City Workers To Get Raises on Taxpayer Dime

City Manager Rashad Young let the City Council know last week that he planned to give 155 city employees raises on Jan. 1, 2011.

This week President Barack Hussein Obama declared a moratorium on raises for civilian federal employees and is being asked by some Democratic leaders to include military employees. State employees didn't get a raise last year and have almost no chance of getting a raise this year.

In the private sector companies continue to lay off employees and use tricks like requiring employees to take furlough days – where employees cannot come to work but, unlike vacation, are not paid for those days. Being furloughed one day a month results in about a 5 percent pay cut.

The city, instead of looking at pay cuts, is giving raises and has plans to give a lot more.

The raises are preliminary to a compensation study that the City Council, by a 7-to-2 vote, approved when it authorized the 2010-2011 budget in June. The budget was primarily the work of Mayor Bill Knight and Councilmember Danny Thompson. Councilmembers Trudy Wade and Mary Rakestraw voted against the budget because of the water rate increase – which they said was unnecessary and has now been cut in half – and other items, including the $250,000 compensation study and the $200,000 diversity study. http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-c-2010-12-01-206635.112113-City-Workers-To-Get-Raises-on-Taxpayer-Dime.html

Bailey: If you think that this crap is only happening in someone else's city, try checking out the city where you live. This is happening everywhere in the country!