Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

This is in regards to an article on the front page of Monday’s paper about the compensation cuts that city workers are being asked to make once again. What I would like to know is how many city employees have agreed to take cuts again and of those people, how many of them took cuts the last time the city asked them to.

I also want to know how many did not agree to take a cut, but what I really want to know is how many of the employees who make a six-figure salary, and there are a lot of them, are going to agree to take compensation cuts too? By doing some math, it seems to me that 10 percent of $100,000, of which many of them make a whole lot more than that, comes to a nice chunk of money!

Let’s play fair Manteca because if you expect some of the employees, especially the ones who can afford it the least, to agree to the cuts, then why not ask all of the employees to agree to take them, especially the ones who can afford it the most! As far as the six firefighters that the city is going to be laid off, as far as I am concerned, and I am not the only one who feels this way, a firefighter’s job is far more important than a city clerk. Granted, typing, filing and signing your name on public notices at council meetings is necessary, it does not justify a salary of more than $127,000 a year while a beginning firefighter’s salary is substantially less, only about $50,000 a year. Council members, can’t you people see how wrong that is!

The city clerk never put her life on the line every day doing the things that city clerks do. And by the way, for the amount of money she gets for being a clerk, the city could pay for at least (1.5) firefighters, a much more important job, in my opinion. So why don’t you six-figure salary employees step up to the plate and take your turn at compensation cuts too!

Debbie Dennis
Manteca
May 23, 2011