Comment 56332

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted January 14, 2011 at 12:43:33

CityJoe >> You get what you pay for, & a promise to pay nothing suggests that you will get nothing in return.

Employee wages/benefits make up the lion's share of the city budget. From 2005-2009, this number has increased from $466.3M to $656.1M, an average gain of 8.9% per year. In that same period of time, Hamilton's population is up 1.3%, or 0.3% per year. The number of full time employees has gone from 5,732 to 6,183, an increase of 7.9%, or 1.9% per year.

In 2005, city employee wage costs per resident was $899, in 2009, it was $1,248.1. That works out to an average increase per resident of 8.5% to pay for employee costs. In that same period of time, Ontario's GDP increased by only 7.6%, or 1.8% per year. In that same period of time, wages/salaries/other income for the people of Ontario has increased 11.7%, or 2.8% per year.

Is it right for the city to reward city workers with pay increases of 8.5% per year, when the average taxpayer got less than 2.8% over the same time frame? For that amount of money, shouldn't our city be in better shape economically than it was in 2005? And yet, in that time frame, Hamilton has lost hundreds if not thousands of good jobs?

Hamilton needs to put our bloated city government on a diet. Link wages with provincial wages and then we'll start to see an economic revival. Otherwise, more taxpayer money will simply go to prop up cushy, unionized, unproductive jobs in which there is no need to be responsive to the public they claim to serve.

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