Perspective
Do you ever stop to think about how things look from a different perspective? We all see our surroundings, like the town we live in, influenced by years of experience and expectations. A few times recently, I’ve had moments to think about how the City of Winthrop appears to those from other areas. It is easy to focus on the challenges we face as a small town, but I think you might be surprised by how others see our community. Last summer, I was at a table with several other mayors, and we were sharing some difficulties our cities faced. I heard things like: “We need to hire a City Clerk”, “We are always trying to hire a new police officer. It feels like a revolving door”, “We get a good public works employee trained, and then they leave for somewhere with better pay or benefits”, and “It is an exhausting and expensive cycle for city staff, Council and the community to have such frequent staff changes”. When it was my turn, and I said we hadn’t had any staff turnover in almost two years, there was definitely some surprise (and likely envy), and someone said, “Wow. Winthrop must be doing something right.”
A recent front-page article in the New Ulm Journal showcased our city’s economic development with the $20,000 grant received from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Fund (for the second year in a row). Being awarded that grant, a competitive process with many applicants, was a big deal, and Winthrop secured it, in large part because of the efforts of our City staff.
The fierce December snowstorm was an opportunity to see how the Winthrop community, City staff, businesses and individuals, all came together to provide a warm welcome and shelter from the storm.
In the examples noted above, our City staff and their efforts are critical components to success. The City of Winthrop is fortunate to have dedicated, talented staff. Our City Administrator/EDA Director brings a wealth of experience in managing businesses and in working with organizations. Our City Clerk is adept at managing budgets and people, and can multi-task with the best. Our Public Works staff have each achieved certifications in water, sewer and electrical, and they continue to pursue further training and certifications, while still doing all the tasks required of them each week, including plowing snow during the overnight hours when needed. Our Police Department maintains high levels of training, works well with other law enforcement agencies, and actively serves and protects our community. Our Library staff is providing excellent service, despite deep cuts to the budget. We have solid leadership, and our staff is cohesive and they work well together.
As a City Council, when we make decisions regarding compensation of our employees, we balance many things. Keeping the budget in line, is of course, one of our foremost considerations. While it might look easy to pay employees less or avoid pay increases, in the long run, that can actually cost more. I’ll use an example from several years ago, when our pay scale for police was on the low end of the average in our region. We had a proverbial ‘revolving door’, with officers moving on as soon as they had some experience. The process of interviewing, running background checks, outfitting and training a new officer is quite expensive and can take two to three months, the cost of which, we learned, was quite a bit more than setting our compensation rates to a fair and competitive level. The same is true for other positions within our City departments. We have employees who are very talented, some of whom have been sought out or who could find other employment quite easily. As a Council, we have to find the right balance that fairly and appropriately compensates our staff while still keeping our budget manageable. How we treat our employees is, in my view, about more than just dollars and cents. It is recognizing and thanking them for the skills and experience they bring to work every day, and how they choose to use their abilities to benefit our community. My perspective says that as a Council, we are responsible to be a good employer to our City staff, and to also be good stewards of the tax dollars we are elected to manage. We can do both.
Contact Mayor Julie Trebelhorn