A Proposal for a residency incentive for public jobs

[Lynn Farris]

Okay, I'm going to play the devil's advocate on this topic. Ken you say "Always hire the best" but then you say to hold the line on salary. If we want to hire the best, shouldn't we pay them the best? Won't the best go to where the best salary is?

Based on your concept, we shouldn't elect the mayor from our city. After all he is the leader of our town. Shouldn't we search high and low for the best individual and implement a city manager form of government where the person leading us may live in Shaker Heights?

But don't we lose something in the process? BTW, I think we have the best library director and he lives right here in Lakewood.

I sincerely think that we have a problem with a we're not worthy attitude here in Lakewood. We are a wonderful city and we have many bright, energetic, wonderful people who can easily fill the ranks of the safety forces or be willing to move here. Actually fill all of the jobs in the city if we wanted. (But that isn't what we are suggesting - just give Lakewood residents a first crack at them?) Do we discount people sometimes just because they live in Lakewood?

But I wanted to end the day on a positive note.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Henry Ford

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
Vince Lombardi

The Man Who Thinks He Can
by Waler D. Wintle

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you would like to win but think you can't
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will,
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

[Kenneth Warren]

Lynn:

I didn't know you had Vatican training in Devil's Advocacy. Your hot pitchfork prompts this clarification.

Always hire the best with the resources you can afford.

Never discount Lakewood.

I do see the point about looking in the city for talent. I certainly do so in library hiring.

We are really not far apart in our desire to create value for our wonderful city through investment in the talents and treasures of public sector employees.

It is simply the case that when you live in town and pay the taxes you are more grateful and sensitive to your neighbors for the goodness of their capacity to provide a livelihood. You want to give something back. Simply by living here, you put skin in the game, cash in the church collection plate, volunteer time with scouts, teams etc.

I am very proud that Kim Paras, my deputy director, lives in Lakewood. John Guscott, Manager of Electronic Services, Andrew Harrant, Manager of Childrens Services, Judy Gryzbowski, Manager of Madison Services, Gregory Christian, Manager of Maintenance Services and Patty Steele, Manager of Administrative Services all live in Lakewood.

Although there are no residency requirements or incentives in the library, I try very hard to establish a vision and culture that expect commitment not only to the job but to the city and its people. I think it should be easy for people to see beyond the library how the lives and energies of these public library servants nurture Lakewood's civic fauna, churches, neighborhoods and schools. There's no way such "value added" social capital accrues to the city sans residency, sans skin in the civic game.

While I agree that Lakewood is a wonderful city, and don't feel it's inferior in any way, I do see real challenges that stem from negotiation of class differences into community norms and moral codes. These are inspiring and exciting challenges that can be met with smart, time intensive citizen involvement in the political and social process.

I do not believe a city manager is the answer to such a challenge.

There are no magical solutions, of course.

I personally feel that "professional government" and the "city manager" are often perceived as magical solutions to challenges that require us to: 1) open our time banks; 2) work out face time communication about doing a job to improve the city; 3) engage in hand to hand combat to organize neighborhood integrity at the block level.

That's the model we are starting with the Lakewood Observer.

I do thank you for the feedback, and your very kind words.

Kenneth Warren

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
Thanks everyone for taking the time to discuss this important issue.

Mr. Foran, I’m proposing a first step. The incentive is to get Lakewood residents a first shot at public positions. I’m not proposing this first step require the person to remain in Lakewood. Perhaps, if this first step has merit, it could be altered down the road. If needed. There would be no consequence if the person later moved out of Lakewood. I have wondered about the questions you ask and I think they should be discussed. That will take time. This incentive is to cover the period between now and then. It’s a start. A small change to favor residents of Lakewood.

Mr. Stewart, You bring up an example that shows it would require the support of the Mayor, City Council and the School Board and Administration. Yes, for the incentive to work the position would have to remain open until the time period expired, if no Lakewood resident applied that was qualified.
2 points on your scenario: 1). Lakewood is full of people qualified to be Finance Director. Maybe you don’t know anyone. They do exist and they do already live in Lakewood. I have to believe the Mayor and Council would know some of these people. Your post suggests to me you are someone that discounts people that live in Lakewood. If someone applied for the position that lives in Lakewood and another person applied that lives in Boston or Shaker Heights, everything else being equal, I get the feeling you would hire the person from Boston or Shaker Heights. This proposal is intended to help everyone change their impression of Lakewood residents. 2). I would imagine, the number 2 person in the Finance Department would be named acting Director until the position was filled but it would be up to the Mayor to continue operations until the job was filled.

Finally, Mr. Stewart, concerning your last paragraph, I believe as Mr. Warren stated, Lakewood residents have “skin in the gameâ€Â￾. That should count for more than it does right now. This incentive would help address that. I agree with your final statement but I would alter it to be, “The City or School system should be (and I assume are) looking to hire the BEST candidates for the job, especially if they already live in Lakewood.â€Â￾

Mr. Ritcey, public sector jobs are not private sector jobs. In private sector raises and benefits have been frozen or cut over the last decade. That just doesn’t happen in public sector jobs. And, I must restate, this is not a residency requirement, just an incentive. See. Above bolded comment.

Councilman Fitzgerald, thanks for posting on this thread. I was not able to determine from your post if you would support this type of residency incentive. Please clarify.

Mr. Warren, how about it? It sounds to me like the Lakewood Library has unofficially been doing this already. You stated you were against it, which surprised me. Do you still think giving Lakewood residents first shot won’t work? In an inner ring suburb at “the tipping pointâ€Â￾, I believe this incentive could be the 1 small change that could tip things in our favor. Without your support we'll never know.

[Kenneth Warren]

Don:

I believe there may be one issue with your local hiring proposal: It would need to be vetted to ensure it is not discriminatory.

I suspect that it might be.

There are laws, reports etc. concerning hiring, how many individuals from ethnic and racial groups applied, how many were hired etc. that public entities file.

So again, I suspect, a case could be made that a local Lakewood hiring policy such as you suggest could have an adverse effect on minorities seeking access to Lakewood jobs, and therefore be found to be disciminatory.

In addition, among the very quality of library personnel now living in Lakewood I mentioned in the previous post, three of them were not living in Lakewood when they were hired.

They moved to Lakewood on their own without incentive.

I am not suggesting that from this evidence that incentives are not worth pursuing.

I am simply stating the facts in these particular instances.

In my experience an adequate pool of qualified candidates will reach beyond the city limits for any number of reasons.

Public sector hiring and employment laws are complex.

While I don't think on the surface your proposal would pass muster, competent legal counsel will need to be involved in moving such matters in the direction you suggest.

Kenneth Warren

[Bryan Schwegler]

What about rewarding residency through salary incentives? For example teachers would have their base salary but anyone who lives in Lakewood would receive a 10% increase on their base (like a 10% bonus). Same could be done for all other city employees. If they chose later to move from Lakewood, that 10% would be removed.

That way people wouldn't be forced to live in Lakewood which could cause us to lose candidates, it would allow the city or board to hire the best candidate regardless of where they live, and it would give the employee the opportunity to make more money if they chose to move here if they don't live here already.

Of course I'm not sure if there's some obscure law that would make this unworkable. But in my experience, at least at the company I work for, financial incentive is a huge driver to get people to do things they normally wouldn't.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Another Observer on a late night drive came up with an idea that might work it's way into this discussion. Hopefully he will jump in as he understands it far better than I. This discussion dovetails nicely with another concept some of us have been working on that we refer to as "Drafting Good Neighbors."

A group outside of government and banking sets up a process where housing grants are given based on education and residency. A college graduate moving to Lakewood is given $5,000 towards the purchase price of their home. Someone with a master would receive $12,000, and someone with a doctorate would receive $20,000.

Now they would use this towards the purchase price of the house. It could be rolled over to any house in Lakewood, and would not have to be paid back until they moved out of Lakewood, where it would go back into the program. The program is not based on religion, race, or anything else.

For example we will pick on our new intern. She grew up in Lakewood, went to University of Florida and graduated. Upon graduation she would know about the $5,000 down payment for a starter home here in Lakewood. So she marries and starts her life here as opposed to another city because of the incentive. As she works and her family grows they decide to move to a larger house and roll the $5,000 over as it is better than paying it back when buying a new house. As her children grow, she attends college and receive her masters. Then they move again to a larger house, and this time she rolls over the $5,000 and receives an additional $5,000.

While we draft in "good neighbors" we also build a way for families to grow and be rewarded for living in Lakewood. College graduates generally have higher income potential, and are more active in politics, schools, civic events and their neighborhoods.

Any thoughts?



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[Mark Crnolatas]

Basically I think the concept has merit. Johnny Carson, in one of his rare interviews, once mentioned when he was a struggling comic, working for a meal and a drink, he couldn't get a cup of coffee for free. After he became the host of the Tonight Show, and his contract amount became public, he was offered, at no cost, clothing, cars, houses, a plane, on and on, which to him made him shake his head, since with that contract amount, he could easily purchase anything he wanted. I believe he said "Where was that free condo, when I was living in a one room tenament over Guido's House of Pancakes and Lyla the Snake Dancer's Emporium."

Again, I think the idea has merit. There are those people, though, who do not have college degrees, yet have high levels of experience, training, and also are civic minded, etc., as you have outlined, and would also make a good citizen of our city.

It would seem to me, there would need to be an evaluation of each person on a case by case basis, or a wider range of incentives to include these people also.
Just a thought.

Mark Allan (Crnolatas)
_______________________
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".

[Jason Stewart]

Mr. Farris,
Please do not read too far into my post. I was using an extreme to point out a possible flaw in this type of incentive plan. I know Lakewood is full of great people. My example should not lead you to believe that I discount the residents of Lakewood.

If someone applied for the position that lives in Lakewood and another person applied that lives in Boston or Shaker Heights, everything else being equal, I get the feeling you would hire the person from Boston or Shaker Heights.

This statement is just plain ridiculous and does not warrant further response.

[Jay Foran]

I have been asked the question of "what residency incentives would I advocate?".

While I have some ideas, I do agree with Ken Warren that residency incentives should not be concentrated salary component of the work relationship between employer/employee.

Our community's challenge is that the City of Lakewood is not in a position to start coughing up cash that would go to new employees that moved to our city, nor to those that live here already.

My suggestion would be for us all to begin researching this topic. We can't be the first and only city contemplating this approach. There has to be some examples from around the country that we can benefit from/learn from him. The experience of implementing residency incentives would be of great value to Lakewood. We need not invent it here.

FWIW

[Jim O'Bryan]

I have been asked the question of "what residency incentives would I advocate?".

... The experience of implementing residency incentives would be of great value to Lakewood. We need not invent it here.

FWIW

Jay

I will admit it is easier to look and learn especially when looking for pitfalls, but I also am weary of borrowing ideas that were designed for others.

Why not invent it here. Certainly other recent inventions would indicate that Lakewood is very unique, especially whe it comes to thinking out of the box.



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[Jay Foran]

I am not opposed to "invent it here" at all, just in the right sequence.

My experience is that it is more productive to "search and reapply" first. More important than the "ideas" that will be gained, will be the "learnings" that accompany them. For example, one city may have already been down the path of providing low cost loans to city employees. What are the learnings now that five years of data history exist? Did it have an impact, how much, how little, how would they improve what they have today? All of that information is relative and valuable and provides an excellent framework from which to "create the local solution/program".
From there we add to it, improve it, create our one of kind solution.

This is why LakewoodAlive provided the Baltimore story on CitiStat. We can have all the theories we want about how CitiStat should/could work, but reality and practicality are great teachers. Having the Baltimore story gave insight and learning that will only help our application here.

Same was true for the Designing Our Next Fifty Years effort. We went to schools that were remodeled and schools that were fully replaced new. We asked about their process, their outcomes, their hardships. Actually, it was the visit to a remodeled school in Mentor that was the inspiration that later became "Raise the Roof". We heard from folks there that the remodeling period was a terrific uniter of their community and they wished they had taken more advantage of it. I walked away learning that if we were fortunate enough to pass the bond issue, we were going to have some kind of celebration..as a community.

IMHO, ego is the one of the biggest things that confront us as we forge our future as a community. The "not invented here mindset" is one of the biggest obstacles to change. I see it every day in my consulting. Every company starts off telling you how unique they are. Truth is, in some form or fashion, they are....but they are not "one of a kind". They have costs, they have to make a profit, they have employee issues, on and on.

Lakewood has many unique attributes, many that lead me to choose Lakewood as my home. I just feel we should get the "ideas" and "learnings" that are out there and then apply them to our unique home.

[Jim O'Bryan]

I am not opposed to "invent it here" at all, just in the right sequence.

...IMHO, ego is the one of the biggest things that confront us as we forge our future as a community. The "not invented here mindset" is one of the biggest obstacles to change. I see it every day in my consulting. Every company starts off telling you how unique they are. Truth is, in some form or fashion, they are....but they are not "one of a kind". They have costs, they have to make a profit, they have employee issues, on and on.
.

Hardly surprising, we see things differently, yet somewhat the same.

I have watched the weight of people copying other ideas and applying them here nearly ruin the city time and again. What generally happens is that things are copied in from an era that no longer exists, and shoe horned and made to fit into an area that it has no reason to be fit into.

I would think the way to go about this would be to see what we have, what can be leveraged, and then seek out laws to those items. Sit down with our current workers and see what they would need to make the jump. Maybe it is not money, maybe it is something else they crave. Let's be honest these are city workers not whores, maybe it is not all about the $$$$$$$$$

It's easier to take up where someone started off, but we need quantum thinking, after all are we not competing with the very cities you are talking to? I see no reason to try to get people to move to Lakewood from Beau Village or Cleveland Heights. We need to attract from the east and west coast. Find a policeman in New York, he sells the house moves to Lakewood and is instantly much better off financially. Maybe that's the only incentive they need. Seems better then begging someone to move here from Fairview.

The minute you bring in other old ideas, out of the box is gone.

FWIW

Jim

[Jay Foran]

Interesting that you think "old ideas" and I think "effective ideas". Different perspectives are no doubt valuable to this process.

I hope we won't discount CitiStat because it was done somewhere else first.

My pov, most new ideas, are a play on old ideas (effective and non-effective).

I hope we will research outside of NE Ohio. Important to look far and wide - Tacoma to Tokyo to Trenton.

One thing we agree on, minimize the cash outlay for the city.

Jim, always fun shaking the tree with you. Thanks!

[Kenneth Warren]

Jay and Jim:

You both provide two prongs of inquiry, one local, i.e. what will compel employees to make the decision to live here in light of the difficult reckoning of limited resources; the other global, i.e. what places have put models/practices together that are sensible and adaptable.

While my conversation with Professor Douglas Rae of Yale University leads me to believe many cities and inner rings in the Northeast and Midwest are at a very critical moment in the structural economic crisis that will bear down increasingly on the old time sense of public sector entitlement, I am not so certain the historical information on practice is long enough in sack to ferment the analysis of data Jay would hope to make.

Obviously due diligence is in order. And Lakewood Observers need to get cracking on research.

That said, I believe we need to identify within the framework of our local policy thinking the global issue of economic structure (i.e. the effect of globalization on driving employment wages down) and the local issue of declining housing infrastructure in relation to the property taxes that support public employment.

That's the reality check of the critical moment.

Taxation/Compensation Structure and Housing Infrastructure go hand in hand.

Lakewood needs to join these elements in an innovative public policy that will advance the effective allocation of scarce resources in results that will bear fruit for the city and security of the public sector labor forces over the long haul.

In effect, public employees need to understand that citizens are interested in developing a local public policy agenda concerning the investment of its tax dollars (operations - wages and infrastructure) in residency incentives that will strengthen the city's position and sustain the quality of life and public employment in the city.

Some think economic development alone will solve the problem. I can assure it will not.

In fact, there may be enabling legislation either at the local or state level to get what needs to be accomplished accomplished.

Prepare for a gut-wrenching and time consuming process that will test the value assumptions about political economy, personal freedoms, and ethical obligations of public sector employees to the community.

There is no other way to do this. But it is clearly in the interests of citizens and public employees to face the structural economic music coming from "the Delphic Oracle" and other bankrupt corporations that are restructuring compensation levels for Americans in the private sector.

Unless public sector employees are ready to see their jobs outsourced and privatized, they will need to wake up, smell coffee and understand the general sense of fairness and decency within the Lakewood community.

But something has got to give.

Again, this is all part of "the tipping point" context made in the Grow Lakewood report.

So two prongs. Jay and Jim you are poking the tree each in a way that may bear fruit.

I appreciate the shake that you guys are producing for the city, even when horns may seem on the verge of locking. In the process, you help bring a new sense of problem-solving, determination and confidence to all of us.

Some of us trust the experience and opinion of the local genius. Some of us trust the experience and opinion of outside experts. Both preferences will need to be satisfied and then subjected to rigorous critical pressure.

That is what the Lakewood Observer was designed to accomplish.

So we need to stay with this process, because this process creates the capacity for new thinking and public policy, along with the trajectory for the political will to act, finally settling into the belief that we have accomplished something good for our city, our public employees and our taxpayers.

Kenneth Warren

[Jim O'Bryan]

Jay


My fear is that old ideas even if effective last week or today might/probably have no bearing in what is happening now or in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years.

We have to look no farther then the petro chemical business. Any business that is reliant on business coming in from more than ten miles away is dead. The Internet is growing so fast it is hard to imagine. the last two issues of the paper were done with NO MEETINGS, no offices, and no away from home time. Think of it. The Observer is ready for the future, are you, is Lakewood?!:wink:

Who planned for that in the 1989?

Now let's get back on topic, incentives. These cities you mentioned, were they the best suburb as rated by every newspaper in the county, in a region that was just named most live-able? I think that beast $5,000 incentives. Now is the time we should be recruiting.

Smart, safe, clean, fun this is what we offer, and we can do better.

While some talk about tax incentives, economic growth, and ways to buy employees, there is another group that spins a tale of intrigue, with a fun, intelligent and artistic energized community. I know the one group is starting to get letters and calls from all over about moving in, moving back. Wanting to take part in the fun and madness.

If we look at the thread in globalization under The economy, the one thing EVERYONE agrees it is going in the shitter. So clearly money, and economy are tough sales.

Tie this in with the thread, "Why don't some get it" and you start to see a clearer picture of what we need. People that get it, not people that need $5,000 more for a flat screen TV.

But here is the good news, we both love Lakewood and wish the best for it. We are having a good discussion NOW about where we need to be SOON.

As Ken points out, I think the entire group basically believes residency is the better way, and incentives should be looked at. Though it does smack of low self esteem and buying friendship.



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