Raises Afforded Non-Represented Yonkers City Hall Employees By Hezi Aris

Download City Hall_Unrepresented Middle Management 2008 Salaries

In response to a recent Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, Yonkers Tribune only days ago received the following list of salary figures earned by non-represented Yonkers City Hall employees. The spreadsheet divulges the name of the individual, their job title, their previous salary, the present salary, and the percentage increase, if applicable.

There is no rhyme or reason behind why some individuals received no pay increase whatsoever, and those that received 1 or 2 percent, while others received 8.24 percent, and others beyond that.

Some of our readers will make a judgment call as to the saliency of the pay increases based upon who they believed were deserving of an increase or not. Others will believe themselves vindicated by those they believed got little, and exonerated by those they believe should have gotten the pay increase they received.

However one reads the figures, the disparity among the various non-represented workers has been a catalyst that has had some recently attend a Teamsters Union invitation for future representation of the non-union employees. The uneven remuneration of staff may in fact be one of the first possibly worrisome outcomes of the disbursement among the City Hall workers.

Others will immediately search for those they recognize to be political appointees, considering them more expendable than others. Perhaps a case may be made for such “justice.” It may perhaps also be said that the spoils for winning elections is to pad any and every administration with so-called “political hacks.” The problem  in Yonkers and elsewhere is that there is no scrutiny of action by one body of government over the other. Checks and balances no longer exist. City Hall does what it wants because it can; the Yonkers City Council President mimics the same excesses, albeit in smaller dollar figures. No matter whose agenda you may cling to, neither is appropriate; however it is the paradigm so long in place without challenge, that it seems the template.

The financial crisis that hangs over Yonkers is similar to that which hangs over the nation. The remunerations divulged herein will cause some of us to be deflected from the bigger picture, that is, how to bring fiscal concerns in line with the responsibility to pay for services needed and rendered.

The demand for fiscal constraint and soon to be announced cutbacks affords Yonkers a propitious time frame in which to begin the discussion over  concerns vis-à-vis today’s economically troubling times.

The figures herein do not explain the responsibility of the job title holders.

Further, City Hall was adamant in pointing out that had it afforded every staff member previously expressed pay increases, the $1.7 million pay increases herein would have exceeded more than twice that.

No matter how each of us views these figures, I should sincerely hope they will spur an online discussion on what your perspective is on the action taken, and an understanding of how Yonkers must proceed in light of the financial troubles that lie before us as individuals and as a community.

The paradigm seems to call for change. Yonkersites must decide on what road to take moving forward.