13-011
Budget-Cutting the Hard Way
I read in the paper that the city
manager of a certain Up North town came up with a clever idea for saving
roughly ten-percent of the town’s $300,000 annual budget. He recommended that council eliminate the city manager's position. He said it out loud and three in the
audience said they couldn’t hear him, but the other four said they did. It was out there.
Now, normally this particular council would be slow to act on anything the city
manager might suggest, but this time they barely took time to blink and clear
their throats before they voted unanimously in favor of the proposal.
After the final vote, the now ex-city manager, apparently
dazzled by his own audacity, could be hear muttering, "It wasn't an easy
decision. I don't enjoy getting rid of myself."
I shouldn't wonder. It's never easy getting rid of one's self. It's
especially difficult to get rid of one's self and still be around to say,
"I don't enjoy getting rid of myself." One usually doesn't have
that option.
Personally, I think that particular council acted a little hastily. What
if, in the act of doing his duty, in the heat of the budget-cutting moment, he
simply forgot who the city manager was?
Of course, it could be he was grandstanding. He could have been saying,
in effect, "See, I'm taking my budget-cutting responsibilities so
seriously, I'm even willing to let you consider doing away with--heh, heh--my
job. Of course, I don't expect you to really do it; it's just my little
way of expressing my willingness to explore all options. Heh, heh.
But maybe council had other things on their minds and didn't get the "heh,
heh".
Another possibility is that he really had been thinking of getting rid of
himself. It can happen. I've done it myself from time to
time. Luckily, since there was no urgency attached to my decision, I’ve
been saved up to now by my penchant for procrastination. Then, too, there
wasn't $30,000 at stake. Nor did I have to worry about an over-zealous
town council being ready to pounce on my ponderings at any given moment, then
rushing to make them a reality before I could even say, "Kidding!"
Whatever the reasons, what's done is done, and the end of this strange-but-true
story is sad, if predictable. Since that unfortunate turn of events, the
now ex-city manager hasn't had one single job offer. In all honesty,
could he have expected anything else? Seems to me he could at least have worded
his announcement a little differently. There aren't many employers
willing to go out on a limb and hire a man who had just recently gotten rid of
himself. It stands to reason that any
potential employer /interviewer would have no choice but to scribble across the
now ex-city manager's application, "The applicant lacked substance.”