Letter to the Editor

Dear Edi­tor,

This com­ing gen­eral elec­tion, the vot­ers will have the oppor­tu­nity to do some­thing about the high cost of gov­ern­ment. Vot­ing “yes” for Issue 2 is a vote for some much-needed changes to address out-of-control gov­ern­ment spend­ing. And the City of Galion should be the poster child for why cit­i­zens should vote “yes” on Issue 2.

As Inquirer read­ers know, Galion has been in Fis­cal Emer­gency since 2004, and our cit­i­zens are fac­ing tough eco­nomic times. Some of our cit­i­zens have lost their jobs and oth­ers have taken pay cuts; and we have a large num­ber of senior cit­i­zens on Social Secu­rity retire­ment who have not had any cost-of-living raises for two years. Our fam­i­lies and busi­nesses are struggling.

Yet, our local pub­lic sec­tor unions con­tinue to demand wage increases and unrea­son­able ben­e­fits, and those costs ulti­mately get passed back to every­one, in the form of higher fees, higher util­ity rates, and higher taxes. Issue 2 would make changes that would result in sav­ings for local gov­ern­ments, includ­ing the City of Galion. For exam­ple, Issue 2 would require gov­ern­ment employ­ees to pay their share of their retire­ment, just like pri­vate sec­tor employ­ees have to pay their share of their social secu­rity retirement.

For the City of Galion, the most unrea­son­able employee ben­e­fit has been the “Cadil­lac” health insur­ance plan that the pub­lic sec­tor unions have required the City to pro­vide, which now costs the City $2,094 per month ($ 25,128 per year) for fam­ily cov­er­age for one employee and their fam­ily. (This $25,128 cost is $ 10,000 more than the national aver­age of $15,073.) And employ­ees only pay 2 per­cent of the total health insur­ance cost or just $ 41.86 per month. Unfor­tu­nately, Galion is pass­ing these out­ra­geous health insur­ance costs back to its cit­i­zens, many of whom can­not afford health insur­ance for them­selves and their fam­i­lies. Issue 2 would give gov­ern­ment employ­ers the abil­ity to obtain com­pet­i­tive health insur­ance, and Issue 2 would require that gov­ern­ment employ­ees pay at least 15 per­cent of the cost of their health insur­ance. As health­care costs and insur­ance costs con­tinue to rise, Issue 2 brings some com­mon­sense changes that will save sig­nif­i­cant tax dollars.

At this point, the oppo­si­tion to Issue 2 is using scare tac­tics and say­ing that Issue 2 means less fire­fight­ers and less police offi­cers. But don’t be fooled. The real issue is that our fire­fight­ers and police offi­cers need to pay their fair share of the cost of their pen­sions and the cost of their health insur­ance. Very sim­ply, if that hap­pens, local gov­ern­ments will save money and have the finan­cial abil­ity to hire more fire­fight­ers and police offi­cers, not less.

Lastly, the oppo­si­tion to Issue 2 has said that Issue 2 is an assault on the mid­dle class. But again, don’t be fooled. The real assault on the mid­dle class is the end­less increases in taxes, fees, and util­ity rates that have to be passed on to the cit­i­zens in order to pay for these exces­sive employee costs.

So don’t be fooled. Exces­sive gov­ern­ment spend­ing ulti­mately gets passed back to every­one, in the form of higher fees, higher util­ity rates, and higher taxes. This elec­tion, vot­ers can finally do some­thing about this out-of-control gov­ern­ment spend­ing by vot­ing “yes” on Issue 2.

Sin­cerely,

E. Roberta Wade

4th Ward City Coun­cil Mem­ber, City of Galion

Posted by Staff Reports on Nov 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.