Compensation Study
Attached are documents used by reporter Allen Baker in his article on the City's compensation study in the June 10, 2010, issue of the Ashland Sneak Preview.
Summary of Salaries and Benefits
Picking the consultant
The Ashland city council went along with City Administrator Martha Bennett’s suggestion for the classification and compensation study two years ago, and proposals were due in October of 2008.
The city actively solicited proposals from consultants around the region and beyond. There were 13 that came in.
Some bids were two-inch-thick thick binders with lots of filler. Others were fairly simple.
Three bids were in the $25,000 to $35,000 area. Four firms wanted to charge $70,000 to nearly $100,000. Four were around $40,000 to $50,000, including the one from CPS Human Resource Services, at $51,660.
Bennett, Finance Director Lee Tuneberg, and Human Resources Director Tina Gray read and ranked the proposals independently on a point system. Price, or ``fee arrangement’’ was one of the criteria, but only 20 points on a 100-point scale.
The three managers all gave CPS their highest mark. The city did check some references, but didn’t do any interviews, Bennett said.
``They seemed like the best value for the money when we went through the process,’’ Bennett related. ``There was a wide diversity of qualifications, and a wide range of costs.’’
While the city has a good handle on consultants for engineering work and the like, there was no past experience on this kind of service, she said.
CPS is a quasi-state agency affiliated with the California government. Its proposal said the firm had $132 million in revenue the prior year.
As the study progressed, California ran into budget problems of its own, and so did CPS.
``In the middle of our study, they went through a lot of changes,’’ Bennett said, including the departure of the person who had done most of the Ashland work.
There were delays and quality problems both, the city manager said.
``There are some things we’re saving,’’ she said. ``I wouldn’t use this firm again.’’
--Allen Baker
Fate of the Wastewater Treatment Plant
April 15, 2010
Long time no see! Here's a commentary I wrote for the April 2010 issue, floating the idea that we get rid of the wastewater treatment plant. If you're tired of paying $34 a month for sewer while everyone else in the valley pays $14 a month, you'll find this article interesting. —C. Hayden
Let the Voters Decide the Fate of the Wastewater Treatment Plant
The headline in the March 18 Daily Tidings said it all: “Rates rise for water and sewer.” Hmm, wasn’t that what the City was threatening to do if we didn’t pass the meals tax in November? Almost proves the adage that “a sucker is born every minute,” doesn’t it?
Racks Downtown: A Non-Issue
February 4, 2010
The number of important issues facing Ashland is endless: water (or lack thereof), wildfire dangers, sustainability, green technologies, alternative energy, economic development … the list goes on.
Each of these demands immediate attention, and I find it extraordinary that the City Council could put a non-issue, the placement of newspaper racks downtown, on the fast track and come up with a ridiculous ordinance that involved an inordinate amount of staff time and very little input from the public or the affected entities.
The People Have Spoken
Wed., November 4, 2009 - 8:00am
The people have spoken, and unfortunately it was decided to continue with an unfair, unethical and immoral tax that foists the burden of collecting money on one small segment of the community that suffers an economic loss because of it. The size of this defeat was staggering, but if I were to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing. We simply had too big a hole to climb out of.
Vegas & Other Happenings
May 14, 2009
It’s been a while since I visited this blog. A number of things have been going on to divert my attention.
1. I went to a college reunion in Las Vegas in mid-April with 15 ol’ fraternity brothers from Indiana University. Don’t worry, though, no one did a keg stand, although we did semi-trash a banquet room at The Palm Restaurant in Caesar’s.
An Informative Email
April 9, 2009
After my rebuttal to Jeff Golden appeared in the Tidings on March 31, I received a call from Jeff who “had a beef” about my characterization of him as not working hard. So I placed an apology in both the Tidings and the Sneak Preview. In that apology, I mentioned that I was upset that he referred to cranky restaurant owners, and he also demonized Realtors.
Meals tax: it doesn't add up
April 6, 2009
I feel compelled to respond to Jeff Golden's revisionist history about the meals tax (see March 28 Tidings column "And you thought the meals tax was settled"). The proposal did not pass by a narrow margin in March 1993. It won by almost 9 percent. A subsequent recall effort in November 1993 narrowly lost by .05 percent.
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