The American-Statesman (in one of their better moments) reported
earlier this summer that the city has a budget of
$2.39 million in salaries
for public relations and media relations employees. As they mentioned, some of
these jobs involve valuable services, such as providing information to the
press and educating the public on city programs and services. Nonetheless, this
figure does seem a bit high, almost 2% of the entire city budget. And, this
doesn’t include the untold amount spent on computer and other equipment for
these employees.
So, one could be forgiven for envisioning an army of information experts
perched in front of their phones and computers, ready to churn out any
information a member of the press or public might request. It didn’t quite work
out that way for this story. In fact, it crossed my mind several times that the
public information apparatus might be there more as a shield between the public
and city governors.
Requests to the budget office were routed to the “Communications
Office,” or “Public Information Office.” This office, part of the City
Manager’s office, has a proposed budget of $480,416. Their mission, according
to the budget, is to “promote open government by clearly and effectively
communicating information to the news media and the public about city programs
and services. Information is also provided to the city coun-cil, city
management, and departments.”
I requested three lists:
* all the jobs being eliminated in the proposed city budget, listed by
department, job title, and salary;
* notation of which job cuts were part of the delayering effort; and
* the 150 highest salaried city employees.
As mentioned in the main article, an assistant to the city manager has been
compiling the delayering list since Garza requested it on August 17. It still
isn’t ready. Also unavailable was the list of eliminated jobs. After waiting a
week, I took the liberty of saying that it seemed odd that such a list didn’t
exist. I was told that it existed, just not in the form I requested. Now, I had
asked for the list by department, job title, and salary not only because that
would be useful information, but also because I thought it would be easy to
obtain, seeing as how the city’s personnel log (not presented with the budget)
is styled in that manner. Besides, shouldn’t this have been in the budget
anyway? Or perhaps a councilmember would have thought to request it at some
point? Anyway, when the list was finally “compiled,” a week after the initial
request, it was in the same format as the personnel log.
Then there was the list of the 150 highest paid city employees, also
requested by job title, salary, and department. This also took a week and cost
$29 in programming charges. City public information officials explained that
two other entities who had requested the same thing had been charged the same
price. That seems fair enough, but if the information had already been run out,
why didn’t they just make a copy? It was only three pages. I could have gotten
the information sooner and would still have paid the $29. The city could have
made a profit. – D.S.
This article appears in September 1 • 1995 and September 1 • 1995 (Cover).