Petition to Control City Budget. Presented to the May 23, 2023 City Council
Shall the City Code Sec. 16-13 be amended to stabilize the growing expense of managerial salaries.
Argument:
The city code mandates automatic increases to management and non-union salaries that match the CPI- All Urban Consumers with a limit of 5%. This mandate had a minor impact on budgets during the decades of low inflation which were far below the prior 7.5% ceiling. With the hyper-inflation that commenced post Covid, the taxpayer today faces budgets that are driven by salaries that are not matched by growth in products and services. (Figures 1 & 2) If left uncorrected, we will see geometric growth in payroll and consequently a budget that becomes unaffordable to the aging population who live on fixed incomes.
This petition proposes two alternative solutions. The most effective amendment is to replace section 16-13 B-1 with the following text:
“(b)
Changes of the compensation plan shall be made in a manner to maintain proper relationship among the classes of positions and to reflect changes in the cost of living and in prevailing rates of pay for comparable positions outside the City services.
(1)
Cost of living adjustments shall be made to management and nonunion employee pay schedules annually on July 1 at the discretion of the Mayor and subject to City Council approval.
[Ord. No. 1252, § I, 8-9-2022, eff. 1-1-2023]
Currently, the Council may not reduce salaries. The elimination of the automatic COLA permits the City Council to control the budget for salaries without demanding the termination of employees. This solution protects both the employee and the taxpayer.
The alternate solution is to establish a fixed base for calculating COLA’s so that annual raises follow a linear increase. Currently, pay adjustments are based upon prior year salary. This approach compounds the value of the raises and yields a non-linear increase in managerial salaries. The following tables illustrate the outcomes of the two approaches.
Current Scale assuming annual 5% raises.
| Year | Salary |
| 1 | $100,000 |
| 2 | $105,000 |
| 3 | $110,250 |
| 4 | $115,762.50 |
| 5 | $121,550.62 |
Proposed Alternative Scale Assuming 5% raises based on a $100,000 base salary.
| Year | Salary |
| 1 | $100,000 |
| 2 | $105,000 |
| 3 | $110,000 |
| 4 | $115,000 |
| 5 | $120,000 |
This solution fails to accommodate Council oversight and offers less protection to the taxpayer, but it will stabilize the overall growth in payroll by slowing the rate of increase.
Signed _____________ Date _________
Charles Kronick, Councilor Ward 2
Appendixes/Figures
Figure 1:
An example from Building Inspector Office reflecting increase in payroll with stable non-labor expenses. Growth in this department likely also reflects additional hires in 2023.
Figure 2:
Historical data from Berkshire Antheneum payroll/services & supplies
Current Language of City Code, Sec 16-13. This code is currently used to apply COLA’s to non-union and managerial salaries based upon current salaries.
Sec. 16-13
Adjustment of compensation schedule.
[Ord. No. 1228, § I, 8-11-2020]
(a)
The rates of compensation which are prescribed in this chapter shall be changed only by the City Council by amendment of this chapter.[1]
[1]
Editor’s Note: Compensation Schedules are included as an attachment to this chapter.
(b)
Changes of the compensation plan shall be made in a manner to maintain proper relationship among the classes of positions and to reflect changes in the cost of living and in prevailing rates of pay for comparable positions outside the City services.
(1)
Cost of living adjustments shall be made to management and nonunion employee pay schedules annually on July 1. Cost of living adjustment increases shall reflect the annual change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers from the prior January, but not exceeding 5.0%.
[Ord. No. 1252, § I, 8-9-2022, eff. 1-1-2023]
(c)
Changes in compensation of employees covered by collective bargaining shall be exclusively reserved to the Mayor.
Petition To Adopt Term Limits And Rotate Office For All Elected Positions.
A petition to refer to the Charter Review Committee the following question for consideration:
Shall the charter be amended to facilitate rotation of office for the following offices: city councilor, mayor, school committee, and clerk? This amendment shall also impose a mandatory one year cooling off period between change of office.
Argument:
Consider the interview with Captain Levi Preston many years following his courageous participation on Battle Road at Lexington on April 19, 1775, the day the British regulars engaged in butchery during their march to arrest and hang John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Captain Preston gave us the words that laid down the objectives inherent in our City Charter that the people of Pittsfield are a self-governed people and designing a government that is fit for our specific needs is our inheritance given to us by those who struck the match of liberty and self-determination on April 19.
Many years later, Captain Levi Preston of Danvers was asked why he went to war that day. At the age of 91, his memory of the Lexington alarm was crystal clear, and his understanding was very different from academic interpretation of this event. An historian asked him, “Captain Preston, what made you go to the Concord Fight?”
What did I fight for?” the old man replied, subtly rephrasing the historian’s question to drain away its determinism.
The interviewer tried again, “…Were you oppressed by the Stamp Act?” he asked.
“I never saw any stamps,” Preton answered, “and I always understood that none were ever sold.”
“Well, what about the tea tax?”
“Tea tax, I never drank a drop of that stuff, the boys threw it all overboard.”
“But I suppose you have been reading Harrington, Sidney, and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty?”
“I never heard of these men. The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watt’s psalms and hymns and the almanacs.”
“Well, then, what was the matter?”
“Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
From Paul Revere’s Ride, David Hackett Fischer
This quote is of great importance to us today in this city. We have lost the founding objective of the Commonwealth which is the self-governance by our peers. In our day, the empowered citizen has lost status to what is now called the ’empowered voter.’ Voters are frustrated by the stagnation of our elected leaders and concerns are logically focused on lack of participation at the polling booths. An unchanging body of leaders combined with lack of compelling reason for the citizen to run for office yielded us a government that is unresponsive to citizen’s needs, incapable of proposing reform and efficient designs, and cannot even commit to basic ethical oversight such as rotating the city’s independent financial auditor.
The conventional solution sought to lack of voter engagement is to promote voter turnout. However, that goal serves only to herd people to the polls in support of a stagnant pool of candidates. The lukewarm response and historically low turnout of 15% during a non-statewide election expresses the citizens’ rejection of our non-rotational form. The rotational structure proposed here addresses this problem by reviving the objective self-rule adopted by the citizen. Citing Captain Preston, today, we have a city of voters who do not govern themselves as they always meant to, and they have leaders who do not mean they should.
Why is limiting elected offices to a single term reasonable number? Elected officials enter office with objectives and ambition. Two to four years is a long time to accomplish the primary objectives. Further terms encourage self-interested concerns for re-election and indifference to constituents. With a deadline of one single term to complete an agenda, the candidate is forced to focus on the issues that brought him/her to office and has the maximum enthusiasm and energy for the task.
Opponents to term limits claim that extended terms give parliamentary skill and that rotation will make an ineffective body of political amateurs. The concern has merit, but its assumption underestimates the citizen’s intelligence, undervalues the weight of Common Sense and the ethical core of most people, and disregards individual experience. That they do not apply this assumption to other civic bodies also weakens its merit. An example of a civic body that succeeds in meeting complex goals without any preparation include public juries issuing competent verdicts on difficult decisions involving days of complex and conflicting testimony and evidence. We also see this competency in private employees who succeed in complex jobs with limited prior experience. The reason we entrust this responsibility of just verdicts to the public is that we assume competence to deliberate and argue derives from Common Sense, moral sense, and acquired experience from work and life. A body of 11 councilors can likewise deliberate with Common Sense, moral sense, and life experience to reach effective and just decisions.
More challenging is the question of potential vacancies resulting from rotation. The assumption is twofold. One, people will not be inclined to run, and two, vacancies are inherently bad. Neither assumption has precedents to justify them. Opponents argue that lack of incumbents to take office will result in vacancies since people may not care to draw papers. This argument assumes that no one in a pool of 7,000 has interest to seek an office.
Yet, it is more likely that an uncontested office would actually attract candidates and people do have desire to protect his/her neighborhood’s interests. The notion that people are inherently uninterested in public service contradicts knowledge about human nature that consistently directs us to defend our interests. Are potential vacancies a scourge to avoid? They already happen. Vacancies happen regardless of election outcomes; officials already quit and take extended leave of absences in spite of oaths and commitments. Further, there are consequences to vacancies that citizens will have to consider. If a ward loses representation because its residents fail to mobilize a candidate, those residents would learn fast the costs to letting other ward leaders make decisions on their behalf and the cost to their own interests in not engaging in self-governance.
Therefore, I propose the following additions to City Charter:
- Article 2 Section 2-1: Composition; Term of Office; Eligibility Legislative Branch
- Add subsection (d) & (e)
- (D) “Ward Councilors and City Councilors shall rotate upon completing a two year term.
- (E) At the conclusion of a term, the councilor shall not run for any elected office with the City of Pittsfield for a period of 1 (one) year.”
- Add subsection (d) & (e)
- Article 3, Section 3-1: MAYOR QUALIFICATIONS; TERM OF OFFICE; COMPENSATION; PROHIBITIONS.
- Add subsection (e) & (f)
- (E) The Mayor shall rotate upon completing a four year term.
- (F) At the conclusion of a term, the mayor shall not run for any other elected office with the City of Pittsfield for a period of 1 (one) year.
- Add subsection (e) & (f)
- Article 4, Section 4-1 School Committee: Composition, Term of Office, Eligibility
- Add Subsections (d) & (e) & (f)
- (D) School Committee members shall rotate upon completing a two year term.
- (E) At the conclusion of a term, the Committee member shall not run for any elected office with the City of Pittsfield for a period of 1 (one) year.
- (F) School Committee members shall be of minimum of 30 years of age
- Add Subsections (d) & (e) & (f)
- Article 5, Section 5-1: City Clerk. Election Term
- Add Subsections (f)
- (F)The City Clerk shall not serve more than a 1 (one) consecutive term
- Add Subsections (f)
Appendix
Current language from the Charter:
ARTICLE 2 SECTION 2-1
COMPOSITION; TERM OF OFFICE; ELIGIBILITY.
(a)
Composition – There shall be a city council consisting of 11 members which shall exercise the legislative powers of the city. Four of these members, to be known as councilors-at-large, shall be nominated from and elected by the voters at large. Seven of these members, to be known as ward councilors, shall be nominated from and elected by the voters in each ward; one such ward councilor to be elected from each of the seven wards into which the city is divided under section 8-6.
(b)
Term of Office – The term of office for councilors shall be two years each, beginning on the first Monday in the January succeeding the councilor’s election, except when that first Monday falls on a legal holiday, in which event the term shall begin on the following day and until successors have been qualified.
(c)
Eligibility – Any voter shall be eligible to hold the office of councilor-at-large. A ward councilor shall be a voter in the ward from which election is sought. If a ward councilor or a councilor-at-large removes from the city during the councilor’s term, that office shall immediately be deemed vacant and filled in the manner provided in section 2-11. A ward councilor who removes from the ward in which the councilor was elected and who remains a resident of the city may continue to serve during the term for which the councilor was elected. The city council shall determine whether a city councilor has removed from the city.
ARTICLE 3 SECTION 3-1
SECTION 3-1
MAYOR QUALIFICATIONS; TERM OF OFFICE; COMPENSATION; PROHIBITIONS.
(a)
Mayor Qualifications – The chief executive officer of the city shall be a mayor, elected by the voters of the city at large. Any voter shall be eligible to hold the office of mayor. The mayor shall devote full-time to the office and shall not hold any other elective public office.
(b)
Term of Office – The term of office of the mayor shall be four years, beginning on the first Monday in the January succeeding the mayor’s election, except when that first Monday falls on a legal holiday, in which event the term shall begin on the following day and shall continue until a successor has been qualified.
(c)
Compensation – The city council shall, by ordinance, establish the compensation for the mayor. No ordinance increasing or reducing the compensation of the mayor shall be effective unless it has been adopted by a two-thirds vote of the full city council. No ordinance increasing or reducing the compensation of the mayor shall be effective unless it has been adopted during the first 18 months of the term for which the mayor is elected and unless it provides that the compensation increase or reduction is to take effect upon the organization of the city government following the next regular city election.
(d)
Prohibitions – The mayor shall hold no other compensated city position. No former mayor shall hold a compensated appointed city office or city employment until one year following the date on which the former mayor’s city service has terminated. This subsection shall not prevent a city officer or other city employee who has vacated a position in order to serve as mayor from returning to the same office or other position of city employment held at the time such position was vacated; provided, however, that no such person shall be eligible for any other municipal position until at least one year following the termination of service as mayor. This prohibition shall not apply to persons covered by a leave of absence under section 37 of chapter 31 of the General Laws.
ARTICLE 4 SCHOOL COMMITTEE SECTION 4-1
COMPOSITION; TERM OF OFFICE; ELIGIBILITY.
(a)
Composition – There shall be a school committee which shall consist of seven members. Six of these members shall be nominated and elected by the voters of the city at large. The mayor shall serve, by virtue of the office, as a member of the school committee with all of the same powers and duties as the members elected by the voters as school committee members.
(b)
Term of Office – The term of office for elected school committee members shall be two years each, beginning on the first Monday in the January succeeding the elected school committee member’s election, except when that first Monday falls on a legal holiday, in which event the term shall begin on the following day and until a successor has been qualified.
(c)
Eligibility – A school committee member shall, at the time of election, be a voter. If a school committee member removes from the city during the term for which that person was elected, that office shall immediately be deemed vacant and filled in the manner provided in section 4-6.
Article 5
CITY CLERK
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SECTION 5-1
ELECTION; TERM.
(a)
Election, Eligibility – The city clerk shall be elected by the voters of the city at large. Any voter shall be eligible to hold the office of city clerk. The city clerk shall devote full-time to the office and shall not hold any other elective public office. The city clerk shall perform all the duties and exercise the powers incumbent by law upon the office.
(b)
Term of Office – The term of office of the city clerk shall be two years, beginning on the first Monday in the January succeeding the city clerk’s election, except when that first Monday falls on a legal holiday, in which event the term shall begin on the following day and until a successor has been qualified.
(c)
Compensation – The city council shall, by ordinance, establish the compensation for the office of the city clerk.
(d)
Temporary Absence or Vacancy – In case of the temporary absence of the city clerk, or a vacancy in the office, the mayor shall appoint an acting city clerk. The mayor shall be the sole judge of whether a temporary absence exists in the office of city clerk. In the case of a vacancy, the mayor shall appoint an acting city clerk until the charter provisions regarding the filling of the vacancy take effect.
(e)
Filling of Vacancy – Should a vacancy occur in the office of the city clerk during the first year of the term, the city council shall, under article 8, order a special election to be held within 90 days following the date the vacancy is created to fill such vacancy until the next regular city election. The candidate elected at that special city election shall take office immediately and shall serve for the remainder of the unexpired term. A person serving as city clerk under this section shall not be entitled to have the words “candidate for reelection” printed next to that person’s name on the subsequent municipal election ballot. Should a vacancy occur in the office of the city clerk after the first year of the term, the mayor shall appoint, subject to review by the city council under section 2-10, a temporary city clerk to serve until the next municipal election. The city clerk elected at said election shall take office immediately following said election.
