One Too Many Help Lines in This City

I thought we were on the fast track to bankruptcy, insolvency, pestilence and chaos.

I dunno, that's what the new Mayor was selling but a fortnight ago.

From The Citizens' Voice:

Grievance filed by union raises questions about city help line job

The obligatory excerpt...

WILKES-BARRE — A grievance filed on behalf of city hall employees earlier this month raises questions regarding the status of the re-established mayor’s help line and salary for its coordinator.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 1310 in Wilkes-Barre filed a grievance about two weeks ago arguing that the mayor’s help line should be a union position and been put out for bid. The position had been a union position prior to being eliminated by former Mayor Tom Leighton. When Mayor Tony George reinstated the help line coordinator, he made it a non-union management position.

He selected Carol Smith for the job at her former city rental inspector salary of $52,503 — $22,287 more than the job paid in 2004 before it was eliminated. If that job were to exist today, after accounting for a 3 percent annual raise included in the union contract, the salary would be $43,080.

So we'll pay $52,503 for a switchboard operator? Or, shall we say, a glorified secretary who answers the Mayor's needless help line?

Here! I've got a number that someone at City Hall should be dialing, and soon: 829-1341. Yeah, someone who luxuriates in sophistry by way of discursiveness needs help. Real help, that is.

G'nite