IS IT TRUE August 20, 2012
IS IT TRUE with all of the posturing about the IT Budget and the need for an audit by City Councilman and Budget Chairman John Friend, CPA we are expecting to hear some discussion about this budget pretty soon?…that some members of the Mole Nation have told us that Vanderburgh County is backing out of their commitment to pay their part of this consolidated department and cutting Councilman Friend off at the knees in his quest to add some accountability to the IT Department that recently lost their head?…there are many questions about past IT spending that need to be answered with the solution adopted at the Ford Center being at the top of the list?
IS IT TRUE that the merged Lexington-Fayette Urban County government found that before their consolidation, there was one full time public employee for every 85 residents?….that twenty years after consolidation there was one public employee for every 100 residents?…that due to consolidation Lexington-Fayette appears to be getting more mileage for the same dollars?…that while Lexington’s consolidation appears to have worked in achieving efficiency and streamlining government, there is no guarantee that would happen in Evansville?…that ultimately, whether a decision to vote for or against consolidation is not the most important vote to achieve good public policy and efficiency?…,the people we elect will have the biggest impact on the city’s success?…if the City of Evansville has a legacy if poor public policy it is the people who have been elected AND the people who did the electing that are to blame?…it was the late great comedian/philosopher George Carlin who is credited with saying “the sure way to assure that fools are elected is to have a majority of fools casting the votesâ€?
IS IT TRUE the resolution floated by Dr. Dan Adams to limit any increases in salary to non-union City of Evansville employees to 3% or less is alleged to have stirred up some union leaders?…there are a couple of City Center Moles who have told the CCO that union leaders are of the opinion that such a resolution would violate existing union contracts?…we wonder why a union contract would have any clause in it that had something to say about the wages of people who are outside of the collective bargaining units it represents?…that seems to be over reaching on the control system?…in a recent bid for a quasi public entity to do a small construction job there were two prices quoted?…if the job is required to comply with Davis-Bacon laws (prevailing wage) the quote is $420,000 and if the job is exempted from those laws the quote is $140,000?…that federal funds for this project are going to be refused because it is a 50/50 matching situation and the local funding is less expensive by choosing to turn down the governments offer of a $210,000 matching grant with Davis-Bacon strings attached to it?
IS IT TRUE that the University of Evansville just announced that it will be freezing tuition for the incoming freshmen so that they will pay the same price for the four years that they attend?…that tuition is currently just shy of $30,000 per year?…that this writer is a proud graduate of UE and remembers writing those tuition checks in the late 70’s and early 80’s?…the tuition at that time was closer to $3,000 per year?…that my co-op job at the time paid well enough that a year’s tuition at UE from my earnings alone could be paid for with roughly 500 hours of work after taxes?…that a typical student today would have to earn $60 per hour after taxes or about $80 per hour before taxes to be able to pay for a year at UE from working at night and on weekends?…that at a more typical co-op student paycheck of $15 per hour, today’s students would have to work more like 2,500 hours (48 hours per week) to pay for their tuition as they go as I was able to do?…that in terms of the hours worked to cover the tuition prices have increased by 400% since 1980 at UE and many other campuses around the country?…prices for education are now so high that the value proposition is being questioned?…the same things have happened to the purchasing power of the parents of students during the last 30 years?…that most students do get financial aid but the value proposition is still dubious in today’s economy where lawyers, engineers, and other educated professionals find themselves competing for retail jobs to make ends meet?…that at today’s prices that this guy may very well have had to make different decisions in the pursuit of an education?
