Deena Winter: Living wage ordinance to be opened

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More than two years ago, Councilman Jon Camp said he intended to introduce legislation to repeal the city’s living wage ordinance, which he’s never liked.

He never did, but he recently introduced legislation that would exempt nonprofit groups from the living wage.

The ordinance requires companies with at least 10 employees and city contracts worth at least $25,000 to pay full-time employees a minimum hourly salary that’s adjusted annually. This year, it’s $9.93 per hour if the employer provides health insurance benefits, $10.92 if they don’t.

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Camp noted Los Angeles has a similar living wage, and it’s at $10.96 without health benefits.

He said the requirement has forced many entities that contract with the city to raise their wages, including the detox center, Cornhusker Place, Capital Humane Society and the company that operates the parking garages.

It’s counterproductive to strain the budgets of nonprofits by artificially raising minimum salaries, which ripples through entire salary schedules, he said.

Why not try to repeal the ordinance entirely, since he may have enough votes on the City Council?

“I didn’t know what the sense (sentiment) would be. … Maybe in hindsight I should have.”

There may be enough votes, but Mayor Chris Beutler could be expected to veto, because he has long supported living wage legislation on the state level.

The Lincoln Chamber of Commerce supports Camp’s exemption for nonprofits, but also wouldn’t mind if the ordinance was repealed. The Lincoln Independent Business Association will meet this week to talk about his proposal.

A public hearing on the matter was held Monday, and attracted the interest of Danny Walker, who’s always quick to give the council a tongue-lashing.

He said he was surprised to see the council considering chipping away at the living wage one week after all of the “B.S.” about building a new arena.

“Now all of a sudden the city of Lincoln can’t even afford a decent wage,” he said.

The council is scheduled to vote on Camp’s ordinance Nov. 19.

EMS Fund no longer seeing red

Preliminary numbers indicate the city-run ambulance service will show a small profit for the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31.

City Finance Director Don Herz said while the numbers are not final, preliminary estimates indicate a significant turnaround from the prior year.

Herz credited rate increases — ambulance rates went up 20 percent a year ago and another 2.7 percent in June — and work done by the fire department to control costs, particularly overtime.

In a press release, Beutler said rate increases were important to the turnaround, but changes made by the fire department also deserve credit.

In the same release, Fire Chief Niles Ford said a major obstacle continues to be Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates that are lower than actual costs, which he said led to a $2 million funding gap last year.

The mayor’s office also pointed out it costs the city an estimated $180,000 per year to provide emergency service to county residents outside the city limits.

Beutler has asked the county to reimburse the city $60,000 while the city and rural fire districts work on a plan for a new emergency response system.

Beutler said the news “takes the city another step closer to putting the ambulance controversies of the past truly behind us.”

The fire department has operated ambulance service since it won a bitter battle in 2001 by promising faster, better and cheaper service than the private contractor.

But by the end of the last fiscal year, the ambulance service had lost more than a million dollars.

And it started missing the mark in response time goals more often this year after changes were made to deal with money issues.

The goal is to have advanced life support units arrive within eight minutes 90 percent of the time for life-threatening emergencies.

That was met in September, but not in July and August.

Swag, city council-style

OK, so there were no Blackberries or Bluetooths or iPods being given away.

But the Lincoln City Council did have bagfuls of down-home swag for the Omaha City Council when they arrived for an annual joint meeting last week.

Council Chairman Dan Marvin gave each Omaha council member a bag with coffee from The Mill, nuts from RU Nuts Co., Weaver’s Potato Chips, a Lazlo’s gift certificate, licorice and a six-pack of beer from Lazlo’s Brewery. All wrapped up in Super Saver grocery bags.

Mandatory microchipping

Two council members recently held a public meeting to talk about spaying and neutering pets and whether the city should look at mandatory microchipping.

Microchips about the size of a grain of rice can be injected under the skin between the animal’s shoulder blades. If the pet is lost, for example, a scanner can read the microchip number and find the owner and other data.

Some animal shelters have used microchips to reunite pets and owners since the early 1990s. Lincoln’s Capital Humane Society began implanting microchips in all cats in its adoption program in  1999, and dogs not long after.

Last week, council members Robin Eschliman and Jon Camp held a meeting that attracted about 175 people.

Eschliman said about half the people favored mandatory microchipping. Others felt breeders should be required to microchip their animals.

For at least two years, Camp has been talking about offering incentives to microchip pets. Others thought those whose pets are repeatedly picked up by animal control should have to attend classes, and some people at the meeting offered to help with such an effort.

Time Warner talks slow but sure

Whatever happened to the mayor’s talks with Time Warner Cable over subscriber problems with new cable software?

It’s been more than four months since the mayor called on Time Warner to allow a mediator to hammer out a solution, and Time Warner nixed that idea.

Time Warner went through months of customer complaints and bad publicity in Lincoln after it dropped its old Passport channel guide last year and switched to a company-created guide called Navigator — software that allows customers to get programming information and is the interface for video-on-demand and DVRs.

The city got involved by ordering a performance evaluation by a cable TV advisory board, which recommended Time Warner give digital subscribers a 35 percent rebate on their bill from the time Navigator was installed through April 30.

The issue has largely dropped off the radar since then. Beutler aide Rick Hoppe said Tuesday the mayor continues negotiations with Time Warner and another meeting is scheduled mid-month. He said the two sides have been meeting “fairly infrequently” but are trying to find a solution. The fact is, the city has little power to make Time Warner do anything.

And even though public pressure has eased, he said the city is “cautiously optimistic that we’ll get something that benefits the city” and subscribers.

He said it

“Once the city took over, the separation became more like two inches.” — Councilman Dan Marvin, on the city’s more relaxed standards for fixing sidewalks. Until the early 1990s, he said residents had to maintain sidewalks, but eager-beaver enforcement of half-inch gaps angered voters into forcing the city to take over. The city is now saddled with a $10 million backlog of sidewalk work, which it’s trying to chip away at by spending about $1 million a year.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.