What percentage of the Town's spending is on payroll?
According to our elected representatives, who simply quote the conclusions presented to them by staff, "Fairfax spends about 80% of its revenues on salaries and benefits"1 (including pensions, health insurance, worker's comp insurance, and more). However, if you examine the numbers also provided by the same official budgets and audits, you can quickly determine that this simply isn't true.
Overall Expenditures and Payroll
Chart data is taken from Town's official financial documents2
The official budget for the Town states:3
"As a service-oriented agency, personnel costs (salaries and benefits) comprise approximately 80% of the Town's budget."
However, budgeted "Payroll and benefits" ten pages later is $4,148,595 and Overall Expenditures is listed beneath, totaling $6,968,8224. Divide the first number by the second and you'll see that payroll costs, including pensions and healthcare, are 59.53% of Overall Expenditures.
It should also be noted that while Town officials and proponents of Measure D state they have "consolidated positions and left open staff positions unfilled"5, the Town Council created a new position for FOCAS Coordinator in FY2011-126, paying $31,200 + $452 in benefits. While we are not questioning the value of this position, it is hard to see how it can be argued that salaries were frozen and positions left unfilled when new positions were created!
- 1Source: Mayor Larry Bragman, in the public comment section of the October 3, 2011 Marin IJ article about Measure D. ↩
- 2Sources: Town of Fairfax Adopted Budgets for FY2005-06, page 10, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2006-07, page 10, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2007-08, page 10, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2008-09, page 8, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2009-10, page 8, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2010-11, page 8, "Payroll and Benefits", FY2011-12, page 9, "Payroll and Benefits". ↩
- 3Source: Town of Fairfax Adopted Budget for FY2011-12, page iii, "Personnel Costs". ↩
- 4Source: Town of Fairfax Adopted Budget for FY2011-12, page 9, "Payroll and Benefits". ↩
- 5Source: Friends of Measure D "Strengthen Fairfax" mailer sent to voters around October 5th and their "Combination" mailer, received around November 3rd.↩
- 6Source: Town of Fairfax Adopted Budget for FY2011-12, page 11, "Schedule of Approved Positions". ↩