Unemployed mayoral candidate Kenneth Duncan pledged today to take a $21,000 pay cut if voters approve Initiative 300 this November and then elect him mayor in April.
Initiative 300, which would replace the city’s longstanding council-manager form of government with a strong-mayor system, eliminating the city manager position and giving the mayor broad new powers, calls for increasing the mayor’s pay to about $96,000 a year.
Currently, the mayor is paid about $6,250 a year.
Duncan, who would freeze wages and possibly increase health insurance premiums of city workers, said he would lead by example by accepting a salary of “only” $75,000.
“I can’t very well bring that to the people without being willing to do something like that myself,” he said today.
With a few exceptions, city employees haven’t received a pay raise in years, and the City Council wants them to pay a bigger share of their health insurance premiums in 2011.
Duncan said “city salaries are a large part of the problem with our budget shortfalls and for the distrust in government by the citizens of our city.”
Duncan also said he doesn’t want to be “one of those leaders” that “expect everybody to cut back” when they won’t do the same.
“I can’t go that route,” he said.
Duncan said city employees in management positions “across the board” are paid excessively.
He said he would have included employees at Colorado Springs Utilities in his cost-cutting plans if elected mayor.
But he said he recently found out that Initiative 300 would take power away from the mayor when it comes to the city-owned utility.
The article neglects to mention the other part of my press release. I also committed to paying a minimum of 50% of my health insurance premiums, which would bring my proposed income down to about $69,000, but more importantly……..
Knowing what I now know about the reduced oversight of CS utilities, one has to ask oneself, WHY did they write the initiative that way? Who is going to benefit from a Strong Mayor that will have LESS oversight of the Utilities? It sounds “fishy”. I believe the Strong Mayor is still beneficial for the city, and I only hope that if it passes, whoever is elected Mayor will have the ability, along with City Council, to bring CS utilities back under the umbrella of the Mayor and City Council where it belongs.
For more of Kenneth Duncan’s opinions about local and national issues please visit his web page.
http://home.comcast.net/~kpduncan/site/ .
Hon. Lionel Rivera suggested that a strong mayor not be in charge of city planning, which is the same reason you question about Utilities oversight, Mr. Duncan. It is to prevent conflicting vested interest. As it currently stands, council members must voluntarily recuse themselves and abstain from votes when they have sideline involvement.
The public has no idea how often they conceal (or even honestly forget) their vested interest; sometimes an opposing council member with an axe to grind will make allegations but that is only after the fact. Instead of proper checks and balances, Council is split into factions. Picking sides based purely on gut reaction. Seeing this, is it any wonder the voters label them all corrupt? So the short answer to why they wrote the initiative that way was to avoid the need to abstain, and it’s inherent sniping by opposing officials.
I respectfully ask why the altruism regarding self-pay of health insurance and voluntarily taking a pay cut? I hope you don’t intend to subvert the difference into a self-made “charity” (non-profit) like a former County Commissioner/State Rep insisted on.