Taxpayers deserve answers
Re: Huge OT rates paid during evacuation crisis.
When I first read this, I assumed this was a fraud case up before the Crown. Further reading enlightened me to the fact that this could be classed somewhere between a downright insult to the rest of the hundreds of volunteers and downright greed by these staff employees, including their bosses that approved their time slips.
I was so astonished by this article that I’m just about without words – but not quite.
In private business, as Kathleen Soltis has referred to, or made comparison to when justifying her wage increase in the past, salaried staff do not normally get paid OT. As a city manager she worked a whopping 70 hours OT at $235.72/hr. earning $16,500. She really needed this money on top of her supposedly guaranteed annual wage of $230K/yr. or $850.00 per day, based on 2,200 hrs./yr.
When the city called out for donations, many business owners and retail store merchants donated their time and merchandise to assist the evacuees because they could and wanted to and they will do it again in a heartbeat.
When the city called out for volunteers, hundreds of volunteers, many of them from out of town limits, drove into town from every direction of the city, on their nickel, numerous times a week to help these unfortunate folks and their animals, not to mention all the local citizens.
Did they ever think of asking for any monetary payback?
The mayor was on TV gearing up for another round of helping evacuees from afar, who will again need assistance because of this year’s fires and I commend him and Prince George for this, but I’ll bet that these same overpaid staffers will be at the beck and call again to sign up for another good payday.
And why wouldn’t the mayor approve this shenanigans again, because he will just bill it all back to the Emergency Management BC, eventually costing you and me the B.C. taxpayer in the end. Where are you, Mr. Mayor? These people are all your employees and the taxpayers want answers. Fred Tuftin Prince George