There have been a number of folks talking about “Span of Control” and asserting the city is top heavy. While questions of overhead are appropriate – one should have all the data. Please read the analysis below:

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The primary flaw in (the “span of control”) analysis is one starts with an incorrect assumption of the nature of the work being performed by employees in the “management” group. The problem is compounding with the common misunderstanding of the legal differences between various types of employees and the work they perform.

All the employees in the management group are considered Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempt under the law which means they can not earn overtime. This is the only common theme running through the group as there are many employees in the group who do not supervise even a single employee. They are all considered professional employees and FLSA exempt.

Our management group would better be described as a group of unrepresented (non-union) professional employees. In a city as small and lightly staffed as San Carlos there have always been and will always be the need to perform professional work. Employees in this group have neither sole nor even primary responsibility it is to supervise. Because San Carlos just doesn’t have many employees, Department Heads spend the majority of their time performing professional level work as opposed to performing an oversight or supervisory functions. The premise of “span of control” is therefore flawed as the management employees are every bit as much “worker bees” as other employees.

Secondly, FLSA exempt employees, (members of the management group)  typically have greater skill and experience in all aspects of the work being performed in a Department, the law provides the city flexibility in allowing the city to ask those employees to perform other functions which may normally be performed by front line employees (represented employees). The law does not allow for the reverse without additional compensation to (work out of class) and ultimately reclassification of the employee to the higher level.

In other words, FLSA exempt employees can be employed by the City more flexibly under the law. If we cut a professional, unrepresented position the work does not normally go away. If the city assigns that work to lower level staff, the city would have to provide additional compensation. If the arrangement becomes permanent then the city would be legally obligated to promote that person to the appropriate job classification. And the carosel goes round and round as we would be right back where we started from.

The “Span of Control” assertion of the city cutting significantly more front line staff than management staff in the proposed budget is incorrect. When one takes out the parks maintenance outsourcing option the cuts are fairly evenly distributed across all the employee groups. There are far more represented employees in the City than “management”.

the published ratio approach is just dead wrong and is producing results that are neither accurate nor at all enlightening to the situation facing the Council.

My colleague, Jarod McCormick has a PhD and is one serious hacker when it comes to putting together equipment.  He recently shared the rage of high-end kitchen in world of fine dining: the Sous-Vide

This method is defined by vacuum-packing meat and cooking it in a precise temperature-controlled water bath.  Want a cut perfectly medium-rare?  Here is how to do it!

There are commercial uits available – but Jarod is talking about thermocouples and a few Home Depot parts.  Summer s around the corner and so are the BBQs.

The blog Serious Eats has some great pointers on this neat cooking technology.

1. I appreciate all the comments, questions and feedback folks shared at the Saturday meeting.
2. I appreciate folks were genuine in trying to understand what are the issues before our town and the choices we have available.

These are tough times and decisions at this point will have a significant effect on the future of San Carlos.  As this is an open issue with votes to be made – I cannot “discuss” the topic before the council except to share appreciation for your thoughts.  How I approach the decisions in front of me is something I can share:

1. Sacred Cows:  There are none.  Topics are neither “off limts” nor “taboo” in the discussion of how we move our town forward.  I feel strongly that every department, every service, everything needs to be on the table and examined.  No exceptions.

2. Cuts: See Sacred Cows above.  To re-itterate my postion regarding cuts and reallocation of funds – I will not support restoring any funding to any program until the structural issues of the budget are solved.

Most in San Carlos will verify my careful examination of data and information.  Your questions and thoughts are incorporated in my investigation.  There was little time for questions on Saturday and I look forward to getting more understanding of our available options in the upcoming weeks.

While many use blogs to vent – that is a luxury not afforded council members during deliberation of issues.  There is one past point which should be addressed: Measure U.

Simply stated, a question was put to the voters to add revenue.  The voters said no and (this is critical) I respect their voice.

Continued discussion of Measure U is it not a method to move the city forward.  Many stop me on Laurel Street and while shopping for groceries – each will give me reasons why the measure did not pass.  The reasons are diverse as the people who stop to chat about it.  The reasons were valid  for people to cast their votes the way they did.  Voters are intelligent folks and understand the choices before them.   I have tremendous respect for the voice of the voters.

The people have spoken, now let’s get to work moving the city forward.

Senator Roy Herron serves the good people of Tennessee.  Roy is a friend and is running for Congress.  In today’s partisan environment, Roy shares a thought:

Thirty-three years ago tomorrow, my father drove his pickup to our farm, a mile or so from the farmhouse where he had started out sixty-four years earlier.

He turned at the old country store his parents had owned.  He drove past the brush pile and the woods where he’d first taken me as a 10-year-old hunting for the covey of quail that was almost always nearby.

He parked the truck, climbed the fence, then walked past the buttercups, more buttercups than one could count and so yellow that they painted the end of the field where an old house had stood.  As he walked on the soft ground to the grain bin, he looked past the barn to the pear orchard that had been created before he was.  Above the gnarled old pear trees was a bright blue sky.  He called out and the brown and white Hereford cattle ambled across the green pasture toward him.

The earth was warming and coming alive again.  The early sunlight fell gently on him as he took the bucket of yellow corn from the grain bin for the cattle.  I hope he fell gently as he returned to that earth again.  A heart attack took him.

He died when and where and how he wanted.  He fell on his favorite farm, at his favorite time of year, on a glorious and beautiful day, in the quiet and peace of early morning, on the sacred Sabbath.  And no one, most especially Mother, had to watch him die.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Scripture says.  Son of the soil back to the soil.  The farmer to the farm.

A World War II veteran, a respected judge, my father touched the lives of many. In turn, for his funeral, our Methodist Church sanctuary was full and then some. Several who did not come early, and all those who came late, stood outside.

Sitting in the front center pew, a first-year law student, I listened to the pastor talk of Dad’s judicial passion for justice and his compassion for the weak, his strong sense of equity and fairness, his Biblical concern for the less fortunate and the hurting.

Then the preacher reminded us that his good deeds and kind ways did not have to die with him.

Theologians and preachers say a great deal about eternal life.  They tell many things about heaven, streets of gold, mansions on high. I had read and heard those things all my life.  But this much I realized sitting in front of that flag-draped coffin: as long as Dad’s children and grandchildren and their children live, my father could live.  As long as we love, Dad’s life and love will not die.

Today, particularly in Washington politics, it’s hard to find the love.  Instead, Washington politics is plagued by partisanship and division.

My father would be disappointed.  Before my devoutly Democratic father became a judge, his law partner in their two-lawyer firm was the county’s leading Republican.  Dad and his law partner knew they did not have to agree on every issue to work together for the benefit of those they served.

This country needs far less partisanship and much more patriotism, less hostility and more hospitality, less yelling about the other party and more listening to and learning from the other person.

Good people in both parties can have good ideas.  That is part of the strength and beauty of America, of this democracy, and of God’s world.

We no longer can afford the luxury of excessive partisanship.  This country’s challenges are too great and too many are hurting too much.  We need more people like my father’s generation who knew it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican if you forget you’re an American.