I didn’t really understand the news when I saw it last night via the Missoula City Council’s email system.
I couldn’t believe it when I read the full story this morning.
You’re telling me that the city’s gonna spend $79,000 a year to keep a director of global and cultural affairs on staff?
While it’s true that this person will only cost us about $35,000 this year, it still seems like a monumental waste of money to me!
The main job of this person is to welcome in more refugees, while also developing sensitivity training programs for schools, city employees, and other groups.
On top of that – and in conjunction with Arts Missoula – they’ll work on Missoula’s sister city program, make the community events calendar, administer the Public Arts Committee, and help put on the Montana Book Festival.
So this person will join the 3-member full-time staff of Arts Missoula, which also has one person working part-time.
That means the city will now spend $195,000 a year supporting this nonprofit, which pushes that nonprofit’s overall budget up to $515,000 a year.
15% of the nonprofit’s budget is eaten up by this new director’s salary, and I’m willing to bet that payroll accounts for close to 50% of what this nonprofit spends each year.
That’s always been one of my biggest beefs with nonprofits – they always seem to benefit themselves as much, if not more so, than the causes they claim to represent.
Just 2 of the 11 City Councilors voted against this funding, mainly on the grounds that it wasn’t brought up during the usual budgeting process.
Though I’m sure at least one of those no votes may have come about due to concerns about our 120-member refugee community, if those concerns were voiced in such a way, it’d probably cause calls to come that this person is racist.
This is a sorry, fall-back position the hard left often takes when money issues come up – find anything to point at other than the spending.
For me, it’s just painful. We have a city that’s $250 million in debt, has raised taxes 90% over the past decade, and desperately wants to find new revenue sources (like a local option sales tax) so it can spend even more money.
All of these things take money, yet instead of saving an extra $79,000 a year to build toward those critical needs, we’re pissing it away on this new director of the arts.
We’re cutting social service staff left and right, the Democrats are up in arms over this, yet when they could have hired one of those fired state staffers back to see to their clients, what do they do? They hire another artsy-fartsy.
Just what we needed!
Missoula…really makes ya feel good, don’t it?
I couldn’t believe it when I read the full story this morning.
You’re telling me that the city’s gonna spend $79,000 a year to keep a director of global and cultural affairs on staff?
While it’s true that this person will only cost us about $35,000 this year, it still seems like a monumental waste of money to me!
The main job of this person is to welcome in more refugees, while also developing sensitivity training programs for schools, city employees, and other groups.
On top of that – and in conjunction with Arts Missoula – they’ll work on Missoula’s sister city program, make the community events calendar, administer the Public Arts Committee, and help put on the Montana Book Festival.
So this person will join the 3-member full-time staff of Arts Missoula, which also has one person working part-time.
That means the city will now spend $195,000 a year supporting this nonprofit, which pushes that nonprofit’s overall budget up to $515,000 a year.
15% of the nonprofit’s budget is eaten up by this new director’s salary, and I’m willing to bet that payroll accounts for close to 50% of what this nonprofit spends each year.
That’s always been one of my biggest beefs with nonprofits – they always seem to benefit themselves as much, if not more so, than the causes they claim to represent.
Just 2 of the 11 City Councilors voted against this funding, mainly on the grounds that it wasn’t brought up during the usual budgeting process.
Though I’m sure at least one of those no votes may have come about due to concerns about our 120-member refugee community, if those concerns were voiced in such a way, it’d probably cause calls to come that this person is racist.
This is a sorry, fall-back position the hard left often takes when money issues come up – find anything to point at other than the spending.
For me, it’s just painful. We have a city that’s $250 million in debt, has raised taxes 90% over the past decade, and desperately wants to find new revenue sources (like a local option sales tax) so it can spend even more money.
- We know that the city’s homeless shelter is full, and our homeless camp just continues to grow.
- We know that the city’s social services will continue to be stretched thin unless we set up some kind of wet housing alternative to the ER.
- We know that the city’s street lines have all but faded away, and that potholes are around every corner.
- We know that our local schools are going to need more of a police presence, considering so many threats have happened at them over the past month.
All of these things take money, yet instead of saving an extra $79,000 a year to build toward those critical needs, we’re pissing it away on this new director of the arts.
We’re cutting social service staff left and right, the Democrats are up in arms over this, yet when they could have hired one of those fired state staffers back to see to their clients, what do they do? They hire another artsy-fartsy.
Just what we needed!
Missoula…really makes ya feel good, don’t it?
Other Stories
I heard on the radio today that there was another student firing a gun at a school in Maryland, 3 injuries.
The gun didn’t make the student do that.
It didn’t whisper in his ear, try to bribe him, or in any stretch of the imagination, act out in such a way to influence that student’s thoughts and actions.
The gun didn’t make the student do that.
What possibly could have spurred this student to action were bad parents, depression, bad character, poor upbringing, a terrible neighborhood, bullying, social media influences, and lots more I’m not thinking of.
But to think that this student shot a gun in a school because the gun was legal? I just don’t buy that.
Already the gun critics are beginning to fade away. The National media has lost interest, and we as Americans can’t stay interested long enough, either.
We’re too busy, and that’s probably another reason for the shooting – we’re just too busy to care about other people anymore.
How long do you think it’ll be before the Missoula Indy staff are fired?
I think it’s about 10 of them that are trying to unionize. I’m not sure Lee Enterprises will put up with this.
You’d think by now that if Missoulian reporters were able to unionize, they would have done so before two dozen of them were fired.
So if the Missoulian staff can’t unionize, what makes the Indy staff think they can?
Hell, they all work for the same company…have for months now.
I’ve seen three other Montana blogs run this same story today, all talking-up the Indy staff and praising them for their courage.
I just look at those staffers and shake my head.
Is this some kind of last ditch effort to save your jobs? Is this a stunt you’re pulling, mainly because you know you’re gonna get fired soon anyways? How many will have to get fired before the others cave and get back to work, at reduced salaries, of course?
It’s hard for me to commiserate with these Indy staffers. They make more money than me, they get benefits, and they get time-off.
And for what?
I never read the names of the people writing the articles, and if those names changed, I doubt I or many others would notice.
The Indy staff is expendable, very much so. I know some think they’ve put years in and that this should mean something, but it doesn’t.
Missoulians will continue to pick up the Indy on Thursday from the free stands we find it in, and that’ll be the case years from now, when most of these staffers have been shown the door and the Indy is safely tucked into the folds of the Missoulian.
We don’t have unions in our bars or restaurants, our hotels or car dealerships. They’re not in our retail stores, small shops, or small businesses. I don’t see them at the TV or radio stations.
But this small, by-the-seat-of-our-advertising-pants and founder-sold-us-out weekly newspaper is going to have a union?
I’ll believe that when I see it, and when those staffers manage to keep their jobs under the scrutinizing eye of corporate.
Good luck, guys…I don’t think it’s gonna end well for ya.
