Monday, March 31, 2008

Should The City Cut Jobs or Salaries?

In his blog, Mark O’Brien is touting a plan by a Pensacola citizen to help save jobs and balance the budget. John Fox’s plan that he shared at last Thursday’s City Council meeting, calls for the city to cut salaries of all employees, instead of letting a few workers go.

O’Brien writes, the “plan would cut employees’ salaries enough to offset the $4-$5 million needed to make next year’s budget balance. He added, “The higher the employee’s pay, the bigger the cut.”

If the city is thinking about cutting jobs, they should first look into cutting salaries. But, cutting salaries for all city employees is going to be much harder than cutting a few jobs. It’s much easier to cut jobs because only a few are affected.

The City Council asked the City Manager to look into the idea and see if it’s feasible. Hopefully they will actually do that and report their findings to all of us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's a bit difficult to decide which to cut when you don't have the whole budget in front of you. Perhaps, neither need to be cut. It could simply be a matter of managing what is thre and looking at waste. Hard to tell.