10K run in late November in shorts and a light shirt. I also am hugely
thankful to see so many other active Minneapolitans out on this pre-holiday
evening in Minneapolis' fantastic park system; the seemless integration of an
active lifestyle in the urban environment is EXACTLY what keeps my partner and
I in Minneapolis!
But as thankful as I am, I am also perplexed and concerned by the new direction
of the management of the aforementioned park system. The other night the Board
voted to approve a contract for $127,110 to an individual in Michigan by the
name of D Kerry Laycock.
Mr. Laycock has been hired to "lead organizational efforts to develop work
process, efficiency and performance improvements".
Are there no qualified individuals in Minneapolis who can lead these efforts?
Not even in the whole state of Minnesota? This may put me at odds with a
majority of park board commissioners, but somehow I think there are.
So why would the Superintendent insist on the retention of this individual,
someone with ZERO familiarity with Minneapolis' parks and readily admits that
he really doesn't know much about our Recreation staff?
I'm reminded of an anecdote I read in an interesting book called "Retirement
Heist" where a CEO is looking to hire an actuary to collect and present data
that will, in effect, cook the books; the result is that the company's pensions
will be plundered and used to fatten the CEO's salary and the company's bottom
line while the employees are told that their pensions will need to be
"adjusted" downward because of poor economic conditions. Anyway, he interviews
a series of prospective actuaries to provide some data to back him up.
He asks the first one, "How much is two plus two?" "Four" the first candidate
answers. He doesn't get the job. The CEO interviews several more candidates;
each responds similarly. Finally, the CEO asks one more candidate the sum of
two plus two. The candidate leans forward and whispers in the CEO's ear, "Two
plus two equals however much you want it to be." Guess who gets the job?
The moral here may be a bit on the nose, but I think it's apt. In this case,
Mr. Laycock himself states in the April 18 edition of "The Ann Arbor News",
"Make no mistake... I'm paid by management. At any point I'm not serving
their agenda, I'm gone instantly." I appreciate his candor.
But I'm also curious to know what the real agenda of management is. Mr.
Laycock has a pattern: consolidate job functions and lay off staff. I'm not
quite sure we needed to go all the way to Ann Arbor to find someone will to
take $127,110 of Minneapolis taxpayer money that could have been used in
neighborhood parks to tell us this.
Upon her arrival, the superintendent herself repeatedly told employees of the
park board that no one is more familiar than they are about the inefficiencies
and potential improvements within the organization than they are; we are even
paying the new superintendent about $20,000 per year more than we paid her
predecessor the year before (a total of about $144,000 per year). Maybe I'm
deeply naive, but I was under the impression that all of that money bought a
great deal of expertise, perhaps maybe even someone who could come up with
answers to questions like "how can we improve" without having to hire someone
else and spend another $127,110.)
This wouldn't be quite so sad if it weren't for the fact that low-level
employees of the park board - the men and women who you see picking up the
trash early Sunday mornings and scrubbing the toilets in your local rec center
- were recently told that they could not receive their contractually obligated
step increases because "the park board has no money."
And that's what's really bothering me: according to one narrative, we are told
of a need to make investments in consultant after consultant after consultant
as well as upper management to the tune of MANY hundreds of thousands of
dollars; according to another narrative, we can't afford to keep our promises
to some of the lowest level employees in the organization, the ones you see out
in the system every day, holding the system together with little more than a
stubborn passion of service.
And somehow we can't even find anyone local to deliver the news that they're
going to need to do even more with even less!
If there is an agenda to be served here, I wish we could at least have it out
in the open and debate it, and not hide it behind crazy-expensive consultants.
Tony Kelly
Harrison Resident
Minneapolis Taxpayer