-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-With anxious chefs breathing down their neck, the Feast Fest Organization Senate narrowly voted down a proposal to cut chefs' salaries by as much as $50,000 in order to free up more money in the budget for scouters to lure big-name chefs in the offseason.
"It's the greed of scouters at work again," Peter Dumas, the Chefs' Representative to the Organization Senate and Executive Board, said Thursday. "We're just grateful it didn't happen."
Scouter-loyal members of the OS had claimed that Feast Fest had had a lackluster offseason due to a low budget amount which, they claimed, was caused by salaries of current chefs. "We must temporarily lower the salaries of current chefs if we want to have the money sufficient to satisfy prospective signees," Harold Havreburg, speaking in favor of the legislation, said.
The cuts would only have taken effect through the 2014 offseason and would have needed a revote taken in time for the 2015 offseason. Still, chefs called the accusations that their salaries were preventing scouters "ridiculous."
"They signed six caliber chefs," Dumas said. "Great people, amazing culinary paragons. How farther up the chain can they go?"
FF Wire Services
