The Morning Report
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Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009 | The big question for some volunteers like myself is why bother? If people sit on their collective behinds for a city career and earn over $100,000 — and 47 percent of firefighters on active duty also earn over $100,000 — my thought is no one should volunteer. Then there is the 13th check. Let the people earn at least part of what they receive. The volunteer/donor actually enables this insanity to continue.
All the fear mongering talk about closing public services like libraries and recreation centers, not picking up some trash, and other “economies” flies in the face of what the greedy get on the job and in their retirement. I don’t see anyone staff-wise volunteering to help balance the budget by giving back some of their paychecks or taking less as part of a retirement packet.
In fact you hear those who are, or have been, in Deferred Retirement Option Program or DROP, bragging about how much made or will have made at a guaranteed return of 8 percent annually.
I know that I am not the only volunteer having these thoughts.
On top of giving the time and money to your favorite causes then you are subject to scrutiny as if you might steal a penny from your volunteer group. That is particularly insulting to me.
Then watching the news of lawns having been watered in the rain because the job has been outsourced and the city person supervising the job doesn’t work on the weekends is a classic case of passing the buck and wastefulness. Who is accountable in this scenario? No one as far as I can determine.