Dear City Council and Senior Staff,
It doesn't take much to see our city priorities reflected in our budget and the payroll of our city employees. Some thoughts:
1) Salary Schedule: A cursory glance at the proposed salary schedule shows that we value police above city employees who work with our seniors and our children.
Our department administrators make over six times what our childcare workers make.
Most of the city salaries are significantly below the area median income for the County of San Mateo and qualify for Below Market Rate Housing at the Moderate, Low, or even Extremely Low rate. Which is good, because we need to build more affordable housing in all parts of the city.
If we could build enough housing to house city employees who qualify, so they could walk, bike, or take short public transportation rides to work, imagine how much closer we would be to our stated Climate Action goals and our "live work play" aspirations.
2). Budget : If we value diversity, equity, and inclusion, if we think that every resident deserves basic services, if we want to make our city work for us, then we need to rethink the way we spend money and the departments that have the most.
The common refrain is "staff time is inadequate to support new efforts" or "The city is unable to continue sending printed copies of materials to residents homes". This budget includes augmentation of the Heritage tree department but does not address the massive layoffs that happened to the part time staff who worked with our youth and our seniors in the community services division at the start of the pandemic.
I would like to see the city support better communication with the residents of our town. I would like the city to pay competitive salaries at every level, and make an effort to house staff near their workplaces. And I would like to see us prioritize the well being of our youth. For these efforts and more, I think we need to change the way we allocate resources - especially monies like the ERAF funds and American Recovery Act Funds.
-- Julie Shanson
Oak Court
