Part 1 – Our City Councilmembers are Drinking Like Sailors Again…And They’re Spending your Money!
by Alan Pryor
FORWARD – In a recent article in the Davis Enterprise (9/27/22), Councilmember Dan Carson said while promoting his reelection bid, “The city’s annual deficit — an estimated $8 million a year over the next 20 years — is down to $4 million to $5 million a year…We made a significant dent… and our financial condition has significantly improved.”
The article went on to state that Carson credits “a lot of good policies… including restraint in labor negotiations…It’s been sound fiscal management.” But is this true?
Well, the simple fact is that the City of Davis is still in a budget crisis and one has to do nothing more than look at the deplorable state of our streets and bike paths as examples. According to independent verification, City of Davis streets are in worse condition than any of the other cities or towns in Yolo County including Woodland, West Sacramento, and Winters. If left further unmanaged by our City Council, the budget crisis and our streets and infrastructure will undoubtedly deteriorate further over the coming years.
Of course, the City Council absolve themselves of any responsibility for this budget morass claiming, “It’s the economy!..It’s the pandemic!…It’s Acts of God!”, without nary a thought given to the notion that maybe it is just their plain fiscal mismanagement that has brought the City to its financial knees.
Indeed, what is not disclosed nor explained to the public is that over the past decade, our City Councils have granted City of Davis employee compensation increases to our highest paid employees that are far in excess of increases required to maintain pace with inflation. This has resulted in increased costs to the City totaling tens of millions of dollars that could have otherwise been beneficially used to provide the infrastructure maintenance the City Council claims they are unable to afford.
This is Part 1 of a 2-part series investigating how overall City of Davis’ employee compensation levels risen over the past decade far in excess of inflation and the extremely adverse impacts this has had on our City’s budget as a result.
Part 2 will be published soon and looks at how these excessive compensation increases have favored top City management and public safety personnel while salary increases given to lower paid employees have barely kept pace with inflation. Further comparisons are made between total compensation rates in Davis vs Woodland showing how upper management in the City of Davis receives far greater compensation than their counterparts in Woodland.
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