The day after the election, the city laid down the first gauntlet in what has been described by both sides as increasingly contentious discussion on new labor contracts across the board.
The layoffs involve nine positions within DCEA (Davis City Employee’s Association), the bargaining unit that the city originally declared impasse on in the winter of 2010 but had that impasse overturned by a state board (PERB) last November.
City Manager Steve Pinkerton told the Vanguard on Thursday that the city needs to be able to factor in the added costs should the city not be successful in their appeal of the Public Employment Relations Board ruling.
“This is in order to offset the revenue hit from DCEA not making concessions three years ago,” the city manager told the Vanguard. “These are DCEA positions only, across all funding sources, because the impact which is $800,000 plus interest if we were to lose on appeal would be spread across that bargaining group across different funding sources.”
DCEA President Dave Owen deferred comment until this afternoon, in order to first meet with the labor negotiator this morning for clarification as to the city’s position and how this will impact ongoing negotiations he described as increasingly contentious.
Mr. Owen expressed concern about the depth of the cuts and the impact that they would have on his bargaining unit, mainly comprised of those making less than $60,000 per year.
In an email to city staff on Wednesday, City Manager Pinkerton indicated that while the city’s revenue remains flat, the city is committed to maintain its current high level of service.
“In these tough economic times, with significant reductions in available revenue, Davis is one of a select group of cities that’s been able to sustain a high level of service for its citizens,” Mr. Pinkerton wrote. “As we approach a new budget year, economic and political forces continue to challenge our ability to provide the necessary resources to meet the demands of our citizens. Although revenues remain relatively flat, unfunded mandates from the state continue to mount unabated, our health and pension costs continue their meteoric rise, and the state of California has forced us to dismantle our Redevelopment Agency, a primary tool for economic development.”
The city manager remains committed to maintaining the level of service.
He wrote, “Despite these obstacles, I’m confident we can continue to provide quality service to the community. In order to do this, we need to constantly evaluate our service delivery system and make sure we are focused on our core mission in the most cost-effective way possible.”
He added, “Staff will be bringing forth a new budget to City Council over the next couple of weeks with significant changes from past budgets. Some of these changes include restructuring of departments, changes in reporting relationships, and a decrease in City staffing. These changes are necessary to bring the budget in line with Council goals and objectives and to meet the needs of the community.”
The cost savings will be “a combination of layoffs and a reduction from fulltime to less than full time.” These notices will take effect at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, 2012.
The total impact is nine positions that would be laid off, two people reduced to less than full time, and two vacant positions eliminated.
In his email, Mr. Pinkerton wrote, “Over the last few years the City has attempted to achieve necessary budget savings through negotiated concessions with its employees and, with DCEA, through imposition of the City’s last best and final offer after negotiations ended in impasse.”
He said while the DCEA concessions are still in dispute, “the need for the original cuts remains, irrespective of the outcome of the dispute. In fact, still more cuts have become necessary within DCEA and elsewhere in the City’s workforce, as the City’s fiscal position has not adequately stabilized.”
“For all of these reasons, the City has decided to eliminate certain positions and lay off the employees who hold those positions to achieve the required savings,” he said.
Mr. Pinkerton added that while there is no set date for the appeal to be resolved, attorneys working for the city believe that December is the most likely point by which this would be resolved.
“At that point in time, we would have about an $800,000 or $900,000 liability,” he said. “So we have to factor that in. We have to factor in both that cost plus the unemployment payments we’d have to pay by laying people off.”
DCEA could conceivably avoid some of these layoffs by taking concessions.
“The folks at DCEA at the point of time when we have to [be] making the cost-savings, people can choose to [take concessions or face layoffs], either way we have to reach that cost-savings one way or another,” Steve Pinkerton told the Vanguard. “I can assure you that they are fully aware of that and fully aware that this is one of our alternatives if they’re not willing to make concessions.”
“We always have the ability to reduce the workforce,” he said, if concessions do not work.
“We received the savings because of the imposition [of the last best and final offer through impasse], but if PERB rules against us because we’re on appeal, they ruled against us and we’re now appealing,” he added. “We can’t go into the next budget year [without planning for the worst case scenario]. We have to anticipate going into the next budget year with the likelihood that we would lose that appeal so we have to budget accordingly.”
There are more changes as well. Long time employee Elvia Garcia-Ayala is retiring, despite some rumors that she has been let go.
At this point the city is not going to replace her but is rather looking at restructuring, which might involve moving the maintenance function over to public works and other consolidations.
“Our main goal is that we have to keep service levels up within our budget, so we have to look at each discrete category as to what is the most cost effective way to deliver that service,” he said.
On Tuesday, the city will finally look at the budget for the first time this cycle. Steve Pinkerton indicated that the combination of the move of Paul Navazio to Woodland City Manager, as well as the contract negotiations, have made it challenging to draw up a budget, which he argued is not statutorily required.
However, he expects one in place in the next few meetings. In addition, the negotiations continue on the new contracts. He would not say it, but it appears likely those too will go past June 30.
We will be talking with Dave Owen later today and update where this process sits and how the city employees view it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[i]. . which he argued is not statutorily required. . .[/i]
What’s the alternative?
Something wicked this way comes… interesting that the gun was locked and loaded, and released the day AFTER the election…
Neutral: According to Pinkerton, they are only required to submit the year end audit. He was not implying that they were not going to pass a budget, but to me that it probably would not be complete until the MOUs are wrapped up.
Hpierce: Add to the conspiracy they were parks workers as well.
Personal take: It’s not accident that these were announced after the election. But in fairness, we all knew this type of thing was coming, even if we did not know the specific form it would take. It’s going to get a lot worse.
[quote]Add to the conspiracy they were [b]parks workers[/b] as well.
[/quote]My “sources” indicate that the big majority are in PW, including ‘Central Equipment’ and ‘Stores’ [which was in Parks’ until a couple of years ago.. No planners, no Finance, no recreation, no new cuts from CMO
Just going off my brief conversation with Mr. Owen.
hpierce
“My “sources” indicate that the big majority are in PW, including ‘Central Equipment’ and ‘Stores’ [which was in Parks’ until a couple of years ago.. No planners, no Finance, no recreation, no new cuts from CMO”
Is there available any information on projected need and actual FTEs for positions in the various city departments and a comparison with the same for any comparably sized city ?
Hope if there are more, they won’t be only line workers in Parks. To be “fair’ in an unfair situation, they should be spread out and seems there are enough ‘supervisors’ of few workers according to the org chart shown a few yrs ago to hot some middle or higher managers.
Not “to hot”, to affect.
From Wednesday’s memo from CM: [quote]Over the last few years the City has attempted to achieve necessary budget savings through negotiated concessions with its employees and, with [b]DCEA[/b], through imposition of the City’s last best and final offer after negotiations ended in impasse. You are probably aware that the [b]DCEA[/b] concessions are still in dispute, but the need for the original cuts remains irrespective of the outcome of the dispute. In fact, still more cuts have become necessary within [b]DCEA[/b] [i]and elsewhere in the City’s workforce[/i], as the City’s fiscal position has not adequately stabilized. For all of these reasons, the City has decided to eliminate certain positions and layoff the employees who hold those positions to achieve the required savings. [/quote]
David quotes CM: [quote]“At that point in time, we would have about an $800,000 or $900,000 liability,” he said. “So we have to factor that in. We have to factor in both that cost plus the unemployment payments we’d have to pay by laying people off.”[/quote]
It appears that the city intends to use the layoffs to provide the savings the City had sought through the concessions they had hoped to get in the last MOU, plus the amount of the potential judgement against the City for procedural mess-ups in the imposition of terms, plus the interest that will have accrued on the judgement amount, plus the cost of providing the unemployment benefits for those laid off. The City may also gain a reduction in future ‘unfunded liability’ for retiree medical, perhaps, as some of the laid off employees may not be “vested” for that benefit.
Even though the judgement (if any) will be a one-time expense, and the unemployment a relatively short term expense, the savings from the layoffs will continue indefinitely. And, if the judgement is set aside or reduced, what does anyone think of the chances that any of those laid-off will be re-instated?
The flavor of the memo suggests that all other employee groups are being ‘leveraged’ to accept major concessions, per City fiat, or face the same sort of layoffs.
he amount
DG: [i]”The city manager remains committed to maintaining the level of service.”[/i]
SP: [i]”Despite these obstacles, I’m confident we can continue to provide quality service to the community. In order to do this, we need to constantly evaluate our service delivery system and make sure we are focused on our core mission in the most cost-effective way possible.”[/i]
I don’t see how you can fire 9 people and cut back the time on two others and maintain the same level of service. And if you can, it suggests the city is full of waste, that we are overstaffed at many levels and that our workforce is not earning its keep. My guess is that the latter is not true, and that we will see declining quality and quantity of city services as a result of these cuts.
DG: [i]”City Manager Steve Pinkerton told the Vanguard on Thursday that the city needs to be able to factor in the added costs should the city not be successful in their appeal of the Public Employment Relations Board ruling.”[/i]
I am willing to bet anyone here any amount you like that the City will lose its PERB appeal. If you have half a brain and you read our impasse ordinance, and then you read the PERB ruling, it’s clear as can be that Harriet effed up and the City did not follow the proper impasse procedures. It’s only a shame that we don’t have bad-lawyering insurance to get our $800,000 back.
Rich:
“it suggests the city is full of waste, that we are overstaffed at many levels and that our workforce is not earning its keep.”
I think these are actually three separate points.
Is the city full of waste? I’m not convinced it is. Likewise, despite my belief that some are overcompensated, I’m not willing to agree to the last point.
Are we overstaffed? That one I think we are.
Lamar Heystek sat down one time and read off from memory nine people between the head of parks and rec and the director of the teen center in a direct line supervisory relationship. Think about that. If we are overstaffed, it is likely at middle manager.
Steve Pinkerton believes that there are duplicative efforts and inefficiencies that have lead to people being in the wrong places and thus creating inefficiencies.
Now do I buy that we are going to get the same service with fewer employees? No. But I don’t get the sense we ever gave it that much effort.
If the city allowed compensation to become bloated, why don’t you think there are other inefficiencies?
Rich: There is no doubt that the city is planning to lose PERB appeal, hence the reason for this move.
9 parks employees = 900K?
Pretty amazing in itself.
Yes the org chart, multiple supervisory staff of 1 or two is what I remember and was referring to earlier.
Privatize the whole mess. If there is even one union employee left, we are making a mistake.
SODA: These are people who make $50,000, so I would say less than that.
[i]”These are people who make $50,000, so I would say less than that.”[/i]
But as you well know, David, salary is only a component of total compensation. When you add in the $20k for cafeteria (or cafeteria + cash-out) and the $17k for the employer and employee pension contribution (remember that no one in DCEA pays anything to cover the employee share) and other expenses like medicare, worker comp, life insurance, long-term disability and so on, you get well over $90k in employer costs for that “fifty-thousand dollar” employee.
I have no idea which people are getting laid off. But here are some annual salaries for titles which were discussed by HPierce and David Greenwald (without including the extra 80% to 90% in non-salary compensation) and for comparison how much we pay one of our office clerks who has a big title but won’t get laid off:
Equipment Mechanic II $57,480.24
Equipment Maintenance Crew Supervisor $66,102.24
Storekeeper $43,586.16
Park Maintenance Worker II $49,034.40
Parks and General Services Superintendent $104,326.32
Deputy City Manager $106,489.32
[quote]… for titles which were discussed by HPierce[/quote]… I mentioned no titles.
Sorry for saying titles. How about types of jobs?
Most of the layoff notices were issued to workers in the transportation, water, and drainage/wastewater divisions of Public Works, which do not include any of the titles you listed.
I just posted this on another topic, but it relates:
The point I was making here is that the unit cost of service for the public sector far exceed the same in the private sector for most labor roles.
For example, this from Salary.com for a senior accountant in Berkeley:
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/accountant4.jpg [/img]
Now here is a similar job opening for UC Berkeley: [url]https://hrw-vip-prod.is.berkeley.edu/psp/JOBSPROD/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&Action=A&JobOpeningId=13670&SiteId=1&PostingSeq=1[/url]
Let’s compare…
The median salary per Salary.com is $84,519. The salary range of the UC Berkeley job is $100,000 – $120,000. So, let’s assume $110,000.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, next we get to the benefits. The total value of benefits for the Salary.com job is $37,248.
For the UC Berkeley job:
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/UCBben.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/UCBret.jpg[/img]
40% of $110,000 is $44,000
So just from this comparison the public-sector employee is making $154,000 in gross compensation compared to the private sector-employee making $121,767.
But this is only part of the story because of other public-sector benefits not included in the government’s calculation of benefits. What is the value of the extra job security from union protection, the lack of competition and a funding mechanism that reaches deeper into tax-payer pockets instead of requiring lay-offs. And what about the value of a defined-benefit pension where risk is born by the taxpayer and not the empoloyee?
And to top it off, look at this list of extra goodies available to the poor public-sector senior accountant:
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/UCBother.jpg[/img]
Certainly the city parks maintenance workers are in a different situation. And this is a comparison using a state employee, and not city emplpoyees. However it illustrates the general problem of out of control spending on public-sector human resources.
Reducing pay and benefits to market levels would reduce the number of layoffs required.
Jeff
First thanks for providing some actual data partially addressing the question I was raising.
While I agree that “reducing pay and benefits to ‘ market levels’ might reduce the number of layoffs required it might have other unintended consequences. Some examples from my experience:
1) When a superior pay and benefits package is offered, it does tend to attract better applicants. I don’t know if this is as true, or as important
for city positions as it is for physician recruitment, but I do know that while our base salary is comparable to other groups, our exceptional
benefits package has allowed us to pick from the very best applicants and build an exceptionally strong group.
2) This strategy could lead to an undesirably high turnover rate as the more talented, ambitious, or productive workers move on to better
positions. We see this happen in the areas of nonprofessional staff frequently and it is very disruptive.
3) A third outcome, which you might favor, and I definitely do not, is a “race to the bottom” with those who ultimately approve public spending,
The taxpayers ( or at least those who vote) deciding that we can always “do more with less”. What this in reality translates into is that those
usually at the lower end of the economic scale end up having to make do with less.
4) A final point that I think is frequently over looked is that providing less compensation to workers means not only less in terms of income tax
but less in terms of all types of expenditures as the decreased income of those affected decreases their purchasing power.
I simply do not feel that this is as straightforward a concept as your graph and comparison would imply.
Medwoman,
I don’t think any of the concerns you expressed negatively affect the talent pool for the City of Davis.
[b]1) When a superior pay and benefits package is offered, it does tend to attract better applicants.[/b]
No doubt this is true everywhere. At the very least, a superior compensation package attracts [i]far more[/i] applicants. And when you offer up a job and get hundreds and hundreds of applications, it seems to me that is a good indication you are probably offering too much. Woodland recently accepted applications for some of its firefighter openings. If I recall correctly, they stopped looking at any more applicants after 300 people who had full qualifications — in terms of training and test scores — had applied.
[b]This strategy could lead to an undesirably high turnover rate as the more talented, ambitious, or productive workers move on to better
positions.[/b]
This is only really the case if there are other comparable cities offering substantially better pay packages. But then, if we find that we are offering too little compared with the competition, the question needs to be addressed: Can the amount being offered by other cities be sustained?
Starting in the late 1980s, when “public service” jobs started getting annual compensation increases of 15% to 20% per year (resulting soon enough in doubling and tripling of real, inflation adjusted incomes for these “public servants”), no one bothered to question if these increases were sustainable. We began to find out with service cutbacks starting about 10 years ago that they were not; and since the real estate bubble burst 4 years ago, our understanding has been greatly accelerated.
So, yes, if you pay less than others, you will lose some talented people. But if your competition acts irrationally, you will be better off promoting from within and suffering the consequences of turnover. Also, you will find that some people who leave are not necessarily super talented. They are simply driven by money and personal ambition. Some of those who never leave may have plenty of talent, but due to family matters or other factors (such as they like living in Davis), they will stay here no matter what.
[b]3) A third outcome, which you might favor, and I definitely do not, is a “race to the bottom” with those who ultimately approve public spending.[/b]
In a world in which virtually every public agency (that is, city, school district, special district, county, the state, etc.) in California is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and is paying its people in total compensation 50% to 200% more than they would make in the private market, your ‘race to the bottom’ scenario has no relevance. Every level of government is laying off people, because they don’t have enough money to pay them. If we cut compensation by half and had job openings, we would get 10 times as many applications from qualified workers as we need to fill them adequately.
[b]The taxpayers (or at least those who vote) deciding that we can always “do more with less”. What this in reality translates into is that those usually at the lower end of the economic scale end up having to make do with less. [/b]
If we would simply pay public workers a market rate–that is, spend the public’s money as if it were a precious resource and not something to waste–we could get a very competent workforce and get all the public services we need.
Instead, our tradition has been to do just the opposite: Massively overpay workers; give them far too much time off for vacations and holidays; give them pensions and other retirement benefits we cannot possibly afford; and then cut back on services to the poor, the elderly and so on when the bills come do.
[b]4) A final point that I think is frequently overlooked is that providing less compensation to workers means not only less in terms of income tax but less in terms of all types of expenditures as the decreased income of those affected decreases their purchasing power.[/b]
That is, to borrow a phrase from GHW Bush, voodoo economics. Income without productivity gains is a zero-sum game. You take $100 more out of Joe’s pocket to pay for Jane’s $100 raise, and you have the same regional income, the same income tax owed, and the same total purchasing power.
It makes sense to pay Jane $100 more if her productivity increases. For example, if she cleans the City’s swimming pools and due to better equipment she can clean 5 pools a day instead of 4, she deserves a raise. But if you simply give Jane a raise because the City Council likes Jane and doesn’t give a rat’s tushy about Joe, you have made your community worse off, not better, by rewarding friendship over productivity. In other words, why should Jane work harder if she gets a raise without doing any more work?
[i]”If we would simply pay public workers a market rate–that is, spend the public’s money as if it were a precious resource and not something to waste …”[/i]
If you doubt that our City Council up to now has not properly husbanded the public’s money with regard to labor compensation, consider these factors:
1. We pay firefighters overtime every single pay period when they simply work their normal duty hours? Would you pay your housekeeper overtime every week if she did not actually work overtime?
2. We pay firefighters to sleep on the job? To prepare meals and eat on the job? To go grocery shopping on the job?
3. When an entry level employee is hired at the lowest rate of salary, we give him a $20,000 per year medical plan, and if he has no need for it (such is the case if he is insured through his spouse), we give him 90% of that $20,000 in a cash out? Would you give your housekeeper an extra $18,000 a year in cash on top of her full salary (which is double the market rate to start with) for healthcare insurance which she won’t use?
4. We pay for more than 1,000 hours per year to the firefighters to conduct the business of their union. That is, they are on the clock, getting their full salaries and benefits, but they are not working for the City of Davis but rather are getting trained by their union in how to suck more blood out of the taxpayers? You would pay your maid for this kind of thing?
5. When someone who has no experience and very little productivity and few job skills starts working for the City, he gets 6 weeks per year of paid time off? Do you pay your chauffeur for the 6 weeks a year he does not show up to drive you to work? Or pay him overtime if he works any days during his vacation or holiday time? In Davis, managers (many of whom do not manage) get 10.5 weeks of paid time off every year. Do you pay your “managers” to stay home 1 out of every 5 weeks per year?
6. We have dozens of city employees–not likely any of those who will be laid off–who do clerical work but are paid in salary as if they are top executives. That is, they process paperwork for others. They started out as secretaries with modest salaries. But they stayed around for a long time and then we gave them new titles but no new duties. The new titles cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Do you pay your secretary $200,000 per year in total compensation? The City of Davis does. And Yolo County is far, far worse in this regard. The County has title-itous, where almost every office worker who sticks around long enough is some kind of manager, supervisor or chief, even though they don’t really manage or supervise.
Rich
“That is, to borrow a phrase from GHW Bush, voodoo economics. Income without productivity gains is a zero-sum game. You take $100 more out of Joe’s pocket to pay for Jane’s $100 raise, and you have the same regional income, the same income tax owed, and the same total purchasing power.
It makes sense to pay Jane $100 more if her productivity increases. For example, if she cleans the City’s swimming pools and due to better equipment she can clean 5 pools a day instead of 4, she deserves a raise. But if you simply give Jane a raise because the City Council likes Jane and doesn’t give a rat’s tushy about Joe, you have made your community worse off, not better, by rewarding friendship over productivity. In other words, why should Jane work harder if she gets a raise without doing any more work?”
You have made an eloquent argument against a point that I never made. I said absolutely nothing about robbing Joe to give Jane a raise. What I said was that decreasing Jane’s pay or laying her off will have a societal cost in the form of Jane paying less or no taxes and having less money to spend. I fail to see how that represents
voodoo economics. I know from personal experience that when I was making money, I paid taxes and spent money, not so when I was not employed. No magic involved.
Rich
I agree with all of your points above except #2. I know that both you and Jeff have used the phrase “paid to sleep” repetitively. I have a different perspective on this.
Firemen, like doctors taking in house overnight call may indeed get some sleep on the job. However, they are not being paid “to sleep”. They are being paid to be immediately available to go from a sleep state to a state in which they are capable of making life and death decisions within a matter of minutes. For doctors, the life at stake is always that of the patient. For firemen, the life at stake may be that of the caller, but in more extreme circumstances, it may be the their own life or that of a colleague that becomes dependent on their correct decision making. I do not think that those who have not been in the position of having to go from a state of sleep to near instantaneous ability to make life and death decisions can appreciate just how difficult this can be and how worthy of compensation this is. The alternative, which would be to work eight or ten hour shifts, is actually more costly since it involves hiring more employees who then must be supplied with whatever benefit package is decided upon.
Rifkin-[quote]… (remember that no one in DCEA pays anything to cover the employee share)…[/quote]
Rich you are stating incorrect information again. Here part of the section of the DCEA MOU from the City website. On page 20 it states
“The ASSOCIATION agrees to fund the entire cost of adding 2.5% @ 55 PERS retirement benefit. This includes the approximately 2.4% for the employer share contribution, the 1% additional employee share contribution, as well as a 1% premium.”
So they do pay to cover some of the employee share.
It is a valid point that the multiplier effect of local employees exists, whether they are public or private workers. That is, the money they spend simply by living, working, and shopping in the community. It is often cited in discussions of economic development as a reason for bringing jobs. And it is just as true for public employees as it is for private.
If UC, the state, or the city are cutting work force, the negative multiplier effect ripples out into the community. One of the drags on the national employment statistics is that the public sector is shedding jobs as the private sector is gaining them (in fact, that was the point the President was making in his press conference yesterday).
So when medwoman said “providing less compensation to workers means not only less in terms of income tax but less in terms of all types of expenditures as the decreased income of those affected decreases their purchasing power….” she was exactly right, and it affects retailers and restaurants and others of us who sell to those workers.
I just dont see sky high wages for many of those listed employees. Most of the problem is the firefighters and management group, and the medical benefits and retirement packages. But David G and Rich are far more up to date on this stuff than most of us are, and I will defer to you all.
I personally think that the Vanguard (and Rich to some degree) are responsible for “outing” the budget mess, and then showing us how Saylor and Souza got us into it, with help from Ruth and Ted.
The mess was created from about 1998 to 2006 as the CC focused attention on other things, but I would say from 2006 forward, the CC majority knew what they were doing, and they spent the money anyway, often to fund the fire fighters and others who directly benefited their political careers.
Thankfully, Souza’s is over, but Saylor is still out there after jumping ship just before the pooh hit the fan.
David Greenwald: thank you for your excellent research and determined, and mostly thankless, job with writing stories early every morning while I also know you have kids to get up and out the door to school.
PRESTON: [i]”Rich you are stating incorrect information [s]again[/s]. Here part of the section of the DCEA MOU from the City website. … So they do pay to cover some of the employee share.”[/i]
I just looked up the data sent to me by Melissa Chaney. It turns out, as you state, I was wrong. But your read of the contract does not jive with what Melissa told me.
The employee share for DCEA is 8%. Members of DCEA do not pay any of that. That was my recollection and that is what I stated. But my statement does not tell the full story. All DCEA members, according to the HR Director pay 3% of their salary, but that 3% is considered “employer share.” (So the amount paid by them is actually more than you stated.)
Strangely, there is a tax difference for the workers between “employee share” and “employer share.” Here is how it works, using the example of someone who makes $50,000 per year in PERSable salary:
If she is charged 3% of her salary to “employee share,” her taxable income is $50,000 for that year. If, however, she is charged 3% of her salary ($1,500) to “employee share,” her taxable income is reduced by that $1,500 for that year to $48,500.
In other words, she can “expense” the employer share, but not the employee share. That is why, all else held equal, the labor groups have an incentive to type the contributions their members pay for their pensions as “employer share.” Because the City pays no taxes, it does not matter at all to the City what the amount the workers pay in is called.
Don Shor, can you kill the strike out I just accidentally did to my last post?
MEDS: [i]”4) A final point that I think is frequently over looked is that providing less compensation to workers means not only less in terms of income tax but less in terms of all types of expenditures as the decreased income of those affected decreases their purchasing power.”[/i]
RICH: [b]” You take $100 more out of Joe’s pocket to pay for Jane’s $100 raise, and you have the same regional income, the same income tax owed, and the same total purchasing power.”[/b]
MEDS: [i]” You have made an eloquent argument against a point that I never made. I said absolutely nothing about robbing Joe to give Jane a raise. What I said was that decreasing Jane’s pay or laying her off will have a societal cost in the form of Jane paying less or no taxes and having less money to spend.”[/i]
MEDS, Your statement misses the most obvious point: Where does the money come from to pay Jane any amount? The answer is it comes from Joe.
So if, all else were held equal, and you cut Jane’s pay by $100, Joe would have that $100 back and Joe would pay the income tax you spoke of and Joe would have the purchasing power you assigned to Jane.
That said, your original example of ‘less compensation to workers’ is itself off the mark in terms of Davis. The choice under consideration is not ‘less compensation to (City) workers’ as a whole, but how the amount we have available for compensation is allocated.
In other words, the City faces the choice moving forward of keeping 400 or so workers employed at about 20% to 25% less total comp per person or laying off 80 to 100 or so workers at their full rate of pay. The amount paid in either case will be the same. In the former case we get all the services we need and everyone keeps his job; in the latter case we get big reductions in services and a lot of people become unemployed. My preference is that we maintain services and avoid layoffs.
If you don’t understand why we face this unfortunate dilemma in the first place, here are the 6 principal reasons I believe are at the core of it:
1) The rate of growth of salaries has exceeded the rate of growth of income to the City by 2 times for more than 10 years;
2) The rate of growth of the cost of medical care has grown 4 times as fast as the rate of growth of income;
3) Over the last 6 years, the cost of funding worker luxurious pensions has grown astronomically faster than the growth of income to the City;
4) The dollar value of the benefits we have promised to City retirees but have never funded has grown at a very high rate due to medical price inflation and rewarding employees to retire at young ages;
5) The recession of 2008-09 has lingered and caused property tax and sales tax revenues to remain flat; and
6) The portfolio performance of CalPERS over the last 10 years, due largely to the economic collapse of 2008, has caused all pensions of City workers and retirees to be underfunded, and as a result CalPERS has raised its employer funding rates to make up for its losses.
Thank you for your admission of being wrong Rich. As I read it, DCEA pays 1% of the employee share as well. I am not the accountant that Jeff gives example to, so I am not well versed in tax code. I will have to study up on it some more.
Jeff Boone-
[quote]I just posted this on another topic, but it relates:
The point I was making here is that the unit cost of service for the public sector far exceed the same in the private sector for most labor roles.
For example, this from Salary.com for a senior accountant in Berkeley: [/quote]
What you have shown is the “average” salary of an accountant in Berkeley. So an accountant in Berkeley can oversee 5 accounts and make less, or they can oversee 50 and get paid what the UC accountant does. You praised me for a nice deflection in another post, so I will return the favor. Nice smoke and mirrors. To quote my daughters favorite movie, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
[quote]I am willing to bet anyone here any amount you like that the City will lose its PERB appeal. If you have half a brain and you read our impasse ordinance, and then you read the PERB ruling, it’s clear as can be that Harriet effed up and the City did not follow the proper impasse procedures. It’s only a shame that we don’t have bad-lawyering insurance to get our $800,000 back.
The fact remains that the city did not bargain in good faith. Rather than admitting their mistake and working with DCEA to find solutions to the city’s unfunded liabilities,they have chosen to appeal the PERB decision knowing full well that the chances that they will prevail are slim to none. In addition the city will be paying 7% interest on the judgement while it is in appeal. Pinkerton’s solution is not to apologize for past wrongs but to layoff those who had the audacity to insist the city follow their own rules. All the employees that were layed off are DCEA represented. These Layoffs were not based on the city’s needs but chosen as retribution.
[i]”The fact remains that the city did not bargain in good faith.”[/i]
This is not exactly* what Judge Cloughesy ruled. (*I concede you may be using the term “did not bargain in good faith” more broadly than it sounds to me.) Rather, he ruled (as best I recall) that by unilaterally cancelling the fact-finding and by implementing its last, best and final offer before the impasse procudures were exhausted, the City had violated its own impasse procedures, and any changes it imposed on the DCEA had to be rescinded and any monetary losses to DCEA members had to be repaid with interest.
Since this dispute arose, the unions which run our state government changed the state law with regard to declaring an impasse. The net effect of the new union-friendly state law is quite similar to what we already have in Davis. As such, when we run into these same problems this year, we have to follow the state law and the local ordinance, both of which are about the same. Though a bit time consuming, they are not so bad that the City cannot prevail, as long as our lawyers don’t give us so much bad advice as Harriet did last time around.
The talk of services being affected by the 9 vacated positions, citizens of Davis should have noticed a steady decline in services over the last couple of years. As the ‘re org’ progresses less have already been doing more. There was a time recently when there was what was called maintenance of utilities and facilities, now these crews are more reactive, when citizens see these utility crews now there is usually already a problem which must be addressed immediately. Do the citizens remember the employees knocking on doors and asking permission for access for ‘routine maintenance’, it’s been a while. The question is not are services going to be cut, but how much more these services are going to be cut, services the citizens of Davis are already paying for.
Why did the city retain the same legal council? Huge mistake in my opinion, and probably made the employee groups quite happy knowing the mistakes they are capable of.
Going off of what Pro says, I can definitely see more litigation from the DCEA. They will claim this is retaliation (and might have a case), since they were the only group targeted.
Also, by going public, saying in essence, that this is all DCEA’s fault for not taking concessions the city has fired the first salvo and basically opened the door on the negotiations. I won’t be surprised to see DCEA go public with their story.
Rifs
“MEDS, Your statement misses the most obvious point: Where does the money come from to pay Jane any amount? The answer is it comes from Joe. “
Agreed with your answer to your own limited question. And you would be correct that I had missed the point if there were a one to one ratio between “Jane’s” and “Joes’s”, however, clearly there is not. Many “Joes’s”, the taxpayers, contribute to Jane’s $100.00. And although for some of those “Joe’s” paying a small part of Jane’s salary may indeed be difficult, this is offset by some very wealthy “Joe’s” for whom it is no burden at all, as a matter of fact, it may not curb those folks lifestyle’s one iota. This is a fact that tends to get lost in the simplified statement that is frequently made “we simply can’t afford it.” This statement would more accurately be stated as “we simply don’t value it enough to pay for it”.
nicely said medwoman
[quote]This statement would more accurately be stated as “we simply don’t value it enough to pay for it”.[/quote]
It’s a true statement, but not necessarily unreasonable or mean-spirited. The “it” that we’re talking about is mostly staff compensation levels, which in many cases were lifted to unreasonable heights by politicians more concerned with their careers than with the fiscal health of the city. Once you start paying someone at a certain level, it’s very hard to reduce their compensation — even if it’s to a more appropriate level — without causing them to feel disrespected and undervalued.
The mere suggestion that compensation cuts are looming is enough to generate distrust and anger on the part of staff, and that’s where we are today. But if compensation is unreasonably high, it makes sense to take the unpleasant steps necessary to reduce it to an acceptable level.
Stalling won’t work; we’re not going to grow our way out of this mess, at least not before going bankrupt.
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Indeed, Jim, there are some City employees who are over-compensated… there are those who are not. But the reality is that if we don’t change our compensation paradigms, we will have to treat all the same. Jim is basically correct… but I’d like to think we could use a scalpel, instead of a chainsaw [no, I believe Jim would not advocate a chainsaw], to excise the problematic aspects of the City compensation system in order to solve the budget issues.
I believe it should be phased, and not done in “one fell swoop”… otherwise, we may force the ‘best and brightest’ out (already happening) and look towards long-term solutions… my ideas:
1) phase out “cafeteria cash-out”
2) continue the sharing of increased med/dental premium increases, 50-50
3) reduce the # of vacation days to the early 1980’s level
4) as necessary, [b]gradually[/b] increase the employee share of the PERS contribution (employer/employee), being mindful, as Rifkin so wisely points out, that the employee will have less impact if they pick up the employer share increases prior to the employee share [what a revelation, Rifkin!]
We should try to be fair, mindful of the fiscal problems, and work our way out, instead of ‘hitting the wall.
preston Going off of what Pro says, I can definitely see more litigation from the DCEA. They will claim this is retaliation (and might have a case), since they were the only group targeted.
A case could be made that DCEA has been targeted from the beginning. Unlike some other groups, DCEA is not a union. They are an agency shop, officer elections, grievances etc.. are all done by the members on a volunteer basis. Though DCEA is not the smallest bargaining group they have the lowest annual per capita pay of any group. The vast majority of members are maintenance workers with sub $50,000 salary’s. The city chose to sledgehammer this group into submission with the assumption that they were the least able to offer any real resistance.
I asked Pinkerton that question during our interview and he pointed out and I think correctly that the fallback when concessions and bargaining do not work and payroll must be met is always layoffs.
Is there a reason why the DCEA has held so firm on their stance? Has Mr Pinkerton or any of the former positions at city hall ever visited the corpyard and had a one on one with DCEA members? Has anyone on the council done this. Did anyone on the council respond when the DCEA invited them to sit in on negotiations? Has anyone in management sat down and asked DCEA members, the blue collar workforce what they felt could be done better to cut costs? You wonder why the DCEA membership feels its all smoke and mirrors.
DG I asked Pinkerton that question during our interview and he pointed out and I think correctly that the fallback when concessions and bargaining do not work and payroll must be met is always layoffs.
I would agree with Pinkerton on that point. What is missing from his statement is that layoffs should be determined by the city’s needs. Does Pinkerton expect us to believe that laying off the lowest paid workers,
who all just happen to be represented by DCEA is a coincidence. When someone is poking you in the chest, its either fight or flight. Looks like DCEA chose to fight. It is my understanding that DCEA is more than willing to agree to concessions. The elephant in the room is the fact that the city chose to appeal the PERB decision, thus delaying the inevitable. It would be to the city’s advantage to accept the PERB ruling, stop the endless appeals and bury the hatchet. This way we could go about the job of addressing our unfunded liabilities and return the city to a state of fiscal solvency.
The city would then owe about $800,000. That’s where the layoffs in DCEA come from. The other bargaining units accepted roughly what was imposed on DCEA.
“I believe it should be phased, and not done in “one fell swoop”… otherwise, we may force the ‘best and brightest’ out (already happening) and look towards long-term solutions… my ideas:
1) phase out “cafeteria cash-out”
2) continue the sharing of increased med/dental premium increases, 50-50
3) reduce the # of vacation days to the early 1980’s level
4) as necessary, gradually increase the employee share of the PERS contribution (employer/employee), being mindful, as Rifkin so wisely points out, that the employee will have less impact if they pick up the employer share increases prior to the employee share [what a revelation, Rifkin!]”
The problem with the phase-in approach is that most people don’t understand why the current level of benefits is being paid in the first place. It’s as household decisions were made to hide the salary-level decisions that have been made in recent years. For example, what employees get paid an additional $18,000 for not joining the company’s insurance plan? Which ones have sick, vacation and holiday pay that approaches that of city employees?
It’d be hard to find many taxpayers who would have sympathy for any need to phase in changes in public-sector benefits that they find difficult to understand in the first place. What happens while the phase-in phases in? People will have to be fired. Either way, this is tough medicine to impose on our city worker neighbors. Come to think about it, our firefighters don’t live in Davis, do they?
“it’s as though decisions were made to hide the salary-level decisions….”
Phasing in sounds good, the problem is that we have to get to a set number within a set time period. I believe that number is $7.5 million in realized savings by 2014-2015 which means over three budgets and probably one round of labor negotiations.
[i]”What you have shown is the “average” salary of an accountant in Berkeley. So an accountant in Berkeley can oversee 5 accounts and make less, or they can oversee 50 and get paid what the UC accountant does. You praised me for a nice deflection in another post, so I will return the favor. Nice smoke and mirrors. To quote my daughters favorite movie, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”[/i]
You are really stretching preston.
I picked the accountant role because it has ubiquitous responsibilities largely dictated by standards like GAAP, FASB, etc. While there certainly be nuanced differences from job to job, to characterize the UCB employee’s responsibilities as being greater than the average similar role in the private sector shows naiveté about the situation and maybe a bit of desperation for making case to keep paying unsustainable high compensation to public-sector employees.
Jim Frame is exactly correct above; it is hard for people to accept any reduction in compensation because it has an emotional impact. If feels like being discounted. It feels like the opposite of progress. People get used to a certain lifestyle afforded by what they are paid. They develop expectations for when they will retire and how much they will get. Friends of mine in this situation absolutely get the rational arguments for reductions, but they also indicate that will fight for keeping the committments made to them. I characterize their mindset as being “I get the problem, but it is someone else’s problem to solve while honoring the previous committments made to current workers”. The problem with this mindset is: 1 – denial that their previous committments were always too-good-to-be-true, and 2 – the fact that this approach will lead to more lay-offs if existing public-sector employees and their unions are not willing to turn back the clock to sustainable compensation levels.
The solution here is that all public-sector jobs be marked-to-market for how ALL employees doing the same or similar job are compensated, and that becomes the ongoing HR standard for how we structure public-sector employee compensation. My expectation is that MANY public sector jobs would see a reduction in compensation and VERY FEW would see any increase… and THAT is illustrative of the problem we face.
Why is that the magic #?
All I ever hear is that we need savings, we need cuts, fire the workers, contract everything out. What about, and I know this may sound crazy to some of you, how can we increase revenue by 7.5 million? I know finding ways to bring in more money without asking the citizens to vote in a special tax is foreign to Davis, but it is just one rational, logical citizens’ crazy and radical idea.
So, what would you recommend, JustSaying? One idea is to make sure public employees have NO benefit that EVERYONE in the non-public sector does not get. What is your suggestion, JustSaying?
Why is that the magic number? Last year when we did the calculations for the increase costs of OPEB, PERS, and infrastructure that’s where we ended up and frankly that may be low because that was before they lowered the forecasted earning for PERS.
If you know how to make up that money without taxes and without cuts, I’m all ears.
And so we’re clear, that’s $7.5 million ongoing, not one-time money.
[i]”Why is that the magic #?”[/i]
The real magic number is about 2.5%, give or take a few tenths of a percent. That is the long-term growth in tax and fee revenues that the City of Davis can count on, unless in some meaningful way we increase the tax base in Davis and continue to add to it*.
So when you know what revenues are growing at, that caps how much total employee/retiree compensation can grow at and be sustained.
We know that healthcare costs have grown at around 10% per year for a long time. That is not sustainable (from the City’s perspective), unless the costs of that growth are born by employees or the benefit is reduced or we lay off workers and reduce services. It’s the same equation for retiree medical. And it is even worse for pension funding, because the growth in employer costs have been so dramatic.
Salaries in Davis have grown much too fast compared with revenues. But Salary growth is the easiest to control. The others are harder; and that is why we have to make serious adjustments for the long term, including new, lower-tiered pension formulas for new hires and make the cost of the cafeteria benefit much less by cutting deeply into the cash-outs.
*How can we continue to add to the tax base so we have more money to pay for services and won’t have to cut employee compensation so much? Adding a big, regional shopping mall? Doubling the number of hotel rooms to bring in more in the Transient Occupancy Tax? Tripling the number of tech companies here which pay a lot of equipment tax? Permitting the construction of a lot of McMansions without adding any low-income housing? These would all grow our tax base. However, once they are built, there is no reason to think the annual added tax revenues from these sorts of things will grow faster than 2.5%, give or tax. Property tax, for example, cannot grow faster than 2%, unless there is rapid turnover and real estate inflation.
Other problems are political or practical: I think the majority of Davis voters don’t prefer a new regional shopping mall (though we did support the Target vote, so maybe they would). There likely is not enough market demand to greatly expand the number of hotel rooms in Davis, once the new University Inn site is built. (I spoke last week with three members of the Patel family who own it and they told me their plans are coming along, despite the rough economy.) It’s an open question as to whether more high tech companies want to locate in Davis. And there seems to be a popular prejudice against McMansions which produce civic revenue and in favor of more tiny houses which do not.
[img]http://thisisthelittlelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Jay-Tiny-House.jpg[/img]
The problem with these cuts are that instead of the City cutting the jobs of administrative level employees with incompetence issues and who are being paid over $100,0000 per year, the service jobs are being hacked which will result with enormous negative consequences to the City. For instance, the city is cutting its last two tree crew employees, instead of cutting Katherine Hess’ job who is paid over $100,000 annually and who has a long history of incompetence costing us Davis residents hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits and lost revenue.
In a long and embarrassing history of working for the City, the most recent costly mess caused by Hess is the cell tower debacle where she authorized 37 cell towers to be approved throughout the city in residential front yards and close to resident’s homes. Many City resident s were outraged and strongly opposed these sell towers but Hess continued to move forward, until the (then) City manager Bill Emlen realized that this was yet another screw up by Hess. Emlen then reversed the permit approvals by Hess. Not long after, Emlen left the City manager job to take another position in another City. The Crown Castle lawsuit and the “process” involving hundreds of hours of City Staff time caused costs to Davis residents in a big way. We also wound up with the cell towers anyway, just rearranged slightly at some sites. All of this damage due to Hess.
So the obvious question is why are we not saving at least 2-3 City staff jobs of people who do their jobs well and served us well, but instead keep an incompetent administrator who has cost us tens of thousands of dollars and lawsuits? This not the only lawsuit, financial or bad planning disaster that Hess has caused.
As a result of the Crown Castle cell tower fiasco, Hess was demoted from Planning Director to the Redevelopment Agency “Administrator”. But then the Redevelopment Agency was subsequently eliminated. So why on earth is the City keeping and obsolete position and an employee with a long history of incompetence? Apparently to preserve her >$100,000 job they redefined Hess now as a “Community Development Administrator”. Just what we need in tough fiscal times…another “administrator” and then let’s go ahead and throw the competent and hardworking City service workers under the bus. The last thing we need is Hess back in planning in ANY capacity.
Consider this and who cleans up the mess after windstorms like today after July 30 when our City tree crew is eliminated? Also consider how many more lawsuits and other fallout from Hess’ incompetence and inability going to cost the City (i.e. us Davis residents) in the future.
I agree that we cannot find the needle in the haystack to fix this economic crisis without the city employees agreeing to concessions. But I do not think that we can achieve sustainability solely upon their backs either, at least not by cuts to the bottom of the barrel. I do feel we citizens have contributed to this situation by not allowing growth. When you set your growth rate at 1% or less, and don’t allow large retailers in, there is no way you can expect to match revenue generation with cost of living increases and inflation. Do I have the answer? Sadly no. If I had, I would have run for council myself. I do know that if we continue on the path we have followed for close to 3 decades, we may never achieve sustainability.
Maybe a few years of moderate growth (3-5%), and courting of few large retailers, ones that may not conflict with local retailers (REI maybe), we could see if, with some employee concessions, how close we get to that golden goal.
[i]”Maybe a few years of moderate growth (3-5%), and courting of few large retailers, ones that may not conflict with local retailers (REI maybe), we could see if, with some employee concessions, how close we get to that golden goal.”[/i]
I would love to see more big box retail in Davis, especially companies which Davis people like to shop at and we don’t have here. A consumer electronics and appliance store like Fry’s would be nice. A big clothing + department store like Macy’s or Nordstrom. Your example of REI is good. A giant furniture chain like IKEA. Maybe a discount warehouse like Costco.
But there are a couple of really big problems with these really big stores:
First, but not foremost, is that a large segment of the residents of Davis–maybe a majority, maybe not–is strongly opposed to big box of any sort, and if these stores want to be near the freeway and that means building a mall on ag land or undeveloped land, the opposition in Davis will be fierce.
Second, and more important, there is tangible evidence that retailers are, at least for the time being, not interested in investing in Davis: The unbuilt Target pads. At the so-called Second Street Crossing, Target has the right to build pads for up to 4 more retailers. Some of the pads are small, though I think they could combine 3 of them into one and allow a 40,000 s.f. store. Yet all four pads remain empty, and I would think, if Target got any bites at all, that would not be the case. … Now, granted, 40,000 s.f. may not be big enough for all big boxes. But given the weak economy, those empty pads are probably still good evidence that retail is overbuilt and until that changes, no one will be flocking to Davis to invest in large retail space.
I don’t know what kinds of incentives this town could offer, maybe a temp reduced tax or lower permit fees, but I believe something could be done to entice a favorable retail chain.
As a long term strategy it makes sense. But in the short term – the next two years, we are not going to attract and develop enough sales tax generating business to make much of a dent. Even the project total net revenue of Target (optimistic though it might have been) would be well short of ten percent of what we need.
I also believe that the city should curtail its spending elsewhere as well. The Fifth St. road diet should be put on hold. The “Re-org” should be put on hold. The city should not purchase the “black hole”, formerly occupied by Denny’s (twice), for Cafe Italia. I love Cafe Italia, and want them to stay, but I believe that they could afford to relocate on their own. A better option for them would be the property on the NE corner of Olive and Richards. Davis owns the property between it and the railroad, and could pave it for their parking lot (eliminating transient campsites in the process). The list goes on.
I guess I really just want all efforts to be exasperated before we add to the unemployment rate any further.
Exhausted, not exasperated.
[quote]Second, and more important, there is tangible evidence that retailers are, at least for the time being, not interested in investing in Davis: The unbuilt Target pads. At the so-called Second Street Crossing, Target has the right to build pads for up to 4 more retailers. Some of the pads are small, though I think they could combine 3 of them into one and allow a 40,000 s.f. store. Yet all four pads remain empty, and I would think, if Target got any bites at all, that would not be the case. … Now, granted, 40,000 s.f. may not be big enough for all big boxes. But given the weak economy, those empty pads are probably still good evidence that retail is overbuilt and until that changes, no one will be flocking to Davis to invest in large retail space.[/quote]
My understanding was that some businesses wanted to locate on those pads, but somehow the businesses were determined to be “unsuitable” for some reason. Anyone know anything about this? Refresh my memory as to specifics…
[quote]I’d like to think we could use a scalpel, instead of a chainsaw[/quote]
I agree that it can be done with some finesse. It doesn’t seem like the easy stuff (e.g. dropping the cafeteria cashout) is going to achieve the necessary cost reduction, so I’d also like to see the city explore progressive salary cuts rather than eliminating positions. Set a base salary level ($40k? $50k?) and then start reducing amounts over the base by an increasing percentage across the board until you attain the required total. There may be legal or contractual impediments to applying a scheme like this uniformly, but I would prefer to see those with higher incomes giving up a larger share of their salary than those with lower incomes.
Any salary reduction plan is likely to trigger some voluntary separations, but one thing I’ve learned from my years in business is that no one is irreplaceable. I think most staff members can see that good jobs aren’t exactly growing on trees these days, so I wouldn’t expect a wholesale exodus. There’ll be a period of grieving and resentment at the loss of income and at the loss of longtime co-workers who choose to go elsewhere, but people will adapt.
.
Interesting that the City Manager acknowledges that city did not follow their own impasse rules, and his response is to fire the employees whom the PERB board determined were affected by this screw-up. Those truly accountable (the city attorney)appear to have come out of this $800,000 dollar blunder unscathed. The one person who had built up trust between the city and it’s employees, and had the people skills to navigate through our fiscal mess is now running the show in Woodland. Thanks a lot Council.
J Brown- to answer one of your questions no Mr. Pinkerton never has had a one on one with any DCEA employee. Nor have the council members even stepped foot into either of the corp yards. Mr. Pinkerton has a serious problem with eye contact. Of all DCEA employees and true of any employee I have heard from that have tried to speak to him or even if just passing in the city hall hallway. He won’t look up and deffinetely won’t look you in the eye. Employees are just numbers to him and if he doesn’t get to know you it makes it easier for him to fire/layoff employees. The council last year had ask for the managers to get ideas from employees on ways to save money. In DCEA not one employee was asked how we could help. Pinkerton, Navassio and our dept managers were all asked can we please get together and meet and discuss ideas… and I guess the city’s idea was to layoff. There wasn’t even one meeting to discuss ideas. I assume the city council doesn’t know that.
Very few DCEA employees can even afford to live here. One of my questions has always been is if they get paid too much as employees why can’t they afford to live in Davis.? Buying a house in Davis for the average city (DCEA)employee is impossible and rent is too expensive.
Regarding the PERB case. So they win, now the city has to layoff people so they can afford to pay it back? That seems crazy. DCEA realizes that they will have to give up some concessions, they get that. But when asked of the city if they could avoid layoffs by doing so the city’s answer was we can’t guarantee that. DCEA has been negotiating in ‘good faith’ DCEA has played by the rules while the city has not. What is their punishment?? Who is supposed to take responsibility?? The city attorney?? Human Resource Director(they are part of negotiations)?? The city has stated they would like to go to mostly contractors and maintain less than 100 city employees. Of course this was discussed in a managers meeting not meant for the publics ears.
It will be impossible to maintain service levels under full contract. For example our parks employees are in the parks everyday making sure that the parks are clean and safe before most people even get out of bed. Contractors would be in the park once a week. My guess is that the citizens of this city enjoy having their parks the way they are right now. What other city has a special parks tax.? I have seen parks advertised in the same ad when a real estate agent is listing a house to me that seems like they are an important part of this city. Parks staff care about the parks and keeping the citizens safe. Public Works which is the other part of DCEA also cares about their jobs and customer satisfaction. They work hard and try to respond to citizen needs as quickly as possible. During disasters such as storms Public Works and Parks work together to clean up. Contracting situations like that could cost the city even more!. I wonder how many people have even had contact with any of the contractors that are already in place. Most don’t even realize that there are already city services contracted out. And when the contractors mess up or don’t do their job city workers pick up the slack not because we are required to but because they CARE!!
[i]Those truly accountable (the city attorney)appear to have come out of this $800,000 dollar blunder unscathed.[/i]
Not true. One of the biggest pushers for going to impasse with DCEA so the City could impose its final offer recently didn’t get re-elected 🙂