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City Council Water & Sewer Subcommittee <br />May 15, 2003 <br />Page 23 <br /> <br />down on the amount of employees they have in the wastewater and water plants <br />because their City Council was ready to privatize. <br /> <br />City Manager Malone advised, that just a couple of weeks ago, the City <br />Manager of Greenville told him that Greenville only reduced their staffing by <br />two. He also said that the privatization discussion happened 7 or 8 years ago <br />and that EPA had recommended against privatization. He said that the <br />Council in Greenville talked about it and turned it down completely. <br />Greenville did not reduce a vast number of employees like we have been <br />discussing here. They eliminated two positions according to the City Manager. <br />He said we have already been talking about three positions that we typically do <br />not keep filled anyway because he has been holding the cost back because we <br />have been having a flat budget. He has been trying to make it with these low <br />budgets. Chairman Plata said he did not understand why you include people <br />that are not in the budget because it goes against the cost of everything. City <br />Manager Malone explained that there are a lot of things that happen. The city <br />has just had a major problem at the water treatment plant, and he does not <br />know how much it cost, but $10,000.00 of that was not budgeted. He said <br />these line items move around, you might budget $85,000.00 and wind up at the <br />end of the year saving $30,000.00 of it because you have made a different <br />decision or found another way to solve a problem; but you have to have some <br />type of money in your budget for the contingency. He said that you cannot <br />always count on lucking out or coming up with something to cut a corner. He <br />added that you have to have some type of money in the budget and it is going <br />to change from year to year. Chairman Plata said you are going to do this with <br />empty spots for people in the budget. City Manager Malone said no they are <br />not going to be empty spots because they believe those positions are necessary <br />they provide those positions to use for training because the city cannot hire <br />anyone here for what we paid to start someone out that has that kind of license. <br />He said that the city has to train them and work them up to the positions. He <br />stated that he is not saying that we are not looking at reducing those three <br />positions. He is saying that he has held those position back because Mr. <br />Campbell is always telling him he needs those positions and get them trained <br />because we may have two positions open at one time and we may have to let <br /> <br /> <br />