Reader says get rid of unnecessary Town jobs
To the editor:
A while back when Lee County indicated that they would no longer handle building/permitting, Jerry Murphy and the Fort Myers Beach Town manager at the time were told to look into out-sourcing but simply never did.
Many small municipalities like ours do not need their own building/permitting department. Unfortunately and as expected, nothing was done and the staff forged ahead and a building department/permitting department was created.
More government bloat and waste.
Ironically, the private companies that provide these services not only do it for FREE but some even kick back some revenue to the municipality. The way they work is simply by using the permit fees charged to operate and do their job.
This needs to be looked at again but there is no incentive by staff to do such a thing as staff’s goals are to simply continue to grow, continue to increase salaries and benefits and continue to drag their feet on projects such as the Mound House joke so they preserve their job. It is simply the nature of government. Always has been and always will be.
In this time of economic crisis, I would hope the council has the guts to explore something like this and get rid of a completely unnecessary department in our town. Will it involve firing some people? Absolutely.
I will forward an email I received from a company I spoke with today and a Web site for one I spoke with two years ago.
Stop the waste, stop the bloat and represent the people. Staff is NOT supposed to run our lives. They are supposed to work for us. For too long, the councils have been led by staff when it should be the other way around.
If any of you took a look at our budget each year versus the population of the town, you will ask yourself why has this happened. It is baffling. The answer is simple. No council has had the guts to take action and the staff laughs all the way to the bank while they tell you how short staffed they are.
Picture a multimillion dollar business that has NO supervision other than another employee, no owner on site and absolutely no incentive whatsoever to make money, spend money wisely or save money and welcome to Town Hall. The problem is that this “business” is paid for by our hard earned money and this business NEEDS more money each year to stay in existence.
I have never eliminated a staff member due to financial reasons and I dread the day BUT, if my business slows, I will look everywhere I can to cut costs and if elimination of some staff is necessary as they are indeed our largest expense, I will do so.
Harry Heist