In Sunday's newspaper the Wisconsin State Journal editorial asserted: Don't let wages sink pool budget. The argument is that Madison's Living Wage ordinance requires that all employees be paid at least $10.89 per hour and that is responsible for the $136,000 operating deficit last year.
The editorial is accompanied by a nifty chart that shows that Madison's higher wage range ($10.80-$12.01) is the villain. The ranges for the lowest paid concession workers to the highest paid lifeguards and instructors in the other communities is $6.25-$11.13.
The editorial is more about wage rates than it is about swimming pools.
To accomplish that, city officials will have to provide an exemption from the city's living wage law, which sets an artificially high minimum wage for city employees. They also must confront the union bargaining that covers pool employees.
Wrong.
Wages are not the problem. It is revenues. I quickly looked at the fees for a few other pools in the Madison area. Madison charges the lowest daily fee for a child at $2.25 while it is $2.75 in Middleton, $3.00 in Sun Prairie and a nifty $6.00 in in Shorewood for a daily guest pass (3.00 for a grandchild).
And in Madison the amenities and the recreational options are far greater than at any of these other pools.
A family membership in Madison for the season is $145 (non -residents $285); in Middleton it is basically the same for residents and $355 for non-residents. In Shorewood it is a whopping $437 and $582. Only Sun Prairie undercuts Madison at $90/135.
Now we are at the heart of the issue. Madison, always the soft touch, charges too little for the best public or private aquatic facility in the county. The Wisconsin State Journal solution is to solve the problem on the backs of the workers. They never examined the fee structure.
There is a better solution. Raise the fees. Especially for the non-residents. The bleeding heart liberals will agonize over this one for a while. There is no choice. The budget cannot be balanced on the back of the workers when the city is not charging enough for a very reasonable service.
Meantime, when evaluating the wage rates, there is more to consider than just the the comparative hourly pay schedules. There are externalities to having a higher wage rate in terms of raising the standard of living for the affected workers and their families.
There is also the precedent. Already too many health care and child care workers are inadequately compensated. If we are to be a community with a reasonable standard of living, we must ensure that everyone is paid a living wage.
I used to wonder how the Wisconsin State Journal, became the Wisconsin State Urinal. But, after reading their editorial on the swimming pools, and how they're going to profit by shortchanging the workers and staff, the Wisconsin State Journal, regains its title as the Wisconsin State Urinal. Blaming the workers for the shortcoming of management's planning, seems to be symptomatic of how these overbearing slags act.
Actually, it would seem to me that the other workers at the other swimming pools are underpaid. The purpose of the city facilities is not to make money. Yes, we are under a mandate that children without means or with less means should be able to use the city facilities. The city pool is a wonderful social tool that allows diverse backgrounds to mingle in a social atmosphere.
Any new entity will lose money in its first few years of operation. We should gradually raise the rates of this pool, as needed. Perhaps, I erred on declaring this a shortcoming of management. Management should raise rates to cover a good percentage of the cost of operation. But, I really feel that they should be done slowly and over a period of time.
Posted by: antpoppa | September 10, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Talk about a case study in liberalism v. conservatism. The newspaper (which isn't real conservative but plays one in this case study) looks immediately to the highest cost factor, determines Madison's cost for this factor is considerably higher than average and says that cost factor needs to be lowered. The liberal (Mr. Soglin) looks to taxes (fees in this case) and determines they should be raised.
Neither argument should just be dismissed. A municipality shouldn't be paying 50% more than it needs to for anything unless it has a darn good reason. You refer to Madison as "always the soft touch" in reference to charging too little for admission, but isn't it also "always the soft touch" to pay substantially more in wages than the market supports? You compare the fee structures and say Madison's should closely resemble outlying communities, but its not ok to compare wages in the same way? You can't have it both ways.
I have no position on this issue as I don't use the pool and have no knowledge of municipal pool operations. I don't know if attendance will go down with higher costs, thus negating the financial benefit of raising fees. I don't know how much can be saved by lowering wages slightly, or how low they'd have to be to make up the difference. But the knee-jerk "Cut Wages!" answer and subsequent reaction isn't any less valid than the knee-jerk "Raise Taxes!" answer.
Posted by: Drew | September 10, 2007 at 10:58 AM
I basically with your view, Paul. With a daughter who has guarded at two local pools, she says that they have to pay a "premium" to the lifeguards and swim instructors who work at the Goodman Pool because it is the most dificult pool to work at in the area. Where else do you have a higher percentage of kids who never have had the opportunity to learn to swim? Where else do you have more kids who don't necessarily listen to the directives of the guards? Which pool has had to have the most rescues? All reasons to compensate the staff at a decent wage with the goal of providing a great service to our community whose families can't necesarily afford to pay the membership fees and dues for the private pools, let alone have easy access to these pools. Increasing fees is an option, but it must be done at a level which keeps it affordable for the community the pool serves.
Posted by: Elaine O | September 10, 2007 at 06:55 PM
The really ridiculous reasoning in their editorial is how they say that Goodman pool employees' wages should be brought down to the absurdly low pay of surrounding pools.
The thing is a lot of these kids have to pay for college. 30 years ago you could get through school on 2.50 an hour for your summer job. Tuition is at astronomical levels now. Wages have to rise to meet the burden of paying for education among other things.
WSJ is clueless to this burden.
Posted by: Brian | September 10, 2007 at 09:43 PM