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The city payroll
Seven employees of Ocean Shores will earn more than $100,000 this year, including Mayor Dean Bunkers and Fire, Police and Public Works department heads. (Mayor Bunkers donates 10 percent of his earnings back to the city.)
Three other employees are on pace to earn more than $90,000 in 2009.
A total of 29 city workers will earn more than $75,000, based on year-to-date earnings provided by the city to the North Coast News. These figures reflect earnings, and do not include the cost to the city of benefits.
Overtime payments, following layoffs, have bolstered paychecks, particularly in the Fire and Police Departments.
The 11 police officers have earned an average of $70,071 so far in 2009 (high of $88,063, low of $56,953), which annualizes to $84,085. Three are on pace to earn more than $95,000, this year.
The 11 firefighter/paramedics have earned an average of $69,131 so far in 2009 (high of $89,490, low of $52,774), which annualizes to $82,957. Three firefighter/paramedics are on pace to earn more than $98,000 in 2009.
The city’s payroll through the first 10 months of the year was just over $4.9 million. Subtracting around $150,000 for part-timers, the 82 full-time employees have earned an average of well over $50,000 thus far.
Rising salaries and declining revenues have been a devastating combination, for Ocean Shores, where just three years ago, the “ending balance,” commonly referred to as “reserves,” of the city’s General Fund was $2,287,618. The 2010 preliminary budget projects that balance to be down to $131,343, at the end of 2010.
Some of the stuff I see people feeding the racoons around here that might not be a bad idea. They eat better than I do.
RACCOON Costume Adult Professional MADE, $199 on ebay
I and new when I typed that one little thing at the end that someone was going to. There was knocking on my door around midnight last night and this is the first thing I thought of………turned out to be a racoon. I thought maybe Tom ratted me out to the man.
Phillip,
Just kidding…..thought I get a rise outta you with that one!!
I think they have solved each of the homicides and a heck of a lot of the house burglaries in Ocean Shores too which may be a little more important than a yard ornament.
I think we are mostly crime free because the police do a good job of catching those that steal around here. One person stole a garden ornament and was caught within a couple days. Another broke into Sharkys and they caught him.
So they do a good job of nabbing most of the criminals.
Thanks Birddog!
http://www.wikihow.com/Tidy-New-Zealand-Flax-Plants
For your benefit Paul.
OSLOCAL, I don’t know when the last time you talked to anybody outside of our own community regarding our P.D., I have. I knew of this rep. before I even moved here 6 years ago. This was not just one off handed remark by one county deputy or trooper. I’m not saying they are dishonest or bad people. Just that they have a reputation. I’m sorry if I struck a nerve (or funny bone). I’ve ridden in enough police cars (not in the back) and have worked with Seattle P.D., King County, State Patrol, F.B.I., State Dept, Secret Service, White House Staff to name a few. Don’t get me wrong I was NOT an Officer and don’t want to misrepresent myself my previous profession is not the issue, and I do come from an L.E. family. I am usually the first to defend L.E. officers. Like I said I was merely stating They have a reputation. When I discussed my decision to move here and the subject of the local P.D. was brought up it was usually followed by, good guys…as long as they don’t have to get out of their cars. When you here this multiple times from multiple people in muliple depts, to me that constitutes a reputation, maybe “notorious” was a bit much, but reputation none the less.
If you are one of those guys….please don’t hold this against me if you pull me over.:)
Now that you menion it, the surf rescue squad.
I hear they get a rather impressive pay raise for being on the squad and probably overtime for training sessions. Dump the squad and save some bucks!
Also, don’t go swimming in the ocean anymore.
But, the really important question remains unanswered: what is a “flax plant”?
They certainly will not catch anyone at the coffee shacks. My point is that they have the time to fill out the paperwork because of the low crime. Again, look at the numbers. Do not forget to order fuel for the copter we need next for patrol and saving people in the surf….
Just another quick thought..
Maybe it would be better if we never saw the cops, that way we can guess where they are hiding to catch us honest, law abiding locals.
Then we can complain that there is never one around when you need him! Cool beans! Something new to whine about!
Birddog?
What the heck is a “flax plant”?
Has anyone checked a local cops pocket for his bullet?
No matter, they probably don’t need bullets here in “good old Mayberry”.
That would be like providing hoses for our fire department, when was the last fire here?
So, when they are sitting in the library talking to the staff, at the coffee shacks talking for way longer than it takes to get a coffee, in front of the police station behind the flax plants, down on the beach watching the surf, and other locations people notice them, they are not wasting our money? Many departments have the people do the form because they can describe better what has happened. Also, those are departments with crime going on. Here, if you look at the statistics, we are virtually crime free. If you talk to any of those departments that you refer to, you will find that what we have happen in a year happens in a day there. We are Mayberry RFD.
Give the city to the county….who cares at this point. It will NEVER be what you all want it to be. Let’s just deal with it.
Phillip Ray,
I would love to know who your source is for your statment, “We have a Police force that has a notorious reputation, even in the law enforcement community for being lazy and cutting corners to avoid paperwork.”
You seem to be intelligent with all your posts…with the exception of this last bit. I can tell you that you actaully made me laugh when I read that….it was funny. You obviously haven’t been to any other Police Departments whom have decided to have citizens fill out their own stolen property reports, malicious mishchief reports, collision reports. Ocean Shores Police Officer’s do not lack in this department. If you actaully knew what you were talking about in this regard. How about going participating in a ride-a-long to get a true idea of what they do on a regular basis.
Unless “you” know exactly what you’re talking about….I’d suggest you get your ducks in a row before inserting your foot in your mouth…no offense. But hey, thanks for the laugh.
So here we have a small town paying it’s employees with what seems to be a big city budget. Until now I haven’t heard a whole lot of complaints about what we are paying our employees. (except for maybe the mayor) however there seems to be no way the city can survive while continuing to pay these salaries without making the citizens shell out more money. The economy has been on a downward epiral for almost two years now and yet the city has continued spending on projects that some are calling frivolous. We have a mayor that in his previous occupation when he needed something probably submitted paperwork and two weeks later had it delivered or approved from, in the past what seemed to be a limitless amount of money and resources. We have a city council that to me seems to have a lack of cpa’s, accountants, or anybody having anything to do with budgets. (correct me if i’m wrong…..no really) but you know what we elected them. He have a community who’s busineses rely heavily on tourism yet with the exception of a beach there is little to offer. ( I don’t see how a community can survive on selling taffy and seashells) We have a grocery store that is nothing less than highway robbery. Last week I went to a local pizza place, bought two pizzas a few side salads and buffalo wings my bill was over $80. Recently my family went to Long Beach and we immediatly commented to each other “why can’t Ocean Shores be like this” They had a boardwalk that was out of this world, you could go to the beach without having to go to the beach., tarred paths in the dunes that were full of bicyclers rollerbladers and skateboarders., even on a wednesday and a wide variety of shops including a caroseul. It was an awesome experience. Then back home to run down buildings in desperate need of paint (where did iga get that color) and very little to offer. In a few months we will have a roundabout…….by the way when people are leaving and go through town without having to actually stop what is going to happen at the gates when people are leaving and have to stop. HUGE BACKUP!!!!!!! There are now no restrictions handling the flow of traffic that will all be leaving. This city cannot survive much longer based on what we have now. There are no easy answers or solutions layoffs are widespread elsewhere and think it is time here. Unless all city employees are willing to forgo a portion of his or her pay they will have to work harder and longer to make up for less staff. We have a Police force that has a notorious reputation, even in the law enforcement community for being lazy and cutting corners to avoid paperwork.
A firestation that is nothing less than stellar but have no one to staff it. The city needs to get to serving the people of the city, not just the ones who work for it. We need a fiscally responsable city govt. that will pay people what they are worth and not what they think they are worth or what they want just because.
Well one way to look at it is once the city has folded completely and there’s nothing left, at least we’ll all have good roads to drive out of the gates on.
However, positions are still there with different names in most. Most of the vacancies are already marked as such. When you look at it, remember to take all the Utility people out of the picture. They are exempt from the current games.
chart is out of date.
Paula G.
The city org chart can been seen at
http://www.osgov.com/cityorg.html
I don’t know how up to date it is.
Does anyone know if there is a City Organizational Chart available that shows who reports to who – what departments fall under who and how many FTE’s & PTE’s are in each department?
Where has Brock been? “…recall the whole change of government venue and return to what we had in the past. If something is not broke then why try to fix it.” Give me a break. How do you think we got in this mess in the first place. It was because of an inept city council and its stooge city manager. At lease we now have a council that is trying to do something and a Mayor who is working very hard to fix things. And,for what he is having to do, the Mayor is not over paid.
Well said Birddog.
Tom,
Thank you for generating all this discussion. It is great to see people finally come out of the woodwork to discuss the issues. The question to ask about salaries is how they relate to cities of 5000 people. If you go to the MRSC you can see 2008 budgets, levies, and special levies. We are a city with a very high assessed value with few people. However, our city still is based upon tourism and retirement. Retirement really does not offer much growth because of limited incomes. People have experienced loses in 401Ks and other retirement plans. That scares them more than havign police, fire and EMS services. They do not want to be eating cat food to survive. The other question is, what crime here? Officers across the country are leaving big city departments looking for places that they can raise their family, make enough money to live reasonably, and survive without getting killed. The chances of getting killed in Ocean Shores is certainly less than Seattle or any other large city. We do have a lower cost of housing, nice environment, and quality schools. Those are trade-offs people of all types make when looking for a place to live.
What we need to do is cut our Tourism and Business Development Director’s salary in half. Hire a real Business Development person who can get people here that are not tourism based. Then we can grow the city properly. Right now we are balancing on a tight rope and about to fall any time the tourism market goes south. We need Urgent Care to stop the long travel to Aberdeen. We need to focus on serving Ocean Shores and not the County, Port, or other entities and people that are not contribuiing to our bottom line.
We can get good people to do these jobs. Cities all across the country with less get good people. We can too. Sell the sizzle.
I am not quick to blame the Unions – I think there are problems to be resolved across the Board – unions included. Unions have their place. But right now, the City of Ocean Shores has major problems that need to be resolved and everyone needs to contribute to the solution. That includes union paid personnel. The city cannot afford to pay the wages that are being paid and still remain financially solvent.
Closing the Interpretive Center or the Library are last ditch resolutions. I would rather see the Library operate 2-3 days a week and the librarian pay be adjusted to work those 2 or 3 days as well as an annual Libray card fee of $5.00 or $10.00 per libray card holder. I would like to see a $1.00 or $2.00 per person fee collected at the Interpretive Center or a $5.00 per family charge to help fund the costs.
According to the proposed 2010 budget that was available prior to the council meeting, the Director of the Interpretive Center appears to be overpaid as well as a few other employees.
Whether or not we agree on the approach on how to balance the budget and keep our city solvent – I am confident we can all agree that emergency measures need to be taken sooner than later.
Every decision that needs to be made is not an easy one – nor will one decision balance the entire budget. Whatever actions our Mayor and the City Council takes – they must keep in mind the needs of its citizens and the local businesses first as this is the tax base that generates the majority of the cities operating funds.
hey there, get real, funny some one has brought that up. when i was working for govt contractors my hrly wage was connected directly to local aircraft workers wages. even though i was required to maintain a top secret clearance my hrly was hooked directly to the guy who only had to pass a pee test to get hired. the pay scale from the towns you listed are probably not the towns we should be hooked to salary wise. lets try aberdeen, monte, centrailia, oly, mcleary, and chehalis. then see how many of our employees want to hang around. i agree, too much is too much…………….but when is that? oops, throw out oly, we all know they make too much $$.
I know the Mayor to be an honorable man. Why are we questioning this? The donation does go to a good cause, so for those of you who question his word, pay up.
Per the latest union contract that is in effect now, the Ocean Shores salaries are based on pay scale from Seattle/Tacoma/Bremerton. That is why the wages are so high and not scaled to our lower cost of living in Ocean Shores.
Brock: thanks for accepting the challenge (and upping the ante)! I will match it as well: $5 donation to the food bank for every canceled check of the mayor giving money back to the city I post on this web site.
Anyone else?
I agree with you Fritz. Maybe it is time for the other people to suck it up as you have said in your previous posting. Maybe it is time to recall the whole change of government venue and return to what we had in the past. If something is not broke then why try and fix it.
Incredible how the people of this town want top notch services but don’t want to pay for it. I recall a survey the people filled out about the roads. 98% of the people wanted new roads but nobody wanted to pay for the new roads. Lets look at the cost of living in this community and then compare it with salaries, I think you are going to see that they are not making an overwhelming amount of money to live on.
Paula why are you so quick to blame the unions for the salaries? If you did comparables with cities based on the assessed values and size of Ocean Shores then you will see after several years of being underpaid the city employees are finally getting paid the proper amount of money. You can not look at just the size of the city there are other things that are considered when looking at comparables.
one more time…………..a sitting mayor cannot have his/her pay changed in any way. it is not an os law but a state law. the only way is to eliminate the mayor, change the pay scale then elect a mayor. yes, the mayor does make a nice piece of change from hie military retirement. but, once again, it is no one’s business but his. quit the pissing and moaning, he earned it.
For every check that you post on this web site I would be more than happy to donate $5 to the food bank.
The mayor and the dept. heads should willingly take cuts in pay to help keep other jobs. 100k? That’s absurd. No wonder some of these people are on “high” ego trips. The mayor is most likely getting a very comfortable salary from his retirement already, he should be very happy to donate alot more than 10% in the betterment of his community.
Closing the library and interpetive center are bad ideas, it breaks the sense of community.
Look around for the city employed with nothing to do.. office workers giggling and playing on the web with not enough work and still taking OT. I’m sure you will find it.
AUDIT the F**K out of the city process. Find out, in a scientific way, what is working and what is not. None of this guessing crud. And make sure the audits don’t come from the same people that have had this GOOD OLD BOY town reeling in debt.
I don’t think closing the library and the Interpretive Center should be options. The Interpretive Center is operated by mostly volunteers and attract tourists to our cities. The Library needs to remain open if, maybe on limited hours, so students and citizens can access needed materials. Do not cut services that are needed by our residents.
I do believe that the salaries are way out of line for a City of our size and I do believe the department leaders are not responsible keepers of the City’s funds.
The City has some hard decisions to be made – but let’s make the cuts where they are most needed.
Maybe it is time to break the unions that drive these salaries to the point that they are breaking the financial stability of our City. Mayor Bunkers inherited a mess from the prior regime – but it is time to clean house and bring financial stability back to the City of Ocean Shores.
The Police Officer’s have been on overtime…hence why they are showing they get paid as much as they do. As I previously stated, each Officer works for this city over 100 hours for free. Would you want to do that….say….on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc…? Not too mention, they wear a gun on their belt, don on a bullet-proof vest, and protect us from crime….and you’re complaining about what? I do absolutely agree with you about the Mayor’s salary though. Completely out-of-line.
The Mayor of OS is paid as much as the Mayor of Portland Oregon? The average Police Officer is paid comparable to Vancouver Police Sergeants or more?
If I worked for the city and made what is obviously “good money” and they came to me and asked if I would be willing to cut 10% of my salary so co-workers would not loose their jobs, I would be more than willing to. If they all did this, than by these numbers the city would be saving roughly 500k a year. I realize that there are contracts and unions involved so a vote would be necessary by the city employees. Seems kinda simple.
the mayor deserves what was in place when he was elected. find a way to change it or live with it. librarian………..i don’t think so. it’s way too much for such a podunk little library.
I didn’t say cut the paramedics salary, only the ones that are not risking their lives in their daily jobs.
Do you think the mayor deserves $100,000 or the head librarian $75,000?
Ignore the 1500 reject votes.
Get new money with utility fees instead if a Lid Lift.
Close the Library and the Interpretive Center.
These voters are really stupid we know how to bypass their votes.and punish them to boot.
Council Member Crumpacker Made the Motion:
The city council instruct the mayor to prepare and present to the city council a balanced 2010 budget that takes into account the discussions and input we have had tonight and eliminate the anticipated 1.3 million dollar deficit by a combination of department budget cuts and personnel reductions including the lay off of the Library staff, employees at the Interpretive center and other changes including the possibility of an EMS utility as the Mayor sees appropriate.
Seconded by Council Member Skewis.
Passes 5 to 1.
OMG, you get what you pay for when it comes to emergency services. If you want second or third-rate paramedics or police, those who can’t get jobs anywhere else but will take the lower-paying job because it’s all they can have, than enjoy the lower-level services that reflect poorly on the community.
No wonder we are broke. Vote no on everything until they put the salaries in line with other cities this small.
Brock: As a “doubting Thomas,” I can relate to your cynicism. Two things: 1) would canceled checks be proof enough for you? and 2) will you donate $5 to the food bank if I post two of them on this Web site?
Well, this is going to get a little interesting. Good way to shake things up Mr. Scanlon.
Mr Newman, the fact that our mayor is retired from the Navy has absolutely nothing to do with his being mayor. It is a retirement well earned and none of your damn business. Suck it up dude.
Please tell me that the citizens are aware that each public safety personnel for the City of Ocean Shores works over 100 hours free every year. That’s right, they work for free….not a penny extra for the time they are away from their families, friends and anything else that may be important to them. The overtime these folks work, mean they are working 60+ hours a week….honestly, who wants to do that. The overtime problem, which was mentioned basically a year ago to the Mayor was to be expected. Don’t let this fool of a Mayor decieve you….he is using his Navy strategies to reduce forces, increase work, “attempting” to have the same quality of work…doesn’t work like that. Blame Bunkers, question his ability to do anything right.
So it sounds like with all the overtime the city basically cut off it’s nose to spite it’s face!!! Come on, lay some more people off so more overtime can be generated!!!
Well lets look at the fact that the Mayor is collecting a retirement from the Navy. If you actually want to see an estimation of what the Mayor is making then I would suggest a person go to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and request this information. Do the department heads within the City of Ocean Shores collect a retirement along with a salary that is paying over $100,000 a year. I know for a fact that is not the case.
I wonder since Tom Scanlon is so interested in seeing the salary of city employees, would he be interested in putting in a request to see the proof that the Mayor is actually returning the 10% that he claims he returns to the city. I know that there are several people who live in your community, including myself (part-time resident) would like to see the proof. It is time for the Mayor to put up the proof of this return.
As far as services are considered if you want to lay the people off then you better expect to incur the cost of overtime to get the service that the citizens are use to getting.
So lets see if Tom Scanlon is willing and brave enough to obtain this information about the Mayor’s salary?
You would have to think that some of those who made additional overtime and received the high yearly salary did so because they had to fill the slots of those who have already been laid-off. Someone has to work those hours you just can’t leave them empty with no energency service coverage. Just consider the fact that if more we let go, then those who remain will be forced to work more at an elevated pay to work so that city services remain functional. The overall amount of funds that are put out will remain the same, or posible higher. It’s not like there are services anywhere around that can fill the void, if you want to wait for 20 to 30 minutes for an ambulance to respond while you are laying on the ground, or waiting for the police to respond when you need them, then no worries for you. But when you need help you expect it to be there now. So what are you going to do then?
Just how badly do these folks want the City to balance its budget and continue its services to its citizens. Mayor Bunkers is to be commended for turning back part of his salary. How about the rest of the Department Heads?
Ohhhhh, really?