Just when you think Mayor Chavez is going to do the right thing, he goes and messes it all up. Take this from yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal (subscription):
Chavez announced creation of the office several weeks ago. He said it will be launched with $100,000 that came from belt-tightening in the Mayor’s Office and the office of the chief administrative officer.
Apparently the Mayor doesn’t understand how this whole “belt tightening” process is so supposed to work. You’re not supposed to find ways to save money, and then immediately turn around and spend the money by creating a new recurring cost that over ten years will cost a minimum of $1,000,000.
The worst part is this total waste of taxpayer dollars is going towards creating a staffed volunteer “clearinghouse.” The rationale provide by the Mayor’s office:
People will be able to call the office to sign up for a volunteer activity of their choice.
The city uses thousands of volunteers at parks, libraries, museums, programs for the elderly and other functions. Service agencies outside of government also will get help finding volunteers.
You know, I’m glad that the city uses thousands of volunteers. However, did the Mayor ever consider that for a mere fraction of the first year cost of adding to the city payroll, he could have just tweaked the city website to list volunteer opportunities. This improvement would be a non-recurring costs that in the long run would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. This all makes you wonder how many other unnecessary programs this Mayor has implemented with city dollars just to be able to get some media coverage.