With the recent lay-offs, Mayor Michael J. Sullivan has presented
a way to balance the city budget and we see a real effort to
manage this city the way it is done in private industry. When
money is short, you either cut back expenses or lay off employees.
Besides, nobody said they have a job guaranteed for life.
We have a Personnel Director who is trying to do a professional
job and his hands are constantly being tied. The city has lost so
much prestige that people are not even applying for good paying
jobs. The Budget and Finance Director position was advertised and
no one applied. For the Comptroller position there were only two
and one of them was internal.
Now Frank Bonet has to start all over again, hiring headhunters to
fill these positions at a cost and probably having to increase the
salary base because people don’t want to come and work in
Lawrence. He has expressed this concern to the council before;
let’s see what support he gets from them now.
It has taken Mayor Sullivan a long time to catch up with the right
way to straighten out the finances but we believe that he is on
the right track. Not everything can be balanced on the backs of
the taxpayers and in the next two years we have a chance for real
change in Lawrence.
EDITORIAL
