Scratching My Head

Now would someone please explain this to me because I am confused. Yesterday, we lost a highly qualified court clerk because Gibson, Johnson, Crider and Hale voted to cut her pay and keep her as a part-time employee. Well, the officials in Forrest County realized that she would be an asset to their court system and hired her immediately. Now, our city clerk, Stephanie Mullings, will have to cover the duties of the court clerk because Susan Guidry is not qualified to cover that position. But what has me confused is this. Gibson, Johnson, Crider and Hale voted to terminate Betty Speights (because she discovered too much in her position as deputy clerk) and Harry Wilkes (because he was making too much money); they cut the mayor and the alderman's salaries to $1, but opted to keep their insurance (which is costing the City of Lumberton somewhere between $300-700/per month per alderman); they cut the salaries of the police officers and city worker, they cut the pay for two of the three department heads, and they still claim that there was not enough money in the budget to keep Melissa Pack on as court clerk. WTF? What kind of math are they using to calculate the budget?
In addition to the budget cuts that were made by the alderman, Jack McMullan held a budget meeting with Stephanie Mullings and Rebecca Hale to show where other cuts could be made to the budget to help keep everyone on payroll at their same pay rate and to avoid any layoffs and termination of any employees. And Gibson, Johnson, Crider and Hale sat there like a calf looking at a new gate. What's confusing is Rebecca sat with Jack and Stephanie and outlined a new budget, but when it came to reviewing the changes with the rest of the board she just sat there like a lump on the log. How crazy is that? That like a congressman sponsoring a bill and then not voting for his own bill. She needs to leave whatever she's using alone b/c I think it's causing some brain damage.