SEWAGE IS FLOWING into the streets and Huron River more frequently. Water mains are rupturing. Ward 4 basements, backyards and neighborhoods flood with alarming regularity. Just a small percentage of residents rate important services as “excellent” in citizen surveys. Yet, taxpayers continue to fund generous perks for city employees and their managers: travel, stays at luxury hotels, casinos and resorts, meals out costing hundreds of dollars, cell phone allowances, a retirement system that permits some employees to vest after just five years.

Millions of dollars for city employee perks have been siphoned off and given over to city staff and managers who can’t manage to fill the potholes, figure out how to plow the city’s major streets and cul de sacs in under 30 hours or take care of city’s dead and dying trees.

While the City Administrator Steve Powers cut automobile allowances significantly, he increased cell phone allowance spending to $1,320 per year per employee. In many cases, employee cell phone allowances increased by over 90 percent. This was done at a time when cities and state governments across the U.S. have discontinued and significantly reduced cell phone allowances paid to public employees.

Since 2009, taxpayers have seen the number and quality of services diminish. Meanwhile, spending on travel, meals, lodging and training for city staff has increased significantly. Since 2009, city staff and their managers have enjoyed over $2 million dollars in taxpayer funds for cell phones, employee recognition, travel, meals out, rooms at luxury hotels, resorts and casinos. Since his hire in 2011, under City Administrator Steve Powers spending on such perks for city staffers has risen 20 percent.

Over the next few months, Ann Arbor’s City Council members will hammer out the 2014-2015 budget. We urge them to keep in mind that a city which eliminates Christmas tree collection for the want of $36,000 should be hard-pressed to justify spending $238,000 per year for city staff cell phone allowances. We’re not suggesting an end to employee perks. Rather, we’re suggesting that Ann Arbor City Council members create a single line item to fund such perks, and tie the amount budgeted for perks to concrete results, including citizen ratings of services as “excellent” in the National Citizen Survey. Local government exists to provide services, not to fund employee perks.