Augusta's Proposed 2009 Budget

Mayor Deke Copenhaver is due for a salary increase according to the proposed budget for 2009. The payroll for mayor is now $196,257*, and the proposed budget suggests a raise of $15,438. Go, Deke! According to the calculator at salary.com, $196,257 adjusted for the cost of living in Atlanta would be $209,088. The mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, makes $147,500. The governor of Georgia made $135,281 in 2007. [Amendment: Deke on facebook told me his salary is $75,000 and that he drives his own car and pays for his own gas. He didn't clarify where the other $121,257 goes. He's busy. Also Deke has now removed me as a facebook friend. :( I guess when he said he was excited about facebook as an opportunity to get information out there to the people without a filter, I misunderstood. And yes, it does sound familiar, and yes, Deke did say that.]
Did you know that we also have a city/county administrator? The administrator’s personal salary is not given in the budget or over the phone, but his office, comprised of Administrator Frederick L. Russell, 2 interim deputy administrators, an administrative assistant, and an executive secretary runs the tax-payers $1,215,996* this year. [The office staff information given here is from a phone call to the administrator's office. It differs from what's on the website.]
Well, that's fine, because the city is doing great now, right? No. Deke’s raise is a rare ray of sunshine in a budget that proposes to cut funding for law enforcement, fire protection, and public transportation. In fact, in addition to planning to slash service to the already ridiculously under served bus riders, (could you get to work if you had to take the bus? Could Deke? Should Deke?) they plan a fare increase to the tune of $870,000. That will increase the average annual cost to each of the 1,934 people who take the bus to work by $403.
Public transportation should be encouraged, not starved, in a sprawling town in which 80% of people drive to work by themselves. Don't all good cities have good public transportation?
By the way, spreading the amount of that fare increase evenly among each of Augusta's households would cost each one $4.35 a year. And to take on that and keep the service from being cut would cost each household a whopping $8.04.

*The payroll information is from page 52 of the proposed budget. What I'm calling the mayor's salary was listed as "mayor" and what I'm calling the administrator's office is listed as "administrator's office.