On Tuesday night, the Davis City Council began looking into budget cuts. The city is of course facing a $3 million deficit in the coming fiscal year. The immediate crisis has been caused by declining tax receipts. But the longer term crisis is fueled by increasing salaries, rising pension costs, and the unfunded liabilities down the line that the city faces with retirement health care.
The most disappointing aspect of it is, is that instead of going head on against the bulk of city expenses, the large monies and obligations the city faces, two of the councilmembers–the Mayor and the Mayor Pro Tem largely focused on minutiae.
We begin with Don Saylor. The Mayor Pro Tem instead of focusing on major issues of expense, focused on mere pennies. He focused on things such as council expenditures particularly health insurance and other expenses, and oh yeah golf. Of course it turns out that the city gets back more than it pays out with golf. But let us not allow that to ruin our righteous indignation.
He spent a huge amount of time talking about the city council’s receiving of health care insurance after they are vested as part-time employees after roughly five years. Now of course Mr. Saylor does not need to worry about such things, as he has a public safety enhanced 3% at 50 pension along with full health benefits by virtue of working for the state in CYA. Given his administrative role in that agency, it’s rather nice that he gets the public safety enhancement. Nevertheless, it seems rather shall we say convenient, that he goes after one of the few benefits that councilmembers get as the result of their service to the city.
As Sue Greenwald pointed out, God forbid someone like Julie Partansky would not have health insurance after her service to our city during her dying days.
I mean we are talking about maybe $100,000 to $200,000 in total council expenditures–for everything. It is not going to make a huge difference.
Now perhaps if Don Saylor wants the council to start tightening its belt, he ought to look at his own expenditures.
It’s not a lot of money as we discovered last fall, but during his time on the council from 2004-2008, Mr. Saylor did use more money for reimbursement at city expense than the other four councilmembers combined. If we are counting pennies, perhaps Mr. Saylor could pay for his own trips. We are of course only talking $5569 out of $10,406 during that time, but if he’s looking at pennies and nickles, maybe he ought to start with him own.
While Mr. Saylor’s suggestion were largely hypocritical and self-serving, the suggestions of the Mayor, were downright dangerous and pointless. The city is facing a deficit in the millions and she is looking to cut about $10 per person per council meeting in meal expenses?
But that is her suggestion. She wants to cut closed session council meals. In order to do that, meetings will now begin at 7 PM and end by 10 PM. That would make three hour meetings. This will be accomplished by limiting councilmember discussion time. She also wants to meet every other week, rather than every week.
I cannot possibly think of a worse suggestion. If she really wants to grandstand on the issue, perhaps the council could bring their own dinners or pay for the meals out of their own pockets?
I suspect ulterior motives, as this goes in line with her other suggestions for cutting public discussion. We will have a government at the local level that makes decisions without full transparency or even deliberation. I cannot think of a worse approach.
And what does it save? Not much. Again, when you are talking about millions and looking at 10s, you are not doing your job. This is frankly appalling.
She also suggested reorganizing and consolidating the city’s 16 commissions. This is again something that she has wanted to do for years, since she was first elected. All of these changes have a common thread–they cut off public discourse, public discussion, open government and transparency.
My view is that we do not have enough of this. And we want to cut it? To what savings?
Meantime, there was surprisingly little discussion on Tuesday about the big pieces of money in the city–that would be employee salaries, benefits, and retirement pensions and health care. That makes up the vast majority of city expenditures. That is how you are going really get at the bones. Sue Greenwald got this. She said we need to look at the big expenses. So did Councilmember Heystek–the city and council need to focus their energies on fundamentally changing how the city delivers services.
The council and the city manager are in denial right now about the magnitude of the problems facing this city in a fiscal sense. Mayor Pro Tem Saylor kept pointing out the high performance ratings the city gets. What the council does not seem to get is that is largely a function of the fact that few in this city think about city services. They live in a nice town, the roads and infrastructure is not falling apart, we have nice parks, low crime, low poverty. People rarely encounter city services to begin with.
However, as we continue to fail to address our unmet needs, that might change. If we start charging for city recreational activities, start charging students for mediation services, our roads begin to crumble, our infrastructure degrades, you will see how fast that satisfaction rate that is based largely on an overall view of the city declines.
If you are looking for quick pots of money to go after how about this. In 2008, the city spend $1.45 million on employee overtime. That actually marked somewhat of a decline from 2007 when it was $1.9 million.
One of the things that intrigues me about the overtime issue is that fire captains and division chiefs are getting paid overtime. These are salaried employees. And they are in supervisory positions. Why would we pay them overtime to work more? Most jobs at that level of pay are not 9 to 5, 40 hour a week jobs. And yet the city paid out last year $154,129 in overtime to fire captains and division chiefs. These are people making over $100 to begin with. If we want to find nickels and dime, perhaps that would be a place to start.
That still does not get at the larger picture. I remain highly skeptical of this process and do not believe that the city led by the City Manager is ready or prepared for the kind of tough negotiations we need to fix the real problems with our city budget.
As I pointed out in yesterday’s article, the city manager is still defending the rise of salaries as a byproduct of needing to be competitive on the market. And while we have utilized this police to keep up with the other cities, now all of the cities are in the same boat of rising employee costs and also rising deficits and the need to cut. We see examples around the state of employee bargaining groups and local governments making the tough choice. We saw on Tuesday night a veritable circus that had no place in public discourse.
People like to make fun of Davis for being an odd-community. From my experience and observations, Davis in general is really not that much different than other small cities with educated populations. In my time of watching city politics and local governance, I have often disagreed with the approaches that our leadership has taken. But never have I been so disgusted and embarrassed by what I witnessed as I was Tuesday night.
The Mayor and the Mayor Pro Tem downright wasted the time of every person in that room and countless others in this community. What was discussed on Tuesday night will not get us very far in this process and it is leaving the tough questions for someone else to deal with. That is irresponsible. As Sue Greenwald has put it multiple times, this is unsustainable. I think it’s worse than that. It is reckless and callous indifference to the real crises we are facing to discuss the kinds of nickle and dime cutbacks that were discussed on Tuesday night.
I have zero confidence that this city staff and some members of the council, right now actually just two, can do what we need to put us on the right track. We need to hire an outside negotiator to negotiate the kind of tough deal we need to move forward. And even more than that, we need a council willing to push for tough solutions.
We are talking about the need for a 15 percent cutback. That is going to hurt. There is no way around that. But the longer we wait to approach these tough decision, the more difficult they will get.
From my perspective Tuesday night was a step in the wrong direction. Frankly we cannot afford any more nights like Tuesday if we want to make the kind of changes this city needs.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David
I still disagree with treating the CC as part time employees for benefits….and actually granting them FULL benefits, not prorated. What other sector allows full benefits (?for life) after 5 yrs of part time work? What does your 100-200K estimate cover? Yearly cost for all living CC benefits or ???
It does not seem insignificant to me. We both have issues with Don Saylor, but he did put in a career working for CYA not just 5 yrs.
I guess I just don’t see how being an elected government official is comparable to another sector anyway. The idea that they put in less than full time work is a farce is to begin with.
The bottom line to me and I think this is something to think about: who do you want on the council? Right now the structure is set up for a bunch of people like Don Saylor. In this case, I’m not saying that as a put-down. Don is retired. He has a healthy pension. He has medical benefits. He doesn’t need a job and has the time to serve. I applaud him for doing so despite disagreements I have policy-wise. But are we as a city well-served by having five Don Saylor’s on the council? Don’t you want some variety?
Lamar Heystek is an exception. And watching what he has gone through with the work load of full-time work plus council duties, I doubt we are going to have a lot like him. Three council members do not work, Souza has heavily curtailed his work, and Lamar works full time plus.
I think we need to look into a way that people who serve our community get compensated for it so that they do not have to work essentially two full time jobs as Lamar does.
No we don’t want 5 Don Saylors!
But explain to me how it is a 40-50 hour/wk job. To me the person elects to do it for the greater good and realized it will be a short time of very busy life. And you didn’t explain the 100-200K
“The Mayor and the Mayor Pro Tem downright wasted the time of every person in that room and countless others in this community. What was discussed on Tuesday night will not get us very far in this process and it is leaving the tough questions for someone else to deal with.”
This is it in a nutshell. Question: Didn’t Lamar threaten noncooperation on something if the City Council didn’t do a certain thing? Anyone remember what that was?
Why is it that no one seems able to mention the 400 pd. gorilla in the room? Don’t members of the community ever bring up their budget ideas during the open period? Are they just ignored?
Get an editor. Your articles are an embarrassment to read.
Is a city that does not deal with its budget issues in a responsible manner. Many of us appreciate the efforts of Mr. Greenwald bringing to light issues that otherwise would go uncovered.
Ohhh my goodness, lets go ahead and blame those who are supporting this city, those who are working in the ditches on the sewer, those who are cutting trees, those who patrol the streets and those who put out the fires…. These people are victims of the economy. These people go to work, and EARN the money they receive on their checks.
Rich likes to say, “Sergeant or firefighter so and so was “given” X amount of thousands of dollars this past year for overtime.” In fact he should say, “Sergeant or Firefighter so and so “EARNED” X amount of thousands of dollars this past year because he or she had to spend sevral hundreds of hours away from his or her home and family. They were able to make sure the safety of the citizens of davis and the vistors to the city were safe and protected.”
Public employees do not “Get” aything, they earn it. As far as enhanced retirement for the cops and firefighters, I think it is fair to say those are not old people jobs. Very few can achieve the rank above captain or sergeant. Weather it is getting up from a dead sleep and responding to calls two or four times a night or walking around 12 hours a day with an extra 15 to 20 lbs of equipment on your body, it takes a toll. These people tend to suffer from sever back and knee problems. Not to mention the stress and what it does to their hearts and central nervous system.
The killer part of 3% at 50 is it was intended for the gun toting and hose draging folks. Sacramento Legislation gave it to every one with the title, “Public Safety.” This includes, milk inspectors, special investigators for department of consumer affairs and the list goes on and on.
How about we try and not bog down the city with public information acts, this takes several staffing hours to collect that infoarmation and this takes them away from other city tasks that needs to be done as well.
Does the firefighters make too much money? maybe. Is the officers retirement killing the budget?, no. I say it is a small factor on a bigger issue. Look at other internal costs for service and see what is costing what. What can the city change before they make SERIOUS structural changes to the employees that make this city what it is.., Safe, Clean and desirable.
[i]”Meantime, there was surprisingly little discussion on Tuesday about the big pieces of money in the city–that would be employee salaries, benefits, and retirement pensions and health care. That makes up the vast majority of city expenditures. That is how you are going really get at the bones.”[/i]
I think you are right. However, because the meetings between the city council and the city manager, in which they discuss labor contracts are done in secret, we don’t yet know what approach this city council is taking, what changes they are requesting. Every member of the council I have spoken with about this — including Sue — has told me it is forbidden to mention anything said in those crucial meetings. That is where the budget problems will be addressed — rightly or wrongly.
[i]”The council and the city manager are in denial right now about the magnitude of the problems facing this city in a fiscal sense.”[/i]
What we hear in the public discussion is largely a farce, focused on minor items like a $40 food and beverage service. Only when the contracts are published will we know what they council actually thinks needs to be done. I am not yet ready to say that the city manager and Paul Navazio are in denial. When I’ve met with them in private, they were realistic about the nature of the problem. (It was Paul’s idea, for example, that I used in my 10 reforms column, suggesting that the new contracts include a provision which would downwardly adjust wages and medical beneifits to cover any increases in PERS rates come 2011.)
REALLY: [i]”Is the officers’ retirement killing the budget?, no. I say it is a small factor on a bigger issue.”[/i]
I have a question for you (or for anyone who cares to answer):
If a perfectly healthy cop or firefighter retires at age 50, after working for 30 years and being well-paid for those 30 years, and he was to get no pension, but instead a lump sum payment from which he could draw his income and pay for his and his family’s medical-dental-vision care expenses, how much in that lump sum would you think it is fair to give him? A half a million dollars? A million dollars? How much would be fair to him and to the taxpayers who paid his salary and for his medical care for the last 30 years?
This is essentially the same question, but put on a different employment situation:
Say you own a lumber store in Davis and for the last 30 years you employed a saw operator (which is a dangerous job), giving him a good wage and full medical benefits and so on all that time. He then decides to retire at age 55. How much in a lump sum would you think it is fair that you, as his employer, gave him, so he could draw an income and cover his and his family’s medical expenses for the rest of his life?
Sue for years would complain that Paul Navazio would tell her one thing in private and say the opposite in public. He seems to have the ability to tell people what they want to hear in private and Saylor what he wants to hear in public. There might have been a time I shared your optimism, but watching how the city handled the Grand Jury report erased any confidence I might have had.
David,
You might be interested to know that because of the huge losses PERS has suffered — just as all stock market and real estate investors have suffered — it is likely going to be impossible for Pacific Grove to quit the PERS’ system ([url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122955207119515649.html[/url]) and move to a 401k-type plan. Originally, PG expected their buyout with PERS would cost around $4 million, which they would fund with a bond measure. Now, however, due to PERS’ losses, the estimate has grown to around $10 million.
Suggestions: (1) The city should stop free mediation. Parties can pay. And if they don’t they will end up in court where they will pay even higher fees (thanks to the legislatures’ fee increases) to have their matter heard in small claims. That’s what small claims is for.
(2)Public works should ban all overtime unless the dept. head signs for it. That tends to discourage it except as necesary.
(3) Public works and the other city Depts should look at outsourcing certain non-core functions: e.g., mowing and pruning in the parks, maintaining street lights, etc. Many of these services can be handled cheaper by the private sector. When times are better, the city could revisit whether to hire staff to do these functions. But for now, private is cheaper because they are not paying public sector benefits.
(4) all dept. heads should submit zero-based budgets, i.e. justifying all their functions and expenses each year, rather than just saying we had $X budgeted last year, and now we need $X + 10%.
(5) The city shold ge tout of the business of summer programs unless the progams are fiscally self-sustaining. These are great programs, but those who use them should pay for them, not the taxpayers alone (most of whom do not use these programs.)
This budget requires all of us,private and govt., to embrace a paradigm shift. We need to not just cut back across the board. We have to eliminate certain programs completely. What those would be is up to the council. Instead, the council is throwing deck chairs off the Titanic while the ship is going down. Embarassing is too kind a description for this gross malfeasance.
“(1) The city should stop free mediation. Parties can pay. And if they don’t they will end up in court where they will pay even higher fees (thanks to the legislatures’ fee increases) to have their matter heard in small claims. That’s what small claims is for.”
Most of the people who utilize the service are students in land lord-tenant, students can’t afford to pay. And small claims court only handle monetary issues rather than conflict resolution. It is hard to imagine this is a significant cost, but it is a case where cutting the service may be penny wise but pound foolish.
Just looked it up, the savings to the city would be $4000 for charging for the mediation service.
I have the same problem with this as I do overall, let’s look at the real problems in this city and tackle those. Once we get a handle on those, we will know how much we need to cut. Right now it just seems like we are widely flailing because we have no sense for what really needs to be done. Remember the budget is $3 million, a few thousand here and there is not going to get this done.
Rich I think you are a little off on this one. How many people have retired from the public safety services with 30 years service? Also the medical coverage is for self and family, well family under 18 or 21 if in college. and spouse. SO it is not like everyone in the entire family gets it for life.
It is my understanding that when the city workers retire, the city only pays the medical portion they utilize and PERS pays their retirement check.
Also when was the last saw operator (however dangerous the job is) been shot and killed in the line of duty. Lets not try to minimize the dangers of their jobs.
If you take some of the benifits away the city will loose good employees to cities who are not blaming the employees for the budget downfall.
I agree we need to look at what the federal goverment did in the late 80’s early 90’s and out sourced some of the jobs. This freed up some of the overhead costs.
[b](2)Public works should ban all overtime unless the dept. head signs for it. That tends to discourage it except as necesary. [/b]
Any reason for singling out PW? I’m not dismissing your idea, but it is not the case that OT in PW (3% of wages) compares badly with OT in police (7%) or fire (12%).
[b](3) Public works and the other city Depts should look at outsourcing certain non-core functions: e.g., mowing and pruning in the parks, maintaining street lights, etc. Many of these services can be handled cheaper by the private sector.[/b]
The city currently outsources HALF of these services now. Coast Landscape and GP Landscape are the private contractors, each of whom is responsible for various parks and greenbelts and so on.
I don’t think using private contractors is a bad idea. However, because of council direction, we are purposely not saving any money at all doing so. Why not? Because we require the outside contractors to pay the same high salaries with benefits that we give city employees. Therefore, the costs are the same and afford us no savings.
[b]”But for now, private is cheaper because they are not paying public sector benefits.”[/b]
If we changed our requirements for outside contractors, I was told by a contractor that we could save roughly 50% annually, going with a low-bid system.
[b]”(5) The city should get out of the business of summer programs unless the progams are fiscally self-sustaining. These are great programs, but those who use them should pay for them, not the taxpayers alone (most of whom do not use these programs.)”[/b]
Compared with what we spend on things like pensions and retiree medical care, the city summer programs are free. As David argued above in regard to the Mayor listing $15 savings here and there, it’s pointless to worry about the small stuff, right now. We need to worry about the big things.
We pay enough in taxes to allow Davis children to swim in public pools, for example, even though the pools are sadly closed much of the time. The reason we can’t afford children’s recreation programs is because we are using that money to pay $16,000 a year for the medical insurance for 55 year old desk workers who retire to luxury cabins in the Sierras, where they can live well on $100,000+/year pensions.
Really: You won’t answer the question I asked? You claim we are not being too generous in retiree expense. State what amount is fair.
[b]It is my understanding that when the city workers retire, the city only pays the medical portion they utilize and PERS pays their retirement check. [/b]
The City pays the full insurance premium to PERS until the retiree reaches age 65. (After 65, Medicare covers about half.) The amount of the premium is based on the person’s marital status (or if a “domestic partner” is on the plan) and if the retiree has a dependent child up to age 22 (does not have to be in college). For the Kaiser family plan, right now, it costs about $16,000 for this coverage. Because not all retirees, as you say, have dependents on the plan, the average cost is less (about $12,000 each, if I recall correctly).
[b]”Also when was the last saw operator (however dangerous the job is) been shot and killed in the line of duty. Lets not try to minimize the dangers of their jobs.”[/b]
Whose job dangers did I minimize? Even though it’s been a long time since a Davis cop lost his life on the job, I don’t minimize that danger at all. And even though our firefighters rarely have to enter a burning structure, any time you fight a fire or deal with hazardous chemicals, you can get seriously hurt. I don’t think anyone doubts that.
[b]”If you take some of the benifits away the city will lose good employees to cities who are not blaming the employees for the budget downfall.”[/b]
This is completely false, right now. We get 100 qualified applications for every single opening. There is not a city or county in California which has the money at present to bid away our employees. Second, if we cut all wages by 20% for city workers, including cops and fire — I am not calling for that, by the way — we would still attract a long list of applicants for most jobs. Third, even when better times return, and there will be other communities which pay better wages, it is irresponsible for the City of Davis to allow itself to get into bidding wars. If Fairfield, for example, wants to pay one of our deputy city managers or one of our principal planners $50,000 more per year (each cost us $140,000 last year), we shouldn’t match the offer. We can’t afford the higher rate. We can get good candidates at the wages and benefits we can afford, even if that means some employees will move on to greener pastures.
Are any of our employees really irreplaceable? It seems to me that Davis is not going to be a destination community for people if it comes down to money. Davis offers many non-monetary incentives, but strictly from a monetary standpoint, we are not going to out-bid people. OTOH, other than maybe Navazio, who is going to be hired away? And including Navazio, who is irreplaceable? Just don’t see it.
Please, Navazio is replaceable, so is the city manager and a lot of the department heads. I don’t think that outsourcing is the answer, but there’s definitely a lot of waste and excess that can be trimmed. Overtime is the place to begin. Leave Mediation alone. It’s worth the money.
[b]”If a perfectly healthy cop or firefighter retires at age 50, after working for 30 years and being well-paid for those 30 years, and he was to get no pension, but instead a lump sum payment from which he could draw his income and pay for his and his family’s medical-dental-vision care expenses, how much in that lump sum would you think it is fair to give him? A half a million dollars? A million dollars? How much would be fair to him and to the taxpayers who paid his salary and for his medical care for the last 30 years?”[/b]
You apparently have no answer. Let me tell you what the answer the City of Davis has: $4.5 million. That is the Net Present Value of the retirement benefits we are awarding this perfectly healthy 50 year old. If you don’t think that’s too much, then fine, say so. But don’t try to pretend it’s not very, very expensive.
You would not give an answer for the saw operator, so I guess that means you wouldn’t give him any lump sum at all if you were his employer. But the saw operator has to pay a lot extra in taxes, so that the city employees, whose salaries were much higher than his, can enjoy much better retirements. If you think that’s just, then say so. I don’t think it’s fair. It’s really a reverse Robin Hood scheme.
Saylor still should be workin in the fields. He is too young to be retired. Lucky fool. As far as attracting young workin’ folk like Lamar, don’t you worry. Sydney Vergis isn’t too far behind. She’ll take time off from her job as president of the yolo young democrats or something, or just call in while she is driving back from her sutter county job (and how does driving each day to sutter make you green? maybe she should move to yuba city?).
Saylor still should be workin in the fields. He is too young to be retired. Lucky fool. As far as attracting young workin’ folk like Lamar, don’t you worry. Sydney Vergis isn’t too far behind. She’ll take time off from her job as president of the yolo young democrats or something, or just call in while she is driving back from her sutter county job (and how does driving each day to sutter make you green? maybe she should move to yuba city?).
She’s no Lamar Heystek. Don’t even compare the two. Yuba City has terrible planning. Just drive there and you’ll see. We don’t need that in Davis or on the council.
She’s no Lamar Heystek so let’s hope she does not get in. She was just riding some big coat tails. She can’t even do a good job as newsletter editor for the Davis Democratic Club. I’ve received the newsletter in the mail and it makes good lining for the bird cage.
Negotiations should at least be video taped so that the public can observe them from home.
David or Rich Rifkin, how about starting an online petition or a hard copy petition to get the negotiations going in public? We’re tax payers and we have a right to know how the city is giving away money. It’s time we put some brakes on the train to bankrupting our city. I’ll be more than happy to circulate petitions in my neighborhood and I know others that will do it in their part of town. I live in West Davis.
It’s time to change the way they’ve been doing things before they drive our city into the ground even further.
Will anyone circulate petitions in their neighborhood?
The structure is set up for people like Saylor because he got the most votes. With some other structure of benefits I doubt the outcome would change. Are you saying there would be better candidates? I think you need to look at who the candidates were the candidates in the last election before you make that remark.
Comparing Davis City salaries to other cities and asserting that they are similar fails to address the tax base of this city as opposed to other cities. Taxes, the revenue upon which most city salaries are based, differ widely from region to region. Davis does not compare to cities such as Fairfield or Sacramento. It is irresponsible for city administration to inflate its staff’s salaries based on other than local revenue.
“””””””I have a question for you (or for anyone who cares to answer):
If a perfectly healthy cop or firefighter retires at age 50, after working for 30 years and being well-paid for those 30 years, and he was to get no pension, but instead a lump sum payment from which he could draw his income and pay for his and his family’s medical-dental-vision care expenses, how much in that lump sum would you think it is fair to give him? A half a million dollars? A million dollars? How much would be fair to him and to the taxpayers who paid his salary and for his medical care for the last 30 years?””””””””
Sue Greenwald says it’s ok to get a pension , and lifetime medical from the City of Davis after only 5 years on the city council .
The city council is a elected position that takes only a few hours per week to do .
The example above by Rich Rifkin , these people work for 30 years ,put there life on the line daily and you want to screw with a very earned benefit .
Sue’s Greenwalds example , David’s mom I believe ,was thank God that Julie Partansky had these benefits , Hey I agree with her , but she was only part time and only had to put in 5 years , not 30 years .
Rich Rifkin stop trying to nickle and dime the city workers .
[i]”Rich Rifkin stop trying to nickle and dime the city workers.”[/i]
I’ll stop “nickle” and diming the city workers the day you get spellcheck.
Blog Poster by the name of “For Rich Rifkin”
Being a council member in the city of Davis with no staff assigned to you and having city staff that actually works against you if you are not a part of the council majority means that you DEFINITELY work MORE than a few hours per week.
I guarantee Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek put more time in than just “a few hours per week.” You obviously have NO CLUE.
I concur with the former poster, thank you to David Greenwald and Rich Rifkin for keeping up on this issue of fiscal accountability. Someone has to do it since the mayor and the mayor pro tem (Asmundson and Saylor) are not doing it. Thank you!
Rich Rifkin: “I’ll stop “nickle” and diming the city workers the day you get spellcheck.”
Get off your high horse and give the spelling lessons a rest.