04/23/02  Response to Phil Levin:

After reading Phil Levin's comments about the Competitive Pay referendum, I felt the need to add some more information, although your responses were right on the money.

It would be great to be able to vary the pay between ranks and even focus on starting salaries, but it's not legally possible.  There was no choice but to make it 17% across the board.

I think Laura Miller will be a great mayor for Dallas, but 15% over 3 years proposal just won't work, for a couple of reasons. 

First off, it just doesn't solve the problem: it won't help Dallas recruit officers RIGHT NOW. 

Second, today's council can't obligate future councils to anything, so the second 5% and third 5% could (and probably would) disappear without a trace. In fact, the FIRST 5% isn't even guaranteed.  The council just asked the city staff to try and find 5%.

The meetings between the city's representatives and the Competitive Pay folks wasn't that friendly - at least not from the city's side. The city side refused to compromise, not the fire and police. They made no counterproposal at all - just threats. 

Of course, by that time the Citizen's Council-type groups had already taken over and were running the show.   They want our money going into their pockets and not to firefighters and police officers.

I don't think firefighters and police are backing us against the wall.  The referendum was a last-ditch effort to try and salvage our public safety departments while the city council sits around demanding payoffs from the Palladium folks. 

Maybe if the cops and firefighters had $15 million for Don Hicks, they would get his vote too!