City of Opa-Locka, Research Paper Example

Budget Deficits

The primary problem with the Opa-Locka human resources is their lack of planning for the workforce. In addition, the lack of properly skill employees in the finance department caused the City Opa-Locka to suffer and $1-million-dollar deficit(Lepri,2015). This deficient led to over 30 jobs with future positions that may be eliminated based on new budgets. The Human Resource(HR) department and the financial manager provide an exact number of $1.76-million-dollar shortage due to poor planning of revenues and outgoing expenditures. The Opa-locka City financial committee questioned and interview City Budget administrator Faye Douglas. The interview uncovered that fact that the HR did a poor job in hiring needs for a new acquisition of new healthcare maternity facility. In addition, there were three areas that contributed to the 1.76-million-dollar deficit such as poor HR planning, compensation and benefits, employee relations, retention planning for new employees.  The city projected a budget for compensation and benefits however, the HR projects were not true or accurate. As a result, all the recruitment efforts over staffed the city which led to major complaints from the employees. The primary goals of this paper is to

Compensation and Benefits

The Opa-locka budget included compensation and benefits for the city however, poor planning did not correctly project the next years’ city workers benefits and compensation which left the budget short unable to cover all its current employees. One the most important strategic planning processes in Human Resources is the projected benchmarking of future needs of compensation and benefits (Thom & Reilly). The HR department activities became involved with the budgeting process which led to the compensation and benefits decisions to be underestimated. Human resource manages ae responsible for the guidance and direction of the strategic compensation plans, align lucrative benefits packages for employee longevity and ensuring compensation structures are competitive.

Employee Relations

The employees begin to report issues to the City commission concerning the lack of updated benefits packages and compensation. The Opa-locka city was signing lucrative contracts bring new jobs and revenue to the city however, the employees were not benefiting. The employees blamed the management for the additional 30 employee layoff because the problem has existing for several years. The employees noted the lack of human resource action based on the existing and new employee’s complaints about the confusion over city benefits.  The Opa-locka police department has a number of complaints because the officers that were laid off did not have any warning their jobs would be eliminated.

This is a perfect example of the lack of employee relations of the city to informed government agencies about potential layoffs (NBC Miami News ,2013). The city of Opa-locka is planning on laying off 69 sergeants and 19 lieutenants to make adjustment to the budget for the new fiscal year. This puts a strain on the current relationship with the employees with the cities HR while endangering the trust of city management and Human Resource.  The HR department with the city is ultimately responsible for this fallout because they must preserve the communication channel to have an effective city employee relationship that keeps the city workers informed. The HR department should be prepared for future layoffs with building programs to help those distress because of job loss by providing free job search assistance and planned exit packages(Krell,2015).

The cities policeman layoffs start a fear for jobs phenomena throughout the city that ends of forcing some employees to start prematurely looking for other employment. Consequently, the city loses quality workers and the succession planning has been diverted and changed.

 Poor HR Planning

The human resource department for the city is held accountable for future planning that would ensure the city would be keep experienced and senior management. In addition, the current employees would have the correct training and development to ensure the city delivers a quality product to the city worker constituents and the community. The Miami Dade Redevelopment Plan for the city indicated that the primary goal is to ensure the city plans for future expenditures and growth while deliver a strong and competitive city competitive benefits packages (Miami Dade Community Redevelopment,2015).  The interview with the City Manager indicated that the HR poor planning has been corrected with new initiatives to ensure this does not happen in the future.

There are severe consequences to poor HR planning such as employees in improper roles, compensation not in line with current competitive salaries, budget problems and poor succession planning (Simon& Media,2015). The city of Opa-locka is a great example when the city relies on business relationships and new contracts for new revenues without first ensuring that the Opa-locka employees have the proper payment structure and prevention of layoffs.

Conclusion

The city of Opa-locka has learned the disadvantages of poor HR planning that led to the $1.76 million dolor deficit. The employees need to have improved benefits and compensation packages and the employee relations department needs to reach out the current employees. The overall lesson learned by the Opa-locka city government is the employees’ contribution and important cannot be second to revenue.

References

Krell, E. (2012). Make It Easier to Say Goodbye. HR Magazine, 57(10), 40.

Lepri, K. (2015, Jul). Opa-locka financial deficit estimated at nearly $1 million. Retrieved from http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-gardens/article29159035.html

Miami Dade Community Development. (2015). Opa-locka Community Redevelopment Plan. Retrieved from http://www.miamidade.gov/redevelopment/library/plans/opa-locka-community-development.pdf

Simon, J., & Media.D.(2015). Consequences of poor human resource planning. Retrieve from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/consequences-poor-human-resource-planning-43531.html

Thom, Michael, and Thom Reilly. (2015). “Compensation Benchmarking Practices in Large U.S.

Local Governments.” Public Personnel Management 44, no. 3: 340-355 16p. retrieved from EBCOhost database