Knowing that someone’s already made their mind up about you is a great incentive to cut the bullshit. That’s what Lee Leffingwell did in a recent email exchange with Alberta Phillips, who, along with David Lowery, Bruce Hight and Arnold Garcia Jr. comprise the four horsemen of the Austin American-Statesman editorial page. The set up is familiar: the Statesman is aghast at the public safety unions, and steamed by their support for Leffingwell. We’ll let the letter, couched in a Q&A format, take it from here:
3. Public safety costs make up two-thirds of general fund spending. Would you support freezing or cutting the pay of police officers, firefighters and EMS employees? How would you control costs?
At this point, no one in city government, other than one of my opponents, has proposed freezing or cutting wages for city employees. However, I have said many times that if our budget situation ever does require freezing or cutting wages for any city employee – which I hope it does not – I would support pay cuts for top city management, including the City Council, first. I have also said many times that if it ever becomes necessary to freeze or cut the pay of any non-contract city employees, I would support asking city employees working under a negotiated contract – meaning our police, fire and EMS employees – to also accept freezes or cuts.
Indeed, despite the Statesman’s string of fact-free editorials in recent weeks, I have never said “hands off public safety.” I have never said that police, fire or EMS should be “last in line for budget cuts.” I have never said that our public safety departments should be “exempt from trimming.” I have never said that I want “to hold the police and fire departments exempt from budget cuts.” I have never said I “would rather ask companies to sacrifice their tax incentives than have police officers and firefighters give up their raises.” I have never said I want public safety employees “to have their millions of dollars in raises and overtime at any cost.” Yet week after week, the Statesman editorial board mysteriously continues to advance these fictions. As far as I know, I’ve only been “criticized as beholden to the powerful public safety unions” by the Statesman editorial board itself (which, as you’ll no doubt recall, dubbed me “a longtime union leader” even though I’ve never been any kind of union leader), and by people actively supporting another candidate for mayor in this election.
In terms of controlling public safety costs, I believe we took an important step forward with the most recent police contract by eliminating (at to my insistence with the Austin Police Association leadership) the “public safety premium,” which previously guaranteed public safety employees a 2% premium over the pay of non-contract city employees – a bad idea which, it should be noted, was advanced by one of my opponents. Going forward, as I noted above, I believe we should try to find operating efficiencies in every city department, although I would not personally support cuts in public safety or social services that would directly and negatively impact service delivery. I would call your attention to the fact that the police department has already cut $3.7 million from its budget this year – cuts which I supported – and that the City Manager and Fire Chief have now proposed cost-savings measures in the fire department that do not impact service delivery, which I also support.
Do I believe that a strong public safety network is fundamental to our quality of life and should be a top funding priority for the city? Yes. Do I believe that our public safety departments should exempt from any budget cuts, or that public safety employee salaries should be prioritized over the salaries of other city employees? No.
This article appears in April 10 • 2009.