Where are Pinckneyville's Budget Priorities?

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ After the national economy took a turn for the worst it had a heavy impact on state and city budgets. Illinois' bills are piling up, one of which includes a $200,000 bill to Pinckneyville for maintenance of the prison. That bill remains unpaid.

At a December meeting in Pinckneyville, the budget showed that the City was in the red. Let us take a quick look at a few things of note that are on the City budget.

The Economic Development Annex

With a Mayor's Office nearby and City Hall across the street, the City invested in an Economic Development building in the hopes of aiding businesses to come to Pinckneyville. A department which many citizens believe could have been installed in already currently owned offices, if they wanted it installed at all.

In the fiscal year 2008-2009 the annex cost a total of $67,344.23. The building itself cost $33,613.00 then added on several items such as paint, broadband and office supplies. This number does not include costs for employee wages, water, sewer, gas, electric and employee drug testing.

Employed within the annex are two employees. Carrie Ford, a full time employee, makes $13.75 an hour for $28,350.40 a year. Ford has managed grant applications and agreements and attends seminars on how to make the city additional money. All of these things can be filled out and sent off.

Also employed in the annex is Harold Palmer who works contractually being paid quarterly for $6,000 (thus $24,000 a year) in addition to being paid hourly when needed at a rate not set. Palmer's expenses from the FY 2008-2009 include $3,700 in mileage expenses for the last half of the year.

The purchase of the Economic Development building runs the same risks as a new business, which at this point in the economy is not a very good gamble. While it does sound nice to have an office dedicated to finding grants for the city and to watch over business development, not many businesses are knocking at Pinckneyville's door nor are there many grants out there in comparison to a year ago. If the state cannot pay its bills how is it supposed to hand out free grants (the same can be said at the federal level)?

The TUMS Building

When the TUMS building emptied out Perry County took a large hit to its employment. The City, in hopes of finding a new business for the building soon after, took the responsibility of the building themselves, opting to pay for the taxes for the property.

In addition, the city chose to hire a maintenance manager to keep the building in good shape for potential buyers. Chuck Sroka was hired at 25$ an hour to maintain the TUMS building and was budgeted in at $2,550.00 for FY 08-09. The TUMS building also costs $226,428.84 annually in property tax.

The TUMS building remains empty and under the City's responsibility.

Holiday and Salary

Some of the claims in the city budget cause a person to wonder exactly how conservative the city is trying to be with their money, if at all.

Lettering on the doors of the economic annex cost $625. Repairing and installing Christmas decorations cost $750 (which defeats separation of church and state) in addition to $850 to take them back down. The Mayor's photos for city hall cost a total of $333 and another $385.50 for frames for pictures. One frame which happens to be quite larger than the others. And finally, for $52.50, the budget line simply says, "flowers Harold Palmer."

Even comparison wages are rough. The Mayor of Pinckneyville, a city of 5,464 (census 2000), receives a part-time salary of $9,000. The Mayor of Du Quoin, a city of 6,648 (census 2001), receives $80.77 a week and $75 for each council meeting attended, totaling $6,000 if all meetings are attended.

It appears as though the City wants to make money and hopes to "strike gold" instead of saving what money it has. And because of this, the Mayor proposed a deal for the utility companies.

The EMC Proposal

A private business, Environmental Management Corporation, proposed that it could come in, manage Pinckneyville's utilities in its stead, and save the city $122,771. It is a proposal that many of the employees of the effected departments are not happy about. Many of these employees say they care about Pinckneyville, even accept sub-standard wages to remain in the area and help the city. Even though saving the City money is a great way to help, many claim that EMC is not the way to go, nor is cutting down the utility department. A former employee of the City stated, "When you come up short, you have to prioritize."

EMC was first proposed in April 2008 and was turned down by the city. They returned in December 2008 when the city was in the red and offered their deal again. After a few toiling weeks, Commissioner David Stone stated that he would work with the employees and the departments to save the money for the city without handing it over to an outside business within 90 days.

The key lies within EMC's name, Environmental Management Corporation. "Management." EMC does not offer a product or a necessity, they offer a service that takes responsibility from the city. EMC is the difference between fixing your own dinner or going out to eat.

If the city can improve its own management habits, it can accomplish the same feats in saving money without having to pay an outside source.

One of the items on Commissioner Stone's 90-day attempt to save the city money was to ask two employee's to volunteer for layoff during the 90-days and if there were no volunteers then those at the bottom of seniority would be first. It is speculation of many of the employees, as well as the previous habit in other cities, that EMC would layoff those at the top of seniority to save the most money. Either way, the City's attempt as raising employment by bringing more business is defeated by asking the utility department to cut back its workers.

While it will be hard for the utility department, which offers a service that is a necessity for the city, to cut back further, an employee of the department stated that if it had to be done, "you can't hire anyone to operate the system cheaper than yourself."