12:28 p.m.
<<Well, then, it's not working very well. In 2007, WA had 362 emergency room visits per 1000 population. ID had 348.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/compa…>>

That's clearly the fault of Basic Health, which leads to ER visits.

Cut coverage and you get fewer visits!

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Gary Crooks on October 16 at 12:36 p.m.
<<Bottom line: per pupil costs in public schools are roughly twice those in private schools, and students do less well by most measures.>>

Private schools can reject kids with pre-existing conditions.

Sounds familiar.

Except in health care, it's the privates with higher pay and higher administrative costs. And per patient costs are higher in the U.S. than anywhere else. And the patients do less well on many measures.

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gmorton on October 16 at 2:13 p.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,

“Private schools can reject kids with pre-existing conditions.”

Yes. They can reject kids who are not capable of or not prepared to handle the school's curriculum. As they should. Those kids would not benefit from attendance and would divert resources from the kids who would benefit.

What counts re: health care costs is not whether providers are public or private, but whether the system is market-driven. The health care system in the US is not; it is privately owned, by and large, but not privately managed. It is managed by government, via licensing and mandates, and by third-party payers.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 17 at 4:34 a.m.
–— Yes. They can reject kids who are not capable of or not prepared to handle the school's curriculum. As they should. Those kids would not benefit from attendance and would divert resources from the kids who would benefit. –—

And it is in our society's best interest to just cast the under-achievers by the way-side? All these under-educated, unprepared kids aren't just going to go away. Someday they will be under-educated, unprepared adults. Then what?

Same with the folks with pre-existing conditions 'draining' the medical system's resources. What happens to them? 'Just go somewhere and die quietly'? I don't recall ever getting a direct answer to that question, though I do recall posing it several times.

This survival of the fittest social Darwin-ism makes a nice sounding theory. If you don't look at it too closely, that is. But when you actually try to apply it to people and then consider the consequences…

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gmorton on October 17 at 9:05 p.m.
As I mentioned before, Jeffrey, “society” doesn't have any interests. That is an example of the “Fallacy of Composition.” Only individual persons have interests, and they differ from person to person.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallac…

The unprepared, undereducated kids are still gonna be undereducated and unprepared when they drop out at age 12 or 14. Keeping them in a classroom where they learn nothing for a few years does neither the kids nor the taxpayers any favors.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 18 at 5:02 a.m.
“As I mentioned before, Jeffrey, “society” doesn't have any interests.”

Then society has no basis for action and serves no useful purpose.

The assertion that society has no interests to preserve is the fundamental fallacy of your Utopian construct. In the end, your description of society is nothing more than some highly suspect semantics promulgated to serve a very narrow-view agenda.

“The unprepared, undereducated kids are still gonna be undereducated and unprepared when they drop out at age 12 or 14. Keeping them in a classroom where they learn nothing for a few years does neither the kids nor the taxpayers any favors.”

This still evades the question and in doing so and in my opinion proves the fundamental flaw in you philosophy in that it can't adequately answer specific, real-world issues. Is this the societal policy we wish to pursue: 'Cast 'em by the wayside and forget about 'em'? Or could we instead - *as a society* - decide that our responsibilities lie with doing what it takes and spending what it takes to improve their situation *and thus our situation in the long-term*, versus just grabbing the obvious brass ring of short term profits and 'lower taxes and fewer responsibilities now no matter what the ultimate cost later'?

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gmorton on October 18 at 8:20 p.m.
Jeffrey_Grey wrote,

“Then society has no basis for action and serves no useful purpose.”

How did you deduce that from what I said?

Societies are not organisms, not sentient entities with interests, goals, and purposes of their own. They are simply collections of such organisms – the term refers to a number of persons who happen, by accident of birth, to occupy a common territory and are thus in a position to interact. The only purposes to be found in them are the diverse purposes of those constituent individuals. Persons remain in that “default” social setting because it offers advantages in the pursuit of their own purposes – opportunities for finding friendship and mates, opportunities for finding others who share certain of one's interests and may be willing to cooperate in their pursuit, and the advantages of a division of labor. Those are the “useful purposes” of society – it is a living arrangement useful for achieving the purposes of those who participate in it. It is useful in the same sense in which a band is useful to a musician or a cast is useful to an actor, or a hammer is useful to a carpenter.

“The assertion that society has no interests to preserve is the fundamental fallacy of your Utopian construct.”

If you think societies have interests other than those of the individuals who constitute them, I'd be interested in hearing how you have learned of them and would go about verifying them.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 19 at 6:21 a.m.
Sophistry and semantics.

A society is composed of individuals, that's true. But the collective goals of those individuals are expressed as the interests of the society. It's when those interests are best addressed by the joint resources and collective effort of the society as a whole that your Utopian 'Land of Not My Problem' begins to look deeply suspect.

A society - as a whole - has a vested interest in seeing that its youth gets the best education possible. This is an enlightened self-interest. Future members of the society can either be productive contributors or they can be a drain on resources.

It becomes quickly apparent that all you're seeking is a plausible excuse to say, 'Hey - not my responsibility if I don't feel like shouldering it.'

And you would paint me as a freeloader?

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gmorton on October 19 at 11:53 a.m.
Jeffrey_Grey wrote,

“A society is composed of individuals, that's true. But the collective goals of those individuals are expressed as the interests of the society.”

You're begging the question, Jeffrey. There are no “collective goals” or interests distinct from the goals and interests of individuals. A given interest may be shared by a number of individuals, but it remains the interest of those individuals; it doesn't somehow transform itself into the interest of an abstract, mythical entity, the “collective,” or of “the whole,” unless it is shared by every one of the individuals constituting the society. And that occurs so rarely as not to be worth mentioning.

As I said, if you think there are “collective goals” which are not identical to the goals of individuals, then perhaps you can specify some of them and explain how they are distinguished from the goals of individuals.

“A society - as a whole - has a vested interest in seeing that its youth gets the best education possible.”

Societies have neither interests, kids, nor resources, other than those of their various members. Alfie and Annabelle have interests and kids. Their kids will be a drain on Bruno and Chauncey's resources only if they are thieves.

“It becomes quickly apparent that all you're seeking is a plausible excuse to say, 'Hey - not my responsibility if I don't feel like shouldering it.'”

To say that Bruno and Chauncey are *responsible* for something X is to say they had some role in bringing about X. It is not likely that Bruno and Chauncey had any role in bringing Alfie and Annabelle's kids into the world. Are you suggesting they should be *held* responsible for something for which they are not responsible?

I think you can *hold* someone responsible for X only when he *is* responsible for X. I.e., you hold your kid responsible for breaking a window only if he in fact broke the window. You don't hold him responsible if the window was broken by an earthquake. But perhaps you disagree.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 20 at 4:30 a.m.
–— You're begging the question, Jeffrey.–—

There seems to be a lot of that going around.

First of all, I utterly reject this notion that the individual is the center of the universe. I utterly reject the notion that this nation wasn't founded on the belief that individuals can join together to form something greater and more noble than the sum of their individual parts.

That's why the powerful words are; 'We, The People' - not the whiny, egotistical; 'Me, The Individual.'

But fine - cast the magnitude of the answer - *that YOU have 'begged' twice now* - however you want.

You say that underachieving children shouldn't be allowed to 'drain' resources. Okay. So what happens to them? What do we do with them? Do we condemn them to getting by on whatever table scraps are left over, that is; if we concern ourselves with them at all? (Or perhaps that should be, 'If you concern yourself with them at all' - since contrary to the philosopher, you apparently are indeed 'an island'.)

And what happens when underachieving children inevitably become ill-prepared and unproductive adults?

Once again I ask you directly, how are these issues solved in the egocentric land of Not My Problem?

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gmorton on October 20 at 11:20 a.m.
Jeffrey_Gray wrote,

“First of all, I utterly reject this notion that the individual is the center of the universe.”

I didn't say anything about anything or anyone being the “center of the universe.” T'would help if you'd address the claims actually made, and forego the hyperbole. I said that there are no goals or interests to be found in any society which are not the goals and interests of particular individuals within that society. And I asked that if you disagreed, to cite some examples and explain how you learned of them and how one might verify them.

“I utterly reject the notion that this nation wasn't founded on the belief that individuals can join together to form something greater and more noble than the sum of their individual parts.”

I wouldn't deny that some folks hold such a belief, but I know of no evidence that the nation “was founded” on such a belief. Indeed, I could cite great deal of evidence to the contrary – that the country was settled by persons seeking to improve their own welfare, not to enlist in any sort of collective enterprise, subordinate their own interests to someone else's, or subsume themselves into some kind of synthetic collective entity. Nor would many of them have acknowledged any other humans, or groups of them, to be “greater and more noble” than themselves. Indeed, that was a status most of them reserved to God alone, not to any combinations of men.

It's clear that you have bought into the “Organic Fallacy.” This might help:

http://www.freespokane.net/?page_id=33

“You say that underachieving children shouldn't be allowed to 'drain' resources. Okay. So what happens to them? What do we do with them? Do we condemn them . . .”

There is the question-begging again. It is not a “we” question. If you are troubled by that problem, then you do what you think best to address it, to the extent your own time and resources allow, and allow others the same liberty. You only get to make such decisions for yourself, not for anyone else.

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Jeffrey_Grey on October 20 at 12:49 p.m.
I'll content myself with letting the other readers of this thread decide which of our positions they find the more persuasive.

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Lewis on October 21 at 9:10 a.m.
Is it any wonder our city official and employees continually get raises and increased benefits when a thread about high city wages turns into a debate about educational and health care. Where is the anger? Does anyone in Spokane care………..NOPE

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Gary Crooks on October 21 at 9:45 a.m.
Good point, Lewis.

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gmorton on October 21 at 11:40 a.m.
Lewis, Gary C's original post linked to a piece which covered two topics, city worker pay and purchasing insurance across state lines. So you have two subthreads in this thread.

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Bob_Knows on October 22 at 8:16 a.m.
“loss of 22 officers looms”

We the people hope so, but our Mayoress's lies aren't going to happen. The corrupt politicians need large armies of blue shirt gun thugs to stop the people from throwing the bastards out.

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