Again, the administration of the City of Niagara Falls would have you believe that our problems stem from the employees and their wages and benefits, and not the administration's outrageous exempt employee salaries (with high percentage raises and benefits), as well as their inept handling of financial affairs and big developer giveaways.
As a city employee at the Waste Water Treatment Plant, I have noticed one thing since I have been employed there. When the residents/ taxpayers have a problem with their sewers, they want correction immediately, which they are entitled to. All they want to know is their drains and sewers work properly. They do not know the people in the trenches who make them work. These are hardworking individuals who are exposed to chemicals and sewage on a daily basis. They are exposed to human, medical and industrial sewage on a daily basis that the average person could not dream about in a nightmare. These employees' paychecks and benefits are undoubtedly earned and deserved.
Over the past several years, there have been a series of community meetings by this mayor, who has directly defamed and slandered the integrity of the city employees over wages and benefits. As far as our (as the administration puts it) Cadillac of benefits goes, these as well have been paid for many times over. The workers of the Water and Waste Water Plants over the last 11 years have foregone pay raises seven years. Specifically, we went without pay raises to finance our health care benefits and to reduce costs to our employer, the City of Niagara Falls, when they pleaded poverty.
Should we have negotiated raises as well as benefits in all these years, the taxpayer would be paying the employees many more thousands of dollars per year in salary, plus the benefits. Over the last 11 years, we have saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in salaries. This more than covers the costs of our health care. What the administrations have done with this money, no one knows. Should these savings have been put aside, saved and applied specifically for health care benefits instead of being squandered on pie-in-the-sky developers and outside attorneys who try and cheat the employees out of their contractually negotiated and accepted just benefits, there would be no problems.
The city has finished the last two years in the black (not red). Why now are there to be massive layoffs at a time when the city needs all the people it can get for repairs of streets, sidewalks and water/sewer lines, and cleaning of the downtown areas which are so important to help attract additional development to go along with the new casino?
The Waste Water Treatment Plant is aging and thus being a very high-maintenance facility (as they all are). We need the operators and maintenance staff to keep this facility in good shape, so as not to violate the state and federal quality discharge standards, risking fines that would be in the many tens of thousands of dollars.
The Waste Water Plant has deteriorated due to neglect from the administrations, and now it is in need of drastic repairs and continuing maintenance to keep it viable. There is no valid reason for cutbacks at the Waste Water and the Water facilities. Call and question your mayor directly, and I bet you would not get the same answer to your questions twice in a row.
Ask the administration why they this year hired James Roemer, an attorney from Albany, at a $60,000 retainer plus expenses and an hourly fee, to try to break the union contracts, with an additional $100,000 plus expenses and time next year. Ask why four positions in the $50,000-70,000 salary range and two positions in the $20,000-40,000 range were created. Ask why key members of the mayor's administration do not live in the city, as is expected of department heads hired, but use secondary addresses. And ask why her exempt employees are getting raises from six to 11 percent, while people are getting laid off.
One thing that does stick out in my mind is that when this mayor campaigned, our past Union President Larry Lang (now deceased) and I were both told by her that her administration would never do anything to hurt the city employees. Well, I beg to differ. This administration has made it a priority to hurt every employee of the city.
Oh, one more thing, we employees of the city are residents, voters and taxpayers, too.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 5 2002 |