Is Ken Runion a fiscal conservative?

Ken Runion claims to be a fiscal conservative. However, that doesn’t apply to himself.

He voted to raise his own salary to over $100,000 a year while cutting back other town employees.

You can read about it in the 2/12/09 Altamont Enterprise. He cut other town employees right after he voted to protect his own pay increase.

Guilderland now has fewer police and EMS workers on the road. Court staff have been cut.

From the minutes of the November 2008 budget meeting:

MOTION # 217  Councilman Redlich moved to MOVE TO FREEZE THE SALARIES OF ALL ELECTED AND APPOINTED OFFICIALS OF THE TOWN OF GUILDERLAND.  Councilman Grimm seconded the motion and it was defeated by the following roll call vote:

                                        Councilman Redlich              Aye
                                        Councilwoman Slavick    Opposed -said, I’m not in favor of that. Everyone here that works for the Town does a great job and it isn’t fair to take away their 3%”.

                                        Councilman Pastore              Opposed - said, “I think there is some potential perceived benefit to doing that with respect to a change in the reduction in the totality of the budget expense. The problem is that the costs are rising as well, cost of living is rising, as well, and that I do not feel comfortable making that a Town wide policy.  It might not affect as much the some of the part-time employees, but for those that are full-time it could create a most detrimental effect with a rising cost of living”.

                                        Councilman Grimm                Aye - said, “Just for folks to know, we are not talking about rank and file or union members we are talking about the elected officials and the political appointees and I do think it is appropriate as we entering into these hard economic times”.

                                        Supervisor Runion               Opposed - said,” In the past, prior boards had attempted to do the same thing.  I can remember one prior administration tried to do the same thing to the highway department. It is a poor attempt to try and eliminate some budget lines on the backs of people that do work hard for the residents of this Town.  And frankly, I would say that is political grandstanding.  I submitted the budget and I feel that the budget is a good one. We’ve estimated our revenues extremely conservatively and all the people who work for the Town, including the elected and appointed officials, work very hard and they deserve the same type of a raise that all of the other union and non-union employees receive.

 

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