Tuesday, February 23, 2010

DIFFERENCES in Government (fed, state,county, town, teachers) & Private Wages are destroying the lifestyle and future of Ulster County ------------ Therefore, future Ulster County Government Contracts must limit salary increases.

Below is a table (2008) which shows the results of past and present government contracts. Look at the SPREAD between private and government wages. In Ulster, the private salary average is low and falling relative to surrounding counties and relative to government workers including teachers. This is the downward SPIRAL that Ulster is now into. What does this table show us? It shows that the Ulster private job quality has been decimated since IBM left the area. It also shows that since IBM left, Ulster’s Government contracts and wages HAVE NOT taken into account the private worker's ability to pay. What is this doing to Ulster County? It is destroying our lifestyle and the prospects for our kid’s future here.

What should we do?

We must DEMAND that new Government contracts (county, town, city, teachers) have little or no salary increases to bring Ulster County’s SPREAD below in line with surrounding counties.


COUNTY    GOVT. Wages      PRIVATE Wages       SPREAD          RATIO

Ulster            49148                      31814                      17334                1.54

Dutchess      51018                      45270                        5748                1.12

Greene          45321                      29822                      15499                1.52

(Above data from  http://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/lsqcew.shtm)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What you chart doesn't show is the difference in workdays - the private sector doesn't get paid time off like the Public sector. I understand the that Kingston City Hall and the Kingston School District don't keep attendance records for it's employees - In the school it is an honor system where they call in to notify of a substitute needed. But if they don't call in - they don't get charged a sick or personal day - so they get a huge buyout at retirement.

Anonymous said...

Aren't he fringe benefits almost 4 times greater in the Public sector?

Anonymous said...

Government employees don't pay any New York State tax on their pensions.

Anonymous said...

Nice - goverment pensions cause high taxes and then they don't pay their share of State income taxes?

Is that why they want to shift to just income taxes to pay for schools instead of property taxes?

Karl said...

Hi, Ralph This is a bit of an aside, but the tax bill shows a rate and total amount of revenue. I think to get the total property value, divide the revenue by the rate. If so I have at least 10 years of tax bills so it would be interesting to see how much spending has outpaced growth. Am I using good arithmetic?
Thanks, Karl

Ralph Mitchell said...

Karl,
Your arithmetic is very good. If you have time, go through the last 10 years of tax bills and compare total property value versus school spending. Thanks.

CNutt said...

The scenario goes like this: I am going to get a government job, I know the benefits are great and there is job security. Even when wages were not so high the total was desirable.
Now I got my job and can even join the union. May as well take what I can get -- that must be what they want me to do they put it on my platter.
Then the politicians realized that they created a gravy train for the workers so they got on board themselves. And made sure to hire as many workers as possible to gain their security from the votes of the other gravy train riders.
Public servants my foot: they are a bunch of money grubbing busy/bodies that can't keep their nose out of my business or their hand out of my pockets!!!!!!!!!!!