Open Mike for Local Government Workers August 2007
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This is an open forum for Idaho Falls city or Bonneville County employees to speak their minds. This is a vehicle for city/county workers, or anyone with knowledge of inner city/county workings, to discuss what they think is going well or going wrong with our local governments.
Employees are especially invited to give kudos to people who may be overlooked by their bosses. Upcoming city/county news and announcements are also welcome here.
City/county workers are invited to alert everyone of potential problems brewing in our municipality. They can anonymously report misdeeds, fraud, or abuse.
It seemed there were many recent issues with our local governments. The Idaho Falls city budget is facing a potential double-digit increase in health insurance premium costs. I have heard suggestions that the city should ditch Blue Cross/Blue Shield for a more competitive carrier, or should only pay for catastrophic coverage and then try to fund their own health coverage.
The city will know in about a week how much growth we have had, and as a result will know if current budgets will get filled or if our belts need to be tightened. Idaho Falls has agreed to double our county payments for magistrate court costs. We bought $300,000 in water rights that apparently are planned just to spend on Magic Valley demands. Questions are being raised about tax-free districts for new developments and how much good it is doing for the Idaho Falls budget. Lots of dealings going on right now, what do you think?
An overdue kudos should go out to our city and police department for hooking up with an online accident report service since last May. You can always find this direct link in our “Idaho Falls Links” page under the title Police Reports Online. The Post Register wrote an article about the time and manpower our city has saved since using this online service. Our department pays about $2,000 per year to post the reports, and I imagine in a few years our city will figure out how to do the service in-house and save more money. One unfortunate side effect is that anyone can now easily find your address if you are in an accident, or if you are even a passenger in an accident.
Are there any other labor-intensive government tasks that could be saved if the process were moved online? What processes would you like to see transformed into more service for less cost?
So how do you think our local government is running?
Also, what would you ask Mayor Fuhriman if you had a private moment to do so? I do not mean what would you anonymously shout in an online forum, but what would you seriously ask him face to face if you could?
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Comments
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0 
0 Having accident reports online is a good thing.
Claiming it saves time / money is silly. How long does it take to pull a file and copy / fax it. One minute per accident report at most I’d imagine. How many accidents are there in Idaho Falls on a given day? Judging by the police logs five would be normal and ten a lot. Maybe more in the winter. Regardless, in a given day its not going to take a person all that long to give them out. Ten to fifteen minutes max.
IFPD should just stick with the argument that having them online is nice for the public and stop with the silly idea that it saves time and money.
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0 0 Joe, this might be worthy of being moved under a new article given your poll question but I’ll let you decide.
The poll question is about supporting a new law enforcement building:
Lets look at the pro’s and con’s:
Pros:
1) The current building is small and cramped and some have offices in what used to be closets.
2) The evidence lab is tiny.
3) The interview rooms are tiny and have little privacy and their size and location hinder doing good interviews.
4) Rumor has it that land has been promised to the city if they build in a new station in the Taylor’s corssing area. This would save money.
Negatives:
1) Cost, cost, cost
2) Moving the police station would put it far away from the courthouse.
And some other things to consider:
Half the department are patrol officers working out of their car. Do they really care one way or the other if they get a new station since they are hardly ever there? The ones I’ve talked to have said a new station would be nice but its not a priority for them. A few who live in the city intend to vote no if a bond comes forward - they’d rather see the money go to something more useful like getting staffing up to recommended levels for a city this size (they are currently down 5 officers from IFPD normal which is about 20 below nationwide average) or actually giving a cost of living raise for once since the IFPD just ten years ago was the 2nd best paying in the state and is now around 25th.
Most of the officers who do work in the station don’t live in Idaho Falls so they won’t be affected by the tax burden. Its easy to support higher taxes to better your job when you don’t have to pay those taxes. The chief of police doesn’t live in Idaho Falls. Most of the Captains don’t either. Most of the lieutenants the same. Steve Hunt, the guy the department has put in charge of the new building campaign, doesn’t even live in Bonneville county. No wonder they are all so gung ho for a new building.
The IFPD isn’t using space wisely. They recently rented out office space across the street with huge rooms and offices. Instead of doing the smart thing like putting the interview rooms, crime lab, and stuff like that over there they gave those rooms to certain personnel for private offices which gives them far more room than they possibly need.
I’d encourage anyone to think long and hard before voting yes on this. In my opinion, their are other options and more important priorities.
To give a good example of one option look at what the Pocatello PD did. They renovated an abandoned big box building of which Idaho Falls has many. It was much cheaper than building a new one and its now a very nice building. Rumor has it that the chief wants a “new building” so he won’t even consider this. This is the option I’d support both for the cost savings and the fact it would get rid of one of our empty boxes. Imagine if they took over the old Ernest building which is an eyesore on Broadway. Or the old Fred Meyer building which is convienently located next to the jail. Its a win win situation in either location.
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0 0 I will make that into an article, I take it you don’t mind. I didn’t know much about it so started the poll, but you raise some good discussion-starting questions.
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0 0 Frankly I’m impressed that this was put to a vote, it wasn’t necessary. Who would know better than the people who work in the office that their out of space, this vote may have been a mistake.
Now if my boss asked me if I’d rather have a bigger pay check or a larger building, I’d opt for the pay check and I’ll bet most people would too, duh! The old Ernst and Fred Meyer buildings are probably too expensive. All the city departments are understaffed and overcrowed right now. Plus the Police Officers aren’t the only underpaid city employees, I really get tired of hearing about this. They get a lot of bennies no one else gets. The Fire Fighters are on the same pay scale and you never here them crying and whinings about dangerous jobs etc. etc.
I have tons of respect for good cops with honest intentions, but I believe some are in for the wrong reasons, if it’s that bad get a different job.
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0 0 Actually the fire fighters are not on the same pay scale. By state law, governments are required to negotiate contracts with teachers and fire fighters. Thus fire fighters in Idaho Falls have always been on a different pay / benefit scale than the rest of the city employees. In addition, they work 24 hr shifts unlike anyone else so their vacation / sick leave policies are far different as well.
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0 0 Guest, I’m curious, what bennies do the police get that others don’t get?
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0 0 They don’t get any.
Some point out the car per officer program. Thing is that actually saves the city money long term since cars now last six - seven years instead of 2-3 and maintenance costs go down. And the officers pay money out of their pocket to take the car home. Its a win win for both the city and officer. So it might be considered a benefit to the officer but when it also benefits the city its hard to credibly make the argument that its this great perk the officers get.
Other than that police officer get exactly the same as other city employees excepting firefighters and electric workers who both are on their own pay / benefit scales.
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0 0 The PR reported today our police department spends $6,000 per digital camera per patrol car.
That seems extremely overpriced. High-end consumer digital cameras sell for $1,000 nowadays. They pictured the setup, which obviously is customized and includes an LCD screen for officers to view. The consumer camcorders also offer an LCD screen though.
About the only thing better seems to be the inability for officers to delete portions of a videotape. However, that is a small thing, because it is easy to check video for starts and stops.
I think a workable dash mount for a consumer camcorder could be had for a thousand, and these camcorders last for several years now, especially when not being manhandled around like they would be in the cars.
I bet cheaper setups could be had for $2,000, saving $4,000 per car. Why are we buying overpriced $6,000 camcorder setups?
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0 0 I agree that the $6000 is over priced. However, we also need to consider the camera set up. The camera’s automatically activate when the overheads are turned on…or manually when an officer purposefully activates the camera.
Some camera’s are also tied to wireless audio recordings of the proceedings. I don’t know if IFPD does this–however, this would increase the cost. Then there is also the digital recording device in the trunk that houses the information and keeps it locked up so it can only be accessed by a supervisor, if necessary.
Suffice to say, there is alot more involved than just a simple camera. It would have been more complete reporting to itemize why these units cost so much.
If I were Mayor I would set up a covert buying unit that didn’t list the City of Idaho Falls anywhere. Vendors take government agencies to the cleaners vs. what they charge private companies and citizens.
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0 0 Those added features shouldn’t raise the price of the camera that much. What does it take to activate the camera when the lights are turned on? It shouldn’t take any more than wiring them to the same switch. To turn it on manually would also only require a switch, not an expensive item. A professional grade wireless microphone can be bought for a few hundred bucks, or even less. The digital recording device shouldn’t be more complicated than the DVR’s you can buy for $100-$200. For a lot less than $6,000 you could buy a professional grade high-definition video camera.
So it does seem like that amount is excessive. There might be some truth to the observation that government agencies end up paying a higher price than others.
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0 0 The big thing that everyone is forgetting here is the punishment and vibration that both the camera lens and recording device take in a police car. The old systems were good for a week or two before they were sent back in for repairs. Ask a local media station what they pay for a camera that can handle the punishment.
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0 0 Several local media outlets are reporting that the city has found itself with a $480,000 surplus. They are considering improving 1st and Hitt with some of that.
http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=7026756
Expect a huge outcry from city workers over this because the city is claiming to them that they are short money which is why they are planning on raising deductibles from $300 to $1500. This is due to a $200,000 overall increase in the cost of insurance to the city.
Seems to me that $480,000 minus the $200,000 it would take to not screw the employees still leaves a sizeable surplus and a lie about budget shortfalls big enough to drive a truck through. Is it any wonder that discontent among workers is growing by leaps and bounds?
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0 0 My employer has gives us a $1,500 deductible and over the past four years we haven’t been guaranteed a 3% cost of living increase.
I think the money would be best served on the corner of Hitt & 1st Street.
Gripe to the insurance companies that continue to raise the rates. Last year our company was given a large refund because our employees didn’t reach the $1,500 deductible. The strange thing is the insurance company gave money back to my company, yet turned around and did an increase for the next year. This truly doesn’t make sense to me.
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0 0 City workers aren’t guaranteed a 3% raise either seeing as they didn’t get one last year. They were given a choice this year of a 3% cost living raise and a $1200 deductible increase, which translates to a net pay cut unless you never use insurance, or a status quo on benefits and no cost of living increase. Most city workers rolled over and thanked the city for the screwing but some have refused to accept it especially given how the city is in a boom period as evidenced by their larger than expected property tax revenues and their $480,000 surplus as reported in the article I referenced.
One of the biggest points is that the city could pay if they wanted. They are choosing not to and lying about the reason by claiming they can’t afford it when clearly they can. They just don’t want to.
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0 0 Welcome to the 21st century… to expect the City to maintain a $100 deductible in this day and age is ridiculous… The City has to balance all it’s needs - did we learn nothing from the Minnesota bridge collapse? Infrastructure needs investment as well. Hitt-1st is a disaster - it’s a safety issue. Is $500 so unreasonable that we should “park” all capital needs to keep an unrealistic benefit package?
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0 0 I understood that it was to be $1500 deductible. $500 would be acceptable, but $1500???
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0 0 Why not keep benefits the same and fix 1st and Hitt. By reports it appears the city is rolling in the dough and could do both.
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0 0 Try having a $6000 deductible. $1500 or $300 would be wonderful. I like the suggestion for $500, more in line with several other entitities, like school districts, at least a few years ago.
Can the city legally apply the money to anything, or are there restrictions?
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0 0 The city is rolling in dought and could do both? No. They estimate the improvements they want to make to Hitt/1st will cost at least $4.2 million. $480,000 won’t go that far.
And besides — the city ought to be in the business of fixing streets, rather than providing cheap health insurance. I sure don’t get it where I work. Look at GM — It’s a health care company that builds cars. Do we want the city to be the same?
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0 0 So instead of striving to improve what your own employer gives you the solution of some on here seems to be take away from others who have better. Very communistic.
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0 0 Sorry Guest, but there is something wrong with others having better benefits than most of their employers (the taxpayers). And I agree with Brian, the city should not be in the health care business. I’m sorry if you feel that some are trying to take things away from city employees. Many private sector employees had their insurance coverage and costs restructured a long time ago. And city employees have a very generous work schedule when it comes to paid holidays, better than I have ever had in 30 years of working for private employers. I’m not sure what you mean by communistic. Some people seem to think they are entitled to more than others.
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0 0 Guest 007. I don’t know where you work, but where I work, we never have to work on the major holidays (except on the rare occasion). Police Officers do. They work a 40 hour week just like I do, anything over they get overtime just like I do (until I became salaried). I was never asked to risk my life in the performance of my job — police officers can be asked to risk their live’s everyday. I see nothing wrong in them having extra benefits that we the taxpayer do not have. However, I don’t know of any benefits they get that the majority of the work force (private sector) doesn’t also get. Do you know of any?
By asking the City to explore other health care packages is putting them in the Health Care Business? Other Companies do this all the time, does that make them all in the Health Care Business? My insurance carrier changes quite frequently and no one has ever said that my Company is in the Health Care Business.
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0 0 The main issue with this whole insurance problem is that Craig Lords (municiple Services Dir), who basically runs the City, refuses to let Blue Cross give them a quote. Blue Cross is ready and willing to gain the City’s business but Lords won’t let them. If you want to look at abuse of power and wasting valuable resources we should talk to Craig Lords.
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0 0 Idaho Native: if you get the same days off as the city workers you have a more generous employer than I do. I don’t get the day off on Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, and several other days which are paid holidays for government workers. Police and emergency workers are obviously an exception. But correct me if I’m wrong, they probably receive holiday pay on those days. Anyway I am referring to the rank and file city workers having a generous paid holiday schedule, not police.
Of course there is nothing wrong with shopping around for insurance. But if the majority of private sector employees are having their deductibles raised over $1000, why should they continue to pay the increased costs and subsidize the increases for the city employees too? I’m just saying, I believe that the city employees are not automatically entitled to any better or cheaper coverage than the average citizen. Is it really fair for city employees to have more days off than most others, and expect better insurance too? They work for me, not vice versa.
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0 0 Do you believe the city should offer a competitive wage and benefit package to attract the best possible employees? Or are you willing to settle for second class employees. City leaders will admit if you press them that the wages of most of their employees lag severely behind those in the same jobs in comparable cities like Pocatello, Nampa, Boise, Couer d’Alene and the like. But they tout the benefit package as being better and thus making it equal. Well now the city is starting to reduce that benefit package but not raising wages competitively. Meaning the city will no longer be an attractive place to work for new employees or current ones.
And to answer an earlier question about why I called a person’s idea communistic. One of the principles of communism is that everyone gets the same. And the person in that post was lamenting that his benefit package wasn’t as good so rather than try to get his improved he wants everyone elses drug down to where his is so that they are the same. Thats communism in action. Capitalism on the other hand means people strive to get the best they can get and city employees long ago fought to get the benefits they have. That person should do the same rather than wish everyone else was miserable like him.
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0 0 I understand your point, but how am I going to convince my employer to give me a better benefit package? Starting a union? No thanks.
My point is that I believe that the government workers should have a benefit package somewhere comparable to the average employee in the private sector. I don’t believe that is true right now, I think the city workers’ benefits are superior. And they are still complaining about it.
Of course the city should try to attract the best employees. So should the private sector, and they shouldn’t have to give away the farm to do it. I’m not just advocating taking away anything from anyone. Just seeking a fair balance. By the way, I think there is no shortage of people who would still love to work for the city.
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0 0 Another Guest,
I totally agree unfortunately a certain empolyee would have to take a break from his nose picking to do some actual work. Don’t think that will happen.
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0 0 I know this is more a discussion about city employees such as clerks, police officers, firefighters, etc., but here is a list of the pay for mayors and city council members in select Idaho cities:
Idaho Falls-66,000 9,996
Pocatello-74,268 10,033
Coeur d’Alene-32,400 (in 2009) 9,000
Meridian-70,195 (in 2009) 9,735
Nampa-69,432 7,500
Caldwell-64,432 7,407
Twin Falls-12,000 8,700 avg.
Boise-91,229 19,375
Eagle-74,000
I did this to illustrate some smaller cities pay more than IF and some larger cities pay less. You’ll find this in other city positions, not just mayor and council person. Elected officials frequently look at the salaries of employees in their cities and compare them to peer cities inside and outside of the state. Many times, but not all, when salaries are low, they will be raised, sometimes in dramatic fashion. Years will go by and other cities will do their own peer city comparisons and raise employee pay in their own cities.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that pay for IF employees may be low compared to some cities in Idaho (though not all of them), but if there is a true discrepancy it will usually be reconciled eventually. Keep on informing your public officials about your thoughts on the subject and there will be change. In a few years you’ll see “better” salaries and us in other cities in the state will be the ones saying that our city employees are underpaid. Good luck.
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0 0 “if there is a true discrepancy it will usually be reconciled”
NOT!
Refer back to Post #28, employees need to do their OWN research regarding their position and give that info to their Director.
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0 0 Just reminds me of something Drew Carey said a while back: There’s a group for people who hate their jobs. It’s called the bar, and they meet every night.
Everybody can find something they hate about their job. I’ve had many I’ve hated. Right now, the one I’ve got is good. Because it beats unemployment.
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0 0 We haven’t heard much from the city workers about the proposed health insurance cost increases. I read in this morning’s PR that the city decided to increase the annual deductibles from $100 to $250 (instead of the proposed $500).
Sounds like there was some disagreement on how this change happened, but it appears a balanced decision. Our city is hefting that extra bill to the tune of $90,000 for the extra costs, so hopefully city employees will know the city has gone an extra mile for them.
A $250 deductible is really more common anyways than a $100 deductible. I think complaints about that should lean towards the health insurance industry as a whole rather than just what our city does.
And it sounds like the city is looking into the viability of switching insurance carriers, a common complaint before now. Unfortunately I think the entire insurance industry is corrupted, but that’s another conversation in another thread.
At least our city leadership appears to be listening to worker concerns and trying to meet them in the middle. Kudos for their efforts and their results.
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0 0 Ida Hardcastle didn’t go to battle for the workers. She was afraid of the negative repercussions the $1500 deductible would have on getting a bond passed for a new police station. She wants the station to be her legacy before she retires and it was the police department employees who took the hardest stand against the huge deductible increase. The timing of the 91% union vote (which phrased another way is a no confidence vote) also played a huge role. She was worried about how the rank and file officers, many of whom don’t really care if they get a new station, might undermine the effort to get a bond passed. So she went back against what she and the other council members had agreed on to try and throw them a bone. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. But don’t pretend for a second this was anything but a political maneuver with the new police station and her legacy being the real force behind it.
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0 0 So it was good for all city employees that the police stuck together and stepped up to the challenge.
If the police do unionize, this could be the last time the cops’ efforts benefit the rest of city employees.
Should the remaining city employees band together to form their own union, or always try their luck with the goodwill of city administration?
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0 0 The Idaho national guard is in the middle of a two day bonehead move. They have several vehicles in southeast idaho armories needing new radios. The radios and techs are in Boise. Rather than send the techs and radios to southeast Idaho to install the radios they are driving 60 vehicles to Boise. This is a big waste of resources. They are also suspending their safety SOP which requires two drivers in each vehicle. Most vehicles only have one driver. They could only send half the vehicles over yesterday, so they are bussing the drivers back overnight, and sending the remaining convoy out today. This is a big waste of gas, wages, time. This is a big safety violation without two drivers in each vehicle. Look for the staging area and the convoy. Some brass need to lose their commissions over this.
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0 0 Ehhhh, it’s been a few years since I served in a southeast Idaho unit, but I recall they ship their vehicles over every spring for a long weekend training the first part of April. Now would probably be about that time they ship the vehicles. I don’t know if they still do training on that weekend though.
The two-driver rule is a safety rule. SOP means Standard Operating Procedure, very important stuff so if they are not using two drivers it can be a big deal.
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0 0 They had a training drill in Blackfoot last weekend, was that it? Stayed in a hotel, supposed to be members from all over attending.
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Finding your address from accident reports is a non issue. I guarantee you that I can find your address in under 30 seconds with just your name using any one of a number of free sites on the net. The only people that are hard to find are younger people with no credit or those who have recently moved. On the latter its the old address I find. There are numerous sites that compile all public records into easy to search records and you can get basic things like addresses and phone numbers for free. You have to pay to get more info than that.
The point I’m trying to make is that anyone with enough web savvy to get to the accident report area could easily get your address through much easier means.