It’s good to work for the Greensboro City Council.
The City Council doesn’t have any problem spending other people’s money – in this case, tax dollars on their two employees.
It is fortunate for the taxpayers that the City Council only has two employees, so the City Council can only spend so much.
Before the Tuesday, March 15 meeting, the City Council held the annual review of one of its employees, City Attorney Chuck Watts. Evidently the review went well because the City Council unanimously approved a raise of $32,000, to $245,000. Watts was making $214,000 a year, so that is a 15 percent salary increase and it is retroactive back to December 2021, which was the review date.
It is even more generous when you consider that Watts was hired as Greensboro city attorney on June 1, 2019, at a salary of $190,000 a year, and in the past two-and-a-half years Watts’ salary has increased by about 30 percent.
The previous city attorney, Tom Carruthers, was being paid $180,000 when he resigned in October 2018.
The City Council was just as generous with its other employee, City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba, who was hired on Feb. 1 at a salary of $280,000 a year.
The previous city manager, David Parrish, was promoted to city manager in June 2018 at a salary of $194,000. In October 2019, Parrish received a 6 percent raise to $217,000.
However, neither the city attorney nor the city manager, despite significant raises, are any where close to being Greensboro’s highest paid city employee. That distinction goes to Greensboro Coliseum Complex Manager Matt Brown, whose salary in 2021 was $368,000 a year.
Brown is not a direct employee of the City Council, which means the City Council does not set his salary. He is an employee of the city manager.
Can I get on?
So what’s new? Trust them with your cookie jar and they’ll eat everything in it, without your approval.
This is why our taxes keeps going up and my fixed income keeps going down. They can live off that salary they are getting. Why punish seniors who are barely making it have to pay for their luxury. Everything we own is taxed to death. We can even afford to buy a new car without paying taxes year after year. For once they should consider us for a change.
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Wow.
The Left likes to accuse the Productive Sector (Private Sector) of “greed”. But the Productive Sector earns its own money by providing a good or service that people voluntarily choose to purchase. Unlike the Parasitic Sector (Public Sector), no coercion takes place – it is a more ethical system.
Naturally there is moral hazard in conducting a mechanism that enforces a universal system of extortion on the people, as government does. They can easily award themselves more and more money. So they do. They call it taxes. So did the Medieval Lords in England. But it makes no difference what they call it – it’s “Pay Up or Else”. And the “Or Else” is that they imprison you for non-payment of their taxes.
It’s a shakedown. And the irony is that they claim the moral high ground, invariably portraying themselves as “public servants” or “leaders”, all the while feeding at the public trough and bullying us with ever more rules, restrictions, requirements, regulations and red tape. They’re not lacking in chutzpah.
They’re not our servants, they are our masters.
That’s why they award themselves a prince’s ransom in salaries, healthcare, bonuses, “supplements” and Cadillac retirements. They live like Royalty, lording it over us as they tell us how we should live, and increasingly, how we should think.
The fact that a city manager who’s been in the job for less than 2 months gets awarded a pay raise is outrageous on the face of it. But that’s what real greed looks like. And The Rhino report failed to mention the City Manager’s “supplement” of $12,000 per annum. His total prior remuneration was $292,000/year according to a previous Rhino article. His new salary is not specified in the article.
Six Grand a week. Plus benefits. Not bad work if you can get it.
Where is the real greed? The Productive Sector or the Parasitic Sector?
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Skip Alston is Austin’s Master. I am sure that would make Skip chuckle.
Skip is certainly a man that has high interest and priority in his own wealth. Calling him a servant is like call the fox the guard of the hen house. I have never been a fan of property development people serving in local public office as the conflict of interest is too great.
I have no idea what a competitive salary is for a city attorney. But I am certain our city attorney knows. I am sure there are cheaper ones out there but a good attorney’s pay for themselves if they keep the city out of trouble.
A good start for attorney’s in America is to have one swim to Cuba with another one under each arm. Take chris and tuna don’t come back.
I love you think of me everything you come to this site. You mb must have a man crush.
If the city were to have a good attorney then maybe he should settle the David Wray lawsuit that’s been hanging around for several years now.
Won’t happen. David Wray is White.
Making responsible decision at election time, and electing smart people to actually represent the voters and taxpayers will keep a locality out of trouble. Only municipalities whose elected officials are idiots, and are incapable of exercising some common sense need high powered attorneys to keep them out of trouble.
Your last paragraph should have stopped after your first four words.
Your disconnected sentences suggest that you’re drunk. I have noticed this with your posts that occur late at night. Was it beer, liquor,…. or whine?
Well. It is tourney season so it is possible.
I thought so. Thank you for admitting that I was right.
I agree that the percentages of these raises are crazy high, but the private sector has just as many problems: Golden Parachutes, Too Big To Fail type bailouts, bankruptcy claims while execs take massive bonuses to name a few examples. I wouldn’t sink my teeth too deeply into the idea that the private sector is all rainbows and roses.
Don, I agree. Big business has become increasingly unresponsive to it’s shareholders – but it’s not tax Dollars so it’s not my problem. And the state should NEVER bail out private companies, or subsidise them with “incentives”. It’s welfare for corporations at our expense.
But the Parasitic Sector is another level of greed – and it IS my business because it’s my tax money that’s being abused. Right?
They do get tax dollars though. Just go read up on Too Big to Fail. Government and private banks and mortgage lenders are clearly in bed together. Most farmers and similar industries get government subsidies to stay in business as well. Apple, Google, all kinds of private businesses take government handouts to pad their bottom lines. There’s too much intermingling of public and private money nowadays to really tell them apart.
Well yes, but the overwhelming proportion of the Productive Sector receives no government subsidy. And when they do, I oppose it, as I have said.
Ask your doctor if Haldol is right for you.
Try refuting the argument instead of being cute, Fishface.
what a waste of taxpayer money. I’ve heard to whom much is given, much is expected, and I just don’t see it here. Shame on you City Council and City HR. Citizens should vote to cut your pay to zilch!
Uncle Jack
Yeah. They should work for free….especially the ones that are not elected. We don’t need no city services. Just all lazy bums.
What a joke. Get a life McAdoo.
Your arguments and responses to other posts are moot when you use phrases such as “get a life”. My parents told me if you can’t say anything nice about someone else, then don’t say anything at all.
People who make wild emotional statements without any empathy for actual life circumstances SHOULD get a life. It is a genuine heartfelt request.
The city council should work for free. Theirs was never supposed to be a job it was to be a service to the citizens of the city. Term limits, no health insurance and no salary from taxpayers let’s see then how many “good “ council people will be willing to run for office
Chris is a nutter who wishes his property tax rate was double the current one.
No money to pay their police officers the same or more as neighboring agencies. Or the take home cars the other agencies have. Must be nice to have a 30% raise in two years.
I thought that the City had determined that “merit” raises were out and that everyone would get the same raise. I guess that does not extend to the top officials. If its good enough for the goose, it ought to be good enough for the ganders.
I’m from NJ. Multiply this by 300 and you’ll realize why NY and NJ residents are moving here in droves. $50,000 per year in property tax and usage fees is not uncommon.
Please do us Southerners a favor go back and take 6-800 with you. It’s not that we don’t like Yankees we just don’t like damn Yankees
I knew you were a Yankee! You Leftists voted Democrat for decades, got $50,000/year property taxes as a result, and now come here – and keep voting Democrat!
Wise up, buddy.
And if you can’t vote Republican at least don’t vote (D) and eff up North Carolina like you did New Jersey. Okay, buddy?
Or go back to Jersey. Fair enough?
It’s time to STOP this Fleecing of Taxpayers!
I think it’s just great that city officials, who kept their jobs and full salaries over the past two years, are able to leech more money from the tax paying citizens, many of whom lost their jobs, or were unable to work full schedules due to the decisions of our elected officials, who decided it was in everyone’s best interest to shutdown many businesses, over something they knew nothing about.
No government personnel should receive any pay raises, or extra compensation, until the city, county, and state has done everything it can to put their constituents back to work, and get the economy back to where it was before everything shut down. I realize that would be a difficult task, due to the policies of the current illegitimate federal administration in place, but states and local governments have the right to disregard federal policies if they’re not in the best interest of their citizens.
I honestly don’t understand how any elected official can sleep at night knowing that they have ruined lives and livelihoods with the stroke of a pen. This just goes to show that too many politicians have no moral compass. They claim to be compassionate, as they do everything they can to disregard and destroy the majority of their constituents, while bending over backwards for minority special interests, but compassion is a truly foreign concept to them. A governing body can be compassionate to those in need, without irresponsibly pissing away the money they forcibly take from us.
I don’t blame the city attorney himself – any of us would honestly accept any pay raise, no matter how much money we made, or who we worked for. But those in power expect us to sacrifice, and make do with what we have, or re-arrange our lives completely – something they would never impose on themselves, or their fellow government bureaucracy coworkers/subordinates. Every comment above (except Chris’s comments) make good points. There are many other things the local government could more wisely spend our money on, but to take one of the highest paid individuals in the city government, and give him more money? – Yeah, it’s going to piss off a lot of people.
All decisions made in Greensboro these days are racist. All decision made by the Greensboro City Council is INVALID because there NO WHITE MEN on the City Council. NO diversity at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!