Math Skills

I've been curious as to whether any other Twin Cities bloggers have shared any thoughts on the Maplewood situation. I haven't found much, but a search this morning did turn up a commentator who wrote about the East Side Review's coverage about former city manager Fursman's firing back in April.

This blogger from Saint Paul is mostly complaining that the newspaper researched the background of interim manager Copeland (a Republican activist), but did not dig into the background of various Democrats/progressives who were quoted speaking in support of Mr. Fursman or criticizing the new council at the meeting. His complaint is bogus. The background of a completely unknown person who has just been made the executive in charge of the city is 100% newsworthy, and the sort of thing we Maplewood residents wanted and needed to know. If Mr. Martin thinks that the background of residents who speak at council meetings should be researched and reported, he should be complete by adding Stephen Carlson (who spoke in favor of Mayor Longrie) to the list, since he was also quoted in the article. Carlson appears to be a Republican who once registered as a candidate for the legislature ... with Mayor Longrie's husband as his treasurer. The point being, the newspaper was not distinguishing between "left" and "right" in deciding who to dig up information on -- it was distinguishing between "public servant" and "private citizen."

But I digress. What's really interesting is that our Mayor, Diana Longrie, stopped in to thank the blogger and share some voodoo budgeting. Her message reads (I copy it here in its entirety in case it disappears from the original location for some reason):

1. Mayor Diana Longrie, Maplewood Says:
   May 25th, 2006 at 11:33 pm

   Greetings!
   Just surfing the web and came across your EXCELLENT article and analysis. We are doing a lot of good, positive things in Maplewood for the Maplewood taxpayers and residents. I wish to extend an invitation to you and any of your friends, family and visitors to your Blog to join me at the Mayor’s Forum held the first Saturday of every month at Maplewood City Hall from 10 a.m. to noon in the Maplewood Room where we talk about issues of concern to those who attend. ADDITIONALLY, please attend our upcoming Council Social Supper scheduled for June 3, 2006 at 6:30 p.m. at Guildens in sunny Maplewood. As a side note or two, at a recent City Council meeting we directed staff, through the interim City Manager, Mr. Copeland, to work with the same budget number from 2006 when putting together their draft budget for 2007. The Council has taken the first step by leading by example. Since Maplewood is a Plan B city, we only have one employee that we are directly responsible for even though we are directed by statute to manage and control the budgetary taxing and spending of the City. The previous City Manager, Mr. Fursman, was making $128,000.00 annually plus benenfits (BIG benefits). We now have a City Manager who is working full time, hands-on, putting administrative systems in place that should have been in place previously, taking steps to fix the leaky roof of City Hall, and making $78,000.00 annually plus reasonable benefits. We have cut $50,000.00 dollars from the budget. We are asking the citizens to help us prioritize our city spending, to better understand how we can economize our processes, better utilize grants, and develop partnerships with the private sector. Thank you for being interested in local municipal govenment - come join us! Mayor Diana

This is just hilarious. We fired a professional manager and replaced him with an unqualified, partisan hack, but it's saving us $50,000 a year!

Not so much, actually. Keep in mind:

1. He's an interim manager, so we're only getting this bargain-basement low-rent salary until we replace him with a real manager ... which is probably going to cost us something comparable to Fursman's salary (maybe more, to pay the risk premium of dealing with a volatile council with a penchant for micro-managing, ignoring the finer points of the law, and trying to purge people who displease them).
2. Firing Fursman cost the city a severance package of 6 months' pay plus benefits, which works out to $85,300 (citing the same article, quoting Finance Director Faust).If this were a business investment in capital equipment or real estate, we might look at how long it would take our "up front" investment in firing Fursman to pay off in the lower costs for Copeland over the long run -- just like paying points on a mortgage to buy a lower interest rate.

Here's a worksheet comparing the two. We can look at the old cost of Fursman (according to Diana $10,667 per month) versus the new cost of Copeland ($6,500 per month plus an up-front expense of $85,300 for Fursman's severance). For simplicity, we need to assume that the benefits packages for both are pretty much comparable and so would be spent if either one was employed. Totals are cumulative.

	Keep Fursman	Fire Fursman, Hire Copeland
Month 1	$10,667	$91,800
Month 2	$21,344	$98,300
Month 3	$32,021	$104,800
Month 4	$42,698	$111,300
Month 5	$53,375	$117,800
Month 6	$64,052	$124,300
Month 7	$74,729	$130,800
Month 8	$85,406	$137,300
Month 9	$96,083	$143,800
Month 10	$106,760	$150,300
Month 11	$117,437	$156,800
Month 12	$128,114	$163,300
Month 13	$138,791	$169,800
Month 14	$149,468	$176,300
Month 15	$160,145	$182,800
Month 16	$170,822	$189,300
Month 17	$181,499	$195,800
Month 18	$192,176	$202,300
Month 19	$202,853	$208,800
Month 20	$213,530	$215,300
Month 21	$224,207	$221,800

So what does this mean? Well, it means that to "break even" on the extra costs of firing Fursman, Copeland has to stay in the job for almost 21 months. To actually cut $50,000 from our city budget, as Mayor Longrie has claimed is her intention, we'll have to keep him a bit longer ... so let's continue the worksheet:

Month 22	$234,884	$228,300
Month 23	$245,561	$234,800
Month 24	$256,238	$241,300
Month 25	$266,915	$247,800
Month 26	$277,592	$254,300
Month 27	$288,269	$260,800
Month 28	$298,946	$267,300
Month 29	$309,623	$273,800
Month 30	$320,300	$280,300
Month 31	$330,977	$286,800
Month 32	$341,654	$293,330
Month 33	$352,331	$299,800

Yep, it'll take 33 months of Copeland in the "interim" city manager's chair (without him being elevated to full manager, with commensurate salary) to get the $50,000 savings Diana is promising. Given the pace of the search for a new, professional manager, maybe this is the plan ...

We can conclude one of two things from all this. Either Mayor Longrie lies about the numbers when it's convenient for touting her agenda, or she needs some remedial help in the math department. Neither option bodes well for the city's upcoming budgetary process.