Troxclair, Zimmerman protect taxpayers from ATX Bureaucrats

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan."
Proverbs 29:2

Fantastic:

City Council members Don Zimmerman and Ellen Troxclair have crafted a resolution that would cut the proposed salary increase for the majority of city employees and save the city an estimated $6 million in next year’s budget, according to their calculations.

Joining them in sponsoring the resolution are Council members Ora Houston and Sheri Gallo.

The city’s budget staff has proposed a 3 percent across-the-board salary increase for all non-sworn city employees, an estimated 10,172 people.

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Zimmerman said that if adopted, the budget would reflect $4.5 million less in salaries and an additional $1.7 million in reduced contributions to the city’s retirement system and Social Security.

Zimmerman and Troxclair are also challenging city management on its authority over the salaries of department directors and assistant city managers. “I’d like to see the Council go in the direction of more supervision of city management,” Zimmerman told the Austin Monitor on Monday in explaining why the resolution would direct the city manager “to create yearly performance evaluations to be used when determining the percentage of wage increase” for ACMs and directors.

He pointed out that City Manager Marc Ott fired Assistant City Manager Anthony Snipes earlier this year. That fact, he said, “tells me there’s not very good management going on. So that calls for the new City Council to better monitor the performance of the city manager.”

Zimmerman said, “As far as we know, there is no performance review (of assistant city managers and directors).” City spokesperson Bryce Bencivengo said that assistant city managers conduct performance reviews of department heads, and the city manager evaluates the performance of assistant city managers.

Read the whole thing here.