October 14, 2010 in Washington Voices

Spokane Valley council passes 2011 budget

Gothmann objects to COLA cut for nonunion employees

• Print
• Email
• Share

The Spokane Valley City Council unanimously passed its budget for 2011 Tuesday night, despite objections by Councilman Bill Gothmann to the cut in a cost of living adjustment raise to nonunion employees.

Gothmann said that when the city was founded, the council made certain promises to its employees.

“We made an agreement with all employees that nonreps (nonunion employees) would be treated the same as reps,” Gothmann said.

Union employees in the new budget will get a 21/2 percent raise in 2011, while nonunion employees will not.

After Gothmann spoke for a while, Councilwoman Brenda Grassel objected to the direction of the discussion.

“Is this really part of our agenda?” Grassel asked.

Mayor Tom Towey allowed Gothmann to continue, stating that the discussion was part of the budget in general.

“My conscience cannot condone dishonoring the agreement,” Gothmann said.

As an example, he said there were eight administrative assistants on the city payroll, all with the same job description. Denying one of those employees a COLA is in effect discriminating against one of those employees, since there is only one of them who is not part of a union.

“The city has a legal right to discriminate,” he said. “Even if it’s legal, it’s immoral,” Gothmann continued.

Although Gothmann still voted to approve the budget, he still felt it was dishonorable of the city to make this cut.

“I fear for the future of our city,” Gothmann said.

Councilman Dean Grafos admitted this cut was quite emotional for the council, but he said the cut was vital to avoid long-term budget woes in the city, which sometime in the future could mean massive layoffs.

“You can’t stick your head in the sand, Bill,” Grafos told Gothmann.

“I don’t think there is any indication of massive layoffs anywhere,” said Councilwoman Rose Dempsey.

Grassel then told Dempsey and Gothmann that the two councilmembers had no credibility when talking about budget cuts because of their voting record.

“There is no reduction that you two have supported,” Grassel said.

Dempsey said the council was taking the financial projections as fact, and she didn’t agree with that. She said the projections never turned out to be that dire.

Regardless of the arguments surrounding the budget, the council did vote unanimously to approve it.

One comment on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  Sam_Smith on October 14 at 3:44 p.m.

  Frankly at this point it isn’t the fact that the represented or non-represented employees will or will not get a COLA. I am certain that every staff member is keenly aware of economic times and have all been affected by them in their daily personal lives. The only reason the Fab 5 or the Positive Change or whatever they are calling themselves lately decided to cut the COLA for the non-reps is because they could! They could make a point that they don’t like the staff, they don’t trust the staff and frankly they would have done it to the represented employees if they could have. However with 24 million in the bank they have no reason to ask the union to open the contract. So they hit the people they can, cause hate and discontent everywhere else and then make it public that it seems to be staff’s fault that the City is in trouble. This is bullcrap! I have yet to figure out how Brenda Grassel can run her own business by the stupid statements she continues to make about anything and everything on the agenda, including the budget, the river, TMDL, and anything she doesn’t read. She should do herself a favor and just keep her mouth shut and stay out of trouble. Bob McCaslin is a rude, arrogant, insulting, womanizer who needs to find another place to get his gollies. He could go back and do the senate job he was elected to but really why, when he can get away with doing both jobs so poorly and still get paid. He never reads his coucil packet, doesn’t even know what is in it, which is why he can’t vote on any subject. Not a vote getter in my mind. Dean Grafos only ran for council because he was mad that someone would rezone his property and then went out and paid for his election with his own fund and the Prings, just so he could say he had done damage to this City. None of them really care about this City. All they want is to be able to say they have destroyed something they said they would. Well by the time they are done they will have done something. They will have impeded progress, they will have not planned for the future, they will have destroyed moral, they will have eaten away at anything POSITIVE that could have come from an election of new blood. Positive my ………..