Melfi is right in seeking evaluation before raises
It wasn’t so long ago that the city of Girard’s operating budget was bleeding red ink. Indeed, the city is still under state-mandated fiscal emergency, with an oversight commission monitoring the expenditure of public dollars.
Yet, today, members of city council are on the verge of raising the salary of the police chief by $7,666 and of the fire chief by $5,891. This, despite the fact, that the city’s finances remain in a state of flux.
Mayor James Melfi and members of his administration have shown remarkable discipline in handling the operating budget and guiding the city out of the fiscal doldrums. But lawmakers seem to have already forgotten the dark days of the past eight years.
How can they justify the exorbitant increase for Police Chief Frank Bigowsky and the not-too-shabby raise for Fire Chief Kenneth Bornemiss when rank-in-file city employees received raises of 2 percent a year for the three-year contract? To get that contract, employees had to make major concessions with regard to health care.
The simple answer to the question is that there is no justification for what is being proposed for Bigowsky, who is paid $47,350 a year, and also receives $1,716 in longevity pay annually.
Frankly, neither is there for Bornemiss, who earns $49,125 a year, plus gets $2,756 for a paramedic certification and $884 in longevity pay.
The legislation before council would raise the salary of both chiefs to $55,016.
Lawmakers are expected to pass the pay-raise ordinance this evening, and Mayor Melfi has promised to veto it.
It isn’t that the mayor, who is embroiled in a war of words with the police chief, is opposed to the two managers getting more money. As he points out, the last raise for management employees was six years ago.
But Melfi is adamant that before any manager gets a salary boost, he must undergo a job evaluation.
That may come as a surprise to public employees, but it’s standard operating procedure in the private sector.
“No one is against spending money for police and fire,” the mayor says. “What we are against is spending money we don’t have. We are going to make decisions that best suit the city.”
Cruisers
Indeed, the administration has already clashed with the police chief over the purchase of cruisers. Bigowsky wanted an entire fleet of Dodges, whereas the mayor and council settled on six Chevrolet Impalas, saving the city thousands of dollars.
As for the war between the mayor and the police chief, the civil service commission has been brought into it by Bigowsky. He has written a letter to the commission in which he claims that the mayor was threatening, demeaning and irate during a mid-April meeting. Present at the meeting in the mayor’s office were police Capt. Jeffrey Palmer and Safety Service Director Jerry Lambert.
Melfi has denied some of the chief’s claims and he and Lambert are preparing a response.
But there is one issue the civil service commission should not be involved in, namely, the mayor’s order that the police chief meet with him at 9 a.m. each day. Other managers are on such a regular meeting schedule.
Although the police chief is a civil service employee, the mayor is still the appointing authority. Therefore, if he wants the chief in his office each morning, that’s just the way it is.
The city of Girard long witnessed the intransigence of former Chief Anthony Ross, who refused to attend the biweekly council meetings.
At some point, there must be discipline in government. Melfi’s request for a daily meeting with the city’s top cop is not unreasonable.