The city of Davis faces an immediate deficit of $3 million per year which is compounded by long-term structural problems caused by rising costs for pensions, retirement health care, and $13 million in unmet needs which includes critical road repair and infrastructure upgrade. At a recent Davis City Council meeting, the City Manager, Mayor, and Mayor Pro Tem showed that they fail to understand the magnitude of the problem.
In the past decade we have seen employee compensation costs rise by more than 250%. Increases in retirement health care costs mean that we have at least $42 million unfunded liability. The city currently has 72 employees making over $100,000 per year in salary and overtime. And we are paying public safety retirees 3% of their final salary for each year they have worked when they retire at age 50 and the rest of our employees 2.5% when they retire at age 55. For many that means we are paying them more than 90% of their final salary upon early retirement.
And yet the city manager defends this structure. City Manager Bill Emlen’s memo to council demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand the problems the city currently faces.
“There is no doubt that salaries and benefits afforded local government employees have significantly increased over the past few decades. The City of Davis employees are no exception; our compensation package is generally competitive with comparable local government entities. Conversely, the data and information provided at our October compensation workshop show that overall salaries and personnel costs are well within the range provided in similar cities in our region.”
Meanwhile at the recent council meeting, Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Councilmember Don Saylor steadfastly refused to address these real problems. Instead the Mayor focused her lengthy ramble on cutting city costs through shortening council meetings to 3 hours, curtailing city commissions, and cutting out meals to councilmembers at meetings. We are facing multimillion dollar budget deficits over a multiyear period and Mayor Asmundson only deals with dollars and cents.
The Mayor Pro Tem not much better focusing his energies on council expenditures. The irony is that in terms of compensation from the city for expenditures, a records request indicates that Don Saylor received more since 2004 than any of the other four Davis City Councilmembers combined.
