Chronicle reporters analyze city's performance-pay spending
The Chronicle's Matt Stiles and Alexis Grant have been poring over records of bonuses to Houston municipal employees, and write about their findings in a story today.
Their entire story is worth reading, but I'm going to excerpt some notable findings:
About one in six city employees received extra money in their paychecks since Mayor Bill White took office in January 2004 under various performance-pay programs. They've collected about $4 million, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of electronic payroll records.
[snip]
White defends authorized performance payments, saying they spur hard work and save money through efficiencies.
"Modern, successful organizations pay for performance," he said. "Part of my goal is to have the amount of city services we deliver increase much faster than the money we spend. That means rewarding efficiency."
[snip]
The top recipient of authorized bonuses is a 20-year veteran police mechanic who has received at least $95,000 more than his $33,000 base salary since 2004. He finishes front-end alignments and brake jobs faster than even his most skilled colleagues, police superiors say, earning him daily bonuses for beating average job times.
"I call him the Tiger Woods of fixing cars," said Ronald Young, who oversees the police fleet's maintenance operations.
The Police Department has led the city in bonus pay, spending at least $2.1 million since 2004, much of it to mechanics and their supply staffs. Uniformed employees, such as police officers and firefighters, don't receive performance bonuses.
Seven of the 10 city employees who got the most in bonuses were police mechanics. They received about $410,000 since 2004. The program started before White was elected.
Though they didn't provide any documentation, city and police officials say the program saves taxpayers' money.
Later in the story, Paul Bettencourt criticizes pay bonuses in general.
I don't have a problem in principle with performance bonuses of some sort, but when it gets to the point that a $33,000 mechanic is earning more than his salary in performance bonuses, it seems likely that the performance requirements are too low. City and police officials need to provide documentation of how the program saves taxpayers' money, rather than simply providing vague assurances.
Houblog has more detailed thoughts on the story.
What do you think? Do you agree with Mayor White or with Paul Bettencourt on performance bonuses? And how should a municipality structure performance bonuses so that the system isn't simply a mechanism for boosting salaries (and not performance necessarily)? Please leave your thoughts.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/24/06 08:15 AM | Print |
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