I went to the meeting of the "budget advisory committee" last Thursday. The committee consists of 15 impartial members of the public (3 selected by each city councilman). Here's what I've learned so far:
During the almost 3 hour meeting each city government division gave a presentation. Each presentation followed the same basic format:
a) This is what we do;
b) This is why it costs so much and it's not our fault; and
c) a chart or graph comparing them to "other cities in the area." (Eg: we have 1.4 trees per household vs. 5 other cities have 1.1, 0,9, 1.5, 1.9 trees in Lodi, Tracy, Roseville, Death Valley, whatever)
I have to wonder about the validity or purpose of all this comparing. Didn't your mother ever tell you "if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you jump off the bridge?" I want to ask, what's the purpose of the survey? Are the other cities doing it better? Worse? Don't we have any method of evaluating things more sophisticated than simply looking around at what other people are doing?
One of the main abuses is the fallacy of the median. Did you ever notice how all those surveys seem to "find" what they wanted to find? Like if they want more for the tree budget, the survey finds other cities have more trees. If they want to hire more people they find other cities have more staff. And, most importantly, city workers ask for raises based on these surveys that always show that everyone else is getting paid more and our pay needs to be raised to be "equal" or "fair." And it always needs to be raised to be equal, never lowered.
I've decided that I'll stop going to meetings the day that they come up with one of those surveys that doesn't show "we need to spend more" or "we deserve a raise." The day they say "we found other cities are paying much less than us, therefore we're being paid too much" is the day I'll give up any interest in keeping an eye on government.
How can it possibly be that five cities survey each other and each of them decides the others are spending more? It's like Lake Wobegon where every child is above average. It's like being in a room and measuring the height of the participants and then each participant says "everyone else is taller than me." You'd think at least one person in the room is tallest (right?) and can't say "others are taller than me" but that's what happens with these city survey and "equity studies."
Didn't anyone notice they always pick five different cities for the surveys? The ones that show what it is they want to show. And furthermore, did anyone ever stop to realize that all the other cities are doing exactly the same surveys of cities around them, including us, and basing their decisions on what they see? It's like watching some other guy and doing what he does 'cause you think he knows what he's doing; then you ask him and he says "I don't know what I'm doing, I was watching you!"
There were few other interesting revelations at that meeting. To be continued....
During the almost 3 hour meeting each city government division gave a presentation. Each presentation followed the same basic format:
a) This is what we do;
b) This is why it costs so much and it's not our fault; and
c) a chart or graph comparing them to "other cities in the area." (Eg: we have 1.4 trees per household vs. 5 other cities have 1.1, 0,9, 1.5, 1.9 trees in Lodi, Tracy, Roseville, Death Valley, whatever)
I have to wonder about the validity or purpose of all this comparing. Didn't your mother ever tell you "if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you jump off the bridge?" I want to ask, what's the purpose of the survey? Are the other cities doing it better? Worse? Don't we have any method of evaluating things more sophisticated than simply looking around at what other people are doing?
One of the main abuses is the fallacy of the median. Did you ever notice how all those surveys seem to "find" what they wanted to find? Like if they want more for the tree budget, the survey finds other cities have more trees. If they want to hire more people they find other cities have more staff. And, most importantly, city workers ask for raises based on these surveys that always show that everyone else is getting paid more and our pay needs to be raised to be "equal" or "fair." And it always needs to be raised to be equal, never lowered.
I've decided that I'll stop going to meetings the day that they come up with one of those surveys that doesn't show "we need to spend more" or "we deserve a raise." The day they say "we found other cities are paying much less than us, therefore we're being paid too much" is the day I'll give up any interest in keeping an eye on government.
How can it possibly be that five cities survey each other and each of them decides the others are spending more? It's like Lake Wobegon where every child is above average. It's like being in a room and measuring the height of the participants and then each participant says "everyone else is taller than me." You'd think at least one person in the room is tallest (right?) and can't say "others are taller than me" but that's what happens with these city survey and "equity studies."
Didn't anyone notice they always pick five different cities for the surveys? The ones that show what it is they want to show. And furthermore, did anyone ever stop to realize that all the other cities are doing exactly the same surveys of cities around them, including us, and basing their decisions on what they see? It's like watching some other guy and doing what he does 'cause you think he knows what he's doing; then you ask him and he says "I don't know what I'm doing, I was watching you!"
There were few other interesting revelations at that meeting. To be continued....
No comments:
Post a Comment