Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 12
what’s happening not only in the city around the country. Like I’ve said to people, maybe we should
take a look at the doctors, the pharmaceutical company, and the insurance company that keep
pushing this and maybe they should be contributing to some of this rather than the taxpayers. It
seems like the taxpayers get the bill for everything and there’s just so much money to go around.
That’s the first thing.
Mayor Donchess
And we are examining the question. Attorney Bolton is looking into the issue of whether the city could
join one of these lawsuits. Whether it’s feasible, I’m not sure because we haven't fully examined the
issue but one of the lawsuits where the pharmaceutical companies are getting sued because of the
over prescription issue and because of the contribution that that has made toward this rapid
expansion of the number of people that are abusing and addicted to opioid substances.
Paula Johnson
It’s not just the insurance companies. The doctors that write all these scripts. They’re part of it.
Mayor Donchess
Well maybe them too.
Paula Johnson
So is the insurance company because 30 days is cheaper than 5 days or 7 days to put a person on it.
It’s a revolving cycle here. It’s not just one, it’s them all. On page 60 in your department. | noticed
that the Specialist Assistant to the Mayor which was $62,120 no longer exists and now we’re having
the Chief of Staff to the Mayor for $81,915 and that is if by my calculations $19,795 increase for one
person.
Mayor Donchess
So what we have is the person who has taken on the job of Chief of Staff is really functioning as
really a Division Director — is working with the Division Directors and helping to guide city policy. We
used to have and it sort of gradually got eliminated but it was a really necessary position was the
Administrative Services Director. That was a position that made a lot more than that and it got
switched into City Staff. The bottom line is that in order to make that possible within the amount on
the spending cap, we made other cuts. If you look, and we gave this analysis to the Budget
Committee, if you look at a combination of all the city hall departments, general government, financial
services, information technology, etc. and you see the bottom line of those departments, they are
only up .7 percent. For example we cut a position out of city hall, an unnecessary messenger
position which more than compensates for that increase. It is not really a raise because it is a
restructured position. The job description has been altered. That has not been implemented yet and
it won’t be unless it’s passed in the budget. | think it reflects the level of responsibility in fact, the level
of responsibility is even higher than this. It reflects to some degree the level of responsibility of the
person doing the job.
Paula Johnson
Only in government can this happen. So let me ask you a question.
