Is mayor-elect being as conservative as promised?

Posted at: 11/19/2009 10:52 PM | Updated at: 11/20/2009 7:29 AM
By: Jeff Maher, Eyewitness News 4; Charlie Pabst, KOB.com

Albuquerque Mayor-elect Richard Berry could be faced with a budget shortfall as high as $30 million when he takes office.

Berry has been making a lot of new hires lately, so we looked into how much money those new employees will make, and if it will save the city some money.

A spokesman for Richard Berry says the soon-to-be mayor has appointed more than a dozen employees so far, most of whom make less than $100,000 a year.

Compared with what their predecessors were making, the price of the hires comes out to be $212,587 in savings, but some say that comparison is misleading.

The question on the minds of many: Is Mayor-elect Berry being as fiscally conservative as he promised to be during his campaign?

His people gave us a comparison, showing that the majority of his appointees are making less than their predecessors, even though most still make more than $90,000 a year.

However, they are comparing many of their new hire salaries to previous employees who had been working under current Mayor Martin Chavez for several years, and had gotten raises during that time.

Two of the department heads are actually getting a salary increase, including the head of family and community services, going from $97,000 under Chavez to $107,000 under Berry.

Political blogger Joe Monahan said Thursday, "I think that's going to come under more scrutiny as we go forward. If we start raising the specter of furloughing city employees, everything this mayor does in terms of how much he pays people and who he's hiring, there's going to be a higher bar because now people's livelihoods are on the line."

City Councilor Brad Winter says there were a lot of positions created under Mayor Chavez that Berry should look at cutting.

One position that the city council has questioned before is Chief Public Safety Officer— the position Berry gave to Darren White after Pete Dinelli resigned.

City Councilor Debbie O'Malley said, "I don't understand the reason for it, but then again, I'm not the mayor."

Councilor Ken Sanchez says he thinks the mayor-elect has been making good decisions.

"I think he's been very cautious," Sanchez said. "His new directors are coming in at a lower salary, and there may have been some people that have been turned away or didn't accept the job, because they weren't willing to work for $95-96,000 per year."

A spokesman for Berry says they've still not decided whether to fill the position of Chief Operations Officer, which is typically a high-paying position.

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