Yes, in response to your FOI request, the 2007 figures are:

City made a “net” (after turnback money) contribution to Police LOPFI 2 of 6%.

City made a “net” (after turnback money) contribution to Fire LOPFI 2 of 12.2%.

This is much clearer. One other thing to keep in mind is that police and fire top out at 720 hours of sick and start losing it whereas civilians never top out.

Thanks

If Ronnie or any other citizen has any follow up questions (including this particular one), please feel free to contact me at work (HR Department at City Hall). I will be glad to make our public information available to any interested citizen who asks. This includes this type of public financial information. Thank you – ML

So Ms Lefler how much of that 21.52% and 15.72% (37.24% combined) for fire and police retirements does the city actually pay? Take the insurance turn back money from the state out of those percentages and what actually comes out of the city coffers?

1. For 2009 the City plans to contribute 21.52% to uniformed Fire employee retirement, 15.72% to uniformed Police employee retirement, and 12% to non-uniformed employee retirement.

2. Uniformed employees are not allowed by the federal government to draw Social Security Retirement, so neither the City nor they pay the 6.25% each that normally occurs for the Social Security tax. The City does pay the 6.25% Social Security tax on the non-uniformed employees, who also pay the 6.25% Social Security tax out of each paycheck.

3. The City has a paid sick leave benefit and paid vacation leave benefit for all employees, regardless of whether they are Fire, Police, or non-uniformed. Unless someone exhausts their earned sick leave while they are out sick, they will get a regular paycheck. Even then, there is a catastophic leave bank other employees can and often do donate their own leave into to help out a fellow employee. Firefighters may, in addition, do “shift trades” to a certain extent, meaning they can agree for person A to work person B’s shift, but person B still gets the paycheck. This can be helpful if person B is sick.

4. At the past request of the City Council, the pay ranges for City jobs have been determined by an outside third party hired by the City, who did market studies on the going rates for the various jobs in similar cities. The pay ranges are thus driven by the job market, or “supply and demand” (as opposed to people’s personal opinions). The Council has required periodic market studies to keep the information current.

4. In my personal opinion, our Fire and Police employees deserve the utmost respect. But the rest of our employees also have my great respect. You would not believe the hard work, common sense, skill, and comraderie across the board, which is the best thing about working for the City – the good people who work here. I have come to know that – uniformed or not – our employees are decent people who take pride in doing their best work, whatever it may be, and who work hard to serve the Fayetteville community. And they do not tend to bicker among themselves about who does the “most important” work – most are too busy just trying to do a good job for Fayetteville, and earn a living for their families.

Thank you,
Missy Leflar
City Human Resources Div. Manager

I’m not sure when winning the Mayor of Facebook race became a real prize, but let’s look at the group numbers since not every candidate actually bothered with a profile, particularly since–in the case of your example–Dan’s had a profile up far longer than Lioneld.

In terms of the Facebook groups as of this morning:

Walt Eilers – 165
Steve Clark – 149
Dan Coody – 144
Sami Sutton – 135
Lioneld Jordan – 97

Walt also has 435 friends on MySpace to Dan’s 237. I don’t know if Steve, Lioneld, Sami, or Adam have MySpace pages.

I can tell you right now that Lionald Jordan has promised NOTHING to the fire fighters union and police FOP. Just like Dan Cody did 8 years ago. When the fire fighters union endorsed Dan 8 years ago he promised NOTHING. All they want is someone in office who will listen to them when they do have a problem and who will give them a fair shake when it comes time for a raise. These guys aren’t asking for the sun and moon, but they would like someone who is open and honest in office . I mean hells bells if Dan can give the top department heads raises every year for the last four years, thus insuring his own 28% pay increase, why can’t the general employees of the city at least get a friggin cost of living raise? But as we all know there just isn’t enough money for Bob the Fireman and Joe the Dogcatcher to get a 3.5% pay increase.

Dan Coody: 494 Friends
Lioneld Jordan 81 Friends

Re-Elect Dan Coody Group: 134 Members
Lioneld Jordan For Mayor Group: 77 Members

On the interwebs, Coody is winning by a landslide. I think the vocal minority Jordan vote is going to lose first round, but thats just my take.

WWLJD?

I suppose Lioneld would have held them woman’s hand, paid her whatever she wanted for an easement ($850 is a lot of money for an easement across residential property if you ask me) kissed her poodle and found a way to make it all better.

This is a very minor incident. The mayor doesn’t have time to coddle crazy people who won’t cooperate.

Seriously, what is the alternate ending that Coody missed?

The woman is nuts and she’ll lose her case. She is costing the city money.

Lioneld is an Ozark Mountain Deity, so I’m sure he’d have just waived his magic wand, cured this woman of her paralyzing neurosis, and made sunflowers grow on her hillside.

The woman was offered $850 for an EASEMENT. And easement is not the same as selling your land.

The city would not have requested an easement if they owned the sewer line. Why offer to pay someone $850 extra for permission to fix something that you own?

Hello?

Where is the case here?

This woman is weird and didn’t understand what an easement was. Instead of allowing someone to explain it to her, she told them to get off her land.

What exactly is she suing for?

and I just laughed and laughed