“Community Columnist” Michael Schrader

(About city efficiency)

Written 10 August 2015

We just recently said “Farewell!” to some of our brave firefighters, victims of the city’s ongoing budget woes. Meanwhile, our monthly water bills are soaring, and pretty soon it will be too expensive to live or do business in Port Huron, causing people and businesses to leave, triggering a “death spiral” of declining revenues and ever increasing fees and taxes.

Although the city will tell you the budget problems result from the state mandate to eliminate the combined sewer system, and the buyout and demolition of properties for the bridge plaza expansion, much of the city’s financial problem rests with the city itself. In government, there are things called “sacred cows”. A sacred cow is something that cannot ever be changed, no matter how cost ineffective or ridiculous it is. Traffic signals, for example, tend to be sacred cows. Quite often, a traffic signal is installed as a political favor. Signals should never be installed as a favor or to keep people from complaining about having to wait, as signals are expensive. A typical signal costs $130,000 to install and $10,000 a year to operate and maintain. That is a good chunk of money that could be used to pay firefighters, for example. Driving around the city, I know of at least five signalized intersections controlled by the city that really don’t need to have traffic signals. I have mentioned it to city staff, only to be told that there are procedures and they are studying it and that it has to be approved by a committee of local citizens to take them down. Alas, I am still forced to wait at these pointless signals while the city deliberates on whether it is a good idea to save money. Actually, I don’t; I detour on routes that don’t have pointless signals, which means one less potential customer for businesses on the streets that do.

It isn’t just traffic signals. Drive Riverside and count how many stop signs you see. I can understand the stop signs by the elementary school and the school district headquarters, but are the others really necessary? More sacred cows. Signs aren’t cheap; depending on the quality of the material used, a stop sign can cost in the neighborhood of $300. Start counting up the stop signs, and that suddenly becomes a sizable amount of money. Drive around the city and count the number of signs, multiply by $300, and the number is quite large. Many little things add up to one large thing. I suspect that the cost of unnecessary signage would more than pay for five firefighters.

The firefighters were given early retirement to reduce the labor budget, as labor is a significant financial burden for the city. Looking at labor, it is really necessary to pay the city manager of a city of under 30,000 over $100,000 a year? If we were a larger city, say Flint, I could understand. If we were a wealthy city, such as one of the Grosse Pointes, I could understand that. We are a poor, shrinking city of less than 30,000 in a state with many cities of similar size, and $100,000 seems like it might be, well, excessive. On top of that, why does an employee with considerable less experience deserve a comparable salary with the experienced person he replaced? Experience should count for something. While our city manager makes over $100,000 a year, we have many city employees, the road crews and office staff and others, who don’t make much more than minimum wage. Yet, these are the employees who we have come to depend on to “get things done”. If the city manager were to cut his salary in half, the city would be able to hire two water department clerks to process bills and payments, all without having to raise the water rates for the citizens.

Until the city really wants to address its budgetary issues, the death spiral will continue. Eventually, the only people that will be left will be those too poor to leave, like what happened in Detroit.

Back to "The Fine Print" Index