This passes for fiscal restraint?

It was disconcerting to read last week about Warren City Council's approval of a new three-year contract with the laborers union. Not that reaching an agreement is a bad thing; it isn't. It was the tone of union leaders, city administrators and council members alike that caught our eye.
Each talked about this agreement as if it were a victory for the citizens of Warren, the very best deal the city could negotiate and practically a sacrifice on the part of the workers.
Here's the deal: Members of AFSCME Local 74 will receive a 4 percent increase in 2003 and 3.5 percent increases in 2004 and 2005. The contract also calls for employees to make a 10 percent co-payment for hospitalization and prescription coverage for those participating.
Now, we'll grant that the agreement on a health insurance co-pay is a plus. It begins to bring city employees into the real world faced by most workers in the private sector.
But at a time when inflation has been running at 2 percent and 3 percent a year, the wage provisions of this contract are quite generous. In the first year of the contract, wages will range from $13.41 per hour for a laborer to $24.48 for the food preparation coordinator. In the last year of the contract, those rates will be $14.36 and $26.22. Those figures translate to annual wages of $29,868 and $54,545, based on a 40 -hour week, no overtime.
"I want to congratulate them [AFSCME] for bargaining in good faith and recognizing the financial condition of the city," gushed one council member. "Thank goodness they realize the situation," added another.
Do the math
Does no one in a position of responsibility in Warren understand the miracle of compound interest? Those "little" 3.5 and 4 percent pay raises add up. In 10 years, a $13-per-hour wage would increase to $18.69. That's a 44 percent increase, which means that the city would have to either cut jobs or find another 44 percent in income.
Of course, this isn't just Warren's problem, but Warren and its pay scale were in the news this past week. Government entities everywhere continue to negotiate deals that run well above the current low rates of inflation. In Youngstown, city employees didn't wait to be told there would be no money to give them raises; they mounted a successful campaign to increase the income tax. In Mahoning County, voters renewed the sales tax and some officials are now acting like the county treasury is a bottomless pit. At YSU, employees demanded pay raises even though they knew state support was being reduced. The answer: increase tuition.
If public officials and employees continue to treat the taxpayers as cash cows, they should not be surprised if some day they get a kick in the head.