Breaking News: Letcher promotes 3, cuts jobs, saves city money

by David Safier
OK, that headline isn't actually breaking news, and it isn't entirely accurate. But it's as close to the truth, or closer, than the impression left by the headline and first 3 paragraphs of Rob O'Dell's front page story in the Star, Letcher promotes 3, hires new aide: Spending is needed, he says, even with tight city budget.

When I read the headline and the first three paragraphs of O'Dell's article — and let's be honest, that's about as deep as most people go — I got the impression that, by creating new posititions and giving employees raises, City Manager Mike Letcher cost the city somewhere between $175,000 and $375,000. By the time I got to the end of the article, scratched my head trying to make sense of it all, wrote out the facts on a separate piece of paper, pulled out my calculator and added it all up, I reached the conclusion that the changes resulted in somewhere between $50,000 added cost to the city and a wash.

I'm not entirely sure my conclusions are accurate. But I'm sure I spent longer with the article than anyone other than O'Dell and some people in city government, so if I got something wrong, the fault either lies with my ability to read and understand information or O'Dell's ability to present the facts in a clear, objective way.

Let's start by looking at O'Dell's second paragraph:

How could the city give these people raises at a time like this? Well, actually, the 3 didn't get raises. They got promotions to fill open positions, and naturally, the promotions came with salary increases. Much later in the story, O'Dell compares the salary of the newly promoted people to their predecessors. I added it all up and found the city had a net savings of $37,000. That's right, the salaries of the new people cost a total of $37,000 less than the salaries of the previous employees in the same positions.

Now let's work backward to the opening paragraph where O'Dell writes,

That's true. But much later, in the 10th paragraph, we find out that 3 positions were cut:

O'Dell doesn't list the salaries of the three positions that are gone, but I'm sure they add up to considerably more than the $143,000 for the new assistant manager. As with the promotions, the 3-for-1 swap saves the city money.

I've left out one significant point O'Dell raises. It's the only one that may support his contention that Letcher is increasing the city budget.

It sounds like there may be a story in these two employees and their $200,000 salary. But their salaries shouldn't be added to the "raises" and the "new assistant manager," as O'Dell implies in his opening. The $200,000 figure is lessened significantly by the savings in the other areas.

O'Dell's version creates the impression of an out of control city bureaucracy spending money hand over fist while the economy tanks. That's scandalous, front page stuff. The real story is probably much tamer and would more likely end up in the Tucson & Region section on page 10. Scandal is much sexier, but a journalist's job is to report the story accurately, so the readers can understand what's going on.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, Ward 6 sent an email to people on its email list confirming what I said and going further. According to Letcher, his staffing changes will save the city about $377,000 this year. The email is here.