With more than 785 city employees being considered for termination in early August, the City Council, needing to trim its budget by about $500,000, is also considering cutting half of the council's secretaries.
Mayor Tom Leppert charged Councilman Jerry Allen with the task of creating a more frugal council budget before its recess. One of his solutions was cutting the number of City Council secretaries. Currently, each council member has two staff members a piece -- a secretary and an assistant.
With the flood of e-mails and requests the council expects after cutting many city services, doing away with so many staff members would leave them overwhelmed, according to Councilwoman Angela Hunt.
She recently wrote her proposed budget changes in her blog, arguing that the jobs could be saved by doing such as eliminating free meals for the mayor and council and cutting out their travel budget as well.
Other eliminations she proposed include one of three copiers, hand-delivery of council packets to the mayor's and council members' homes, hard copies of interoffice memoranda, photocopying agenda materials and the all-important fleet fuel and lube.
Her proposed cuts would save roughly the same amount of money, as well as many jobs.
Holly LaFon has written and worked for various local publications including D Magazine and Examiner.
