9%

The Mayor is taking the right course in the budget for the City of Albuquerque. After his orgy of spending in the last 7 years he has now been forced to curtail the double digit budget increases. His new found austerity is really being forced on him and he has handled it well, or should I say his budget director Anna Lamberson has handled it well. But, he deserves credit for stepping up to this predicament.

I just cant understand why, as usual, the police and firefighters are receiving such high pay increases, especially in a year like this. The rest of the employees will wait for any raises for an extra six months. You could really argue that no one should get a raise until the economy steams up a little. Once again, if the argument is given that the police have the most dangerous municipal jobs and should get high raises, well that just isn't true. In fact, nationally the job of policeman or fireman doesn't even rank amongst the top ten most dangerous jobs. Lets face it. They just have good PR in getting these raises and strong union browbeating of politicians.