10-10-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Clerk Fowler stated that she agrees, she was talking about it in terms of them being full -time positions. Councilmember Davis stated that sometimes people will say that we are reporting to you or to the Mayor, and that is not it. Well, Mayor, the people of the City of South Bend is his boss, the people in each one of our districts, and for those at- large, the whole City has that, and there are these two (2) branches, and your role, the Clerk's role, is to support them. And that is why it has been that way historically even from the times that we see here when this was written to others. So when you look at that, it's been more of a supportive. Councilmember Scott clarified that the procedure for reading letters on the floor is that it is just submitted for the record, not read on the floor. Councilmember Dr. Varner stated that he admires the willingness to argue or fight for something you think is necessary. In the context of a request for twenty -three percent (23 %), I don't see that as being an unreasonable request if you believe that is the value of your job. Council has to consider the requests, whatever they are from everybody, in the context of the City as a whole. While I have trouble rationalizing the idea that there is a fiscal cliff and yet there is room for a twenty -three percent (23 %) raise, for anyone, that has been hammered across to us for ten (10) years now. However this plays out, I think it will be a decision where we find ourselves looking at what the possibilities are with regards to the context of the bigger picture. Personally, I'd like to see us get ten (10) or twelve (12) percent for everybody. We're told that is not in the cards, and certainly it hasn't been offered. We have remaining negotiations over the next two (2) years, which will be a difficult thing to negotiate past. That is the way I look at it, and I appreciate your willingness. Mr. Voorde will probably confirm that I did request increases at times during the last decade, and perhaps this is something that could be done over a period of time. Even a five percent (5 %) increase, I think most people would consider substantial. Councilmember Broden stated that since she comes from a not - for - profit sector, organizationally the boards have to take a look at these decisions. Typically it would be for the executive director or additional staff being brought on. Those, because of the circumstances that most of the not - for- profits I've been involved in, on the board side, we certainly had a longer space of time and information on the record in terms of the role, the responsibilities, and the justification. That is always one (1) part of a much bigger budget. My preference is that with this request, we need to get at reasonableness without more information in the record. I appreciate the extent of the information that was presented to us today, and I know that there has been considerable research, otherwise this wouldn't come forward to us. Absent of the other salary increases and information and detail across the board for the City, these types of things are major decisions. A single position should be looked at in the totality of all of the increases for our workers. When I get a packet of information that has the ordinance and the percent increase but not the supporting information, I think we can do better. Since I am here more often and I went to the IACT training, I see some of these things, and I think that the Clerk has made a terrific presentation on this tonight, and I know she has been doing the research on this, but I want to be comfortable that we are all working from the same IN