In Sunday’s Davis Enterprise, Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor and Councilmember Stephen Souza write an op-ed in which they argue that the contract ratified on December 15, 2009 by City Council with the Davis Professional Firefighters Association, Local 3494 “is a fair deal for city employees, taxpayers.”
They contend that the contract makes significant progress in addressing both long and short-term issues.
“In today’s rocky economy, the major objectives in employee bargaining for Davis and all local public agencies in California are short-term fiscal stability and long-term sustainability of public employee compensation.”
They continue:
“Like all public agencies, private employers and families across the country, the city of Davis has tightened its belt this year. We have made cuts totaling about $3.4 million and continue to monitor our financial status. A significant part of that reduction is dependent upon negotiating with city employees for concessions.
On May 19, the City Council adopted a set of guiding principles to systematically address the range of bargaining issues under consideration. We have used these principles to help guide us in this round of negotiations with all four of the bargaining units.
The contract between the city of Davis and the DPFA makes significant progress in addressing the guiding principles and represents a major step in employee bargaining in Davis. This contract is a voluntary agreement by an employee group to assist the city by reducing their take-home pay and their benefits from the level they received prior to the contract.”
However, they fail to address that this contract was actually passed by a 3-2 margin, that the minority argued that it came up short in both short-term and long-term savings, and perhaps most importantly they failed to disclose to the public the fact that they had both collected significant amounts from this bargaining group in both their 2004 and 2008 election campaigns.
We must begin there, because it is such a blatant omission that it screams out to us. No two individuals have received more money from the firefighters union than Stephen Souza and Don Saylor. No one single-interest group has given these two as much as the firefighters. No other bargaining unit is even close.
That is not to say necessarily that they altered their vote or opinion on the basis of the money they received, which was over $4000 in DIRECT contributions in 2008 and doesn’t include an additional amount, over $8000 to their three candidates in 2008 in independent expenditures. In 2008, the firefighters gave their three preferred candidates directly and indirectly over $20,000. By comparison, the police officers union and membership gave less than $500 combined to all candidates in 2008.
In 2008, over 40 firefighters each gave Don Saylor and Stephen Souza the maximum hundred dollar individual contribution. Multiples times in 2009, those individuals flooded city hall first for the investigation into the Grand Jury report, then for the battalion chief discussion, and finally for the confirmation of the MOU. Each time, Saylor and Souza delivered their vote unflinchingly with the group that had supported them during their two most recent election campaigns.
At the very least, one might think that Souza and Saylor might acknowledge this potential conflict, but of course there is no mention of it in their op-ed.
Moving on, a commenter in December suggested that the Vanguard might ask one of the three members who voted to ratify the contract to write an op-ed explaining it. While this was published in the Davis Enterprise, we at least have some rationale on record.
Unfortunately, instead of explaining their vote more fully, they have in most ways simply reconstructed the initial press release.
The total article is just over 1200 words. The first 400 words of the article, basically lays out the collective bargaining process, what has occurred in past contracts, briefly introduces the guiding principles, and finally claims that the contract makes significant progress.
Then they spend just under 250 with the specific provisions, all of which were listed in the city’s staff report.
They have a 65 word paragraph expressing gratitude for the DPFA for stepping up.
Next is a 78 word paragraph that says that negotiations are still underway and that the city declared impasse with DCEA.
Then two paragraphs that present a conclusion.
Finally, they reprint the guiding principles at nearly 300 words.
I breakdown the article to show how little actual explanation we receive about why they voted as they did.
A few claims that they make need to be addressed. It would have been helpful if they had deviated with their talking points to actually address some of the concerns expressed by the two dissenting votes.
They write:
“In aggregate, the savings to the city from this contract are about $887,000 over the three-year period in comparison to the costs of continuing the prior contract for this bargaining group. This exceeds the DPFA’s proportionate share of the city’s reduction target for employee compensation.”
Here they continue the line about the cost-savings. The $887,000 figure has never been fully explained. We know that the last contract increased salaries alone by 32% and total compensation by roughly 36%. So if that is the baseline for savings, and from discussions that evening, it seems likely that it was, an $887,000 savings from that baseline is not exactly a ringing endorsement. Nowhere do they explain where the number actually comes from.
Councilmember Sue Greenwald in fact had quite a different take during the December 15 council meeting.
“The savings from the base year to year three of this contract was only $57,000 which is .82 percent not 4%, 6%. So there’s a lot spin in how we’re presenting this.”
She continued:
“I really take issue with this $800,000 savings, this is a savings that’s a savings that is over and above your projection… “When we look at the total savings, these very inflated figures that the staff spin has put on it, if you look at the figures that Paul gave me when I asked him, what is the total amount that we’re paying the baseline year of 2008-09 for the current contract? $6,845,000. In year three of our contract year now, fiscal year 11-12, it’s going to be $6,758,000. In year three we’re going to be paying .8 percent less than we do now. Only $57,000 less, I don’t count that an $800,000 savings. It’s an $800,000 savings over a bogus high projection based on past unsustainable contracts. That’s what I call spin.”
Neither Souza nor Saylor apparently see an inclination to address this point.
They also argue that there is an immediate salary reduction of 6 percent for 2009-10.
“Immediate salary reduction of 6 percent for 2009-10. This is an actual reduction from the pay levels in effect in 2008-09. This amounts to a pay cut of $423 per month for the majority of firefighters. “
They fail to point out this is only a half-year savings. The cuts reduce to 4% in 2010-11 and 3 percent in 2011-12. This despite the fact that current projects show the city maintaining the current budget deficits past 2011-12. As Councilmember Greenwald again pointed out, the difference in the total spending is only $57,000 by 2011-12, $6,845,000 for the current contract versus $6,758,000 by 2011-12.
They also repeat the claims about the cafeteria health plan cash-out, again without addressing many of the objections raised by their colleagues.
Saylor and Souza write:
“A cap on cafeteria health plan cash-out payments at 80 percent of the amounts actually paid in 2008-09 for the life of the three-year contract. This is a 20 percent reduction in money people had in their pockets through this long-established benefit and amounts to about $250 per month for employees who take this full benefit. Without this provision, that payment would have increased annually at whatever rates the health insurers would have assessed.”
The Cafeteria cash-out is the policy that allows an employee whose spouse has full health insurance to take cash for the value of the insurance policy. That amount is currently set at around $18,000 per year–that is essentially cash that the city gives an employee in lieu of health insurance. The new contract calls for a small 20% reduction of that to around $15,000.
Councilmember Greenwald:
“The cafeteria cash out is an extraordinary benefit that the city gives that means that if you have a spouse that have coverage, you can take home in cash, what that insurance would have cost you… If we didn’t have this extraordinary benefit that hardly any other public sector agencies have… and if we structured it intelligently, we could pay off our entire unfunded employee retiree liability.”
She continued:
“The cafeteria cash out is the biggest fiscal disaster facing us and it’s where we could really, if we had wanted to, had made a difference. Unlike almost every other public agency, a worker who lives in Davis, our employees, if they have a spouse, who has coverage, they get to take home currently 100 percent of the cost of their medical and related benefits. So they get to take home cash, it’s about $18,000 in the base year.”
She pointed out this was not even a fair benefit, since some get it and some do not.
“It’s not fair between employees and it’s not standard in public employment.”
We only make token changes in that cash out. She went on to point out that if we reduced the cash out to 25% of the cost, there would remain the incentive to utilize other insurance while at the same time saving the city a lot of money. She estimated that we could save around $3 million a year by such restructuring since the cash out cost is $4 million per year.
“If we took that $3 million a year and put it into a dedicated fund to pay off the unfunded employee liability, we would be able to pay it off.”
Again they basically make an assertion, and while I understand they only have 1200 words, they spent most of the 1200 words providing information that is available elsewhere and they fail to actually elaborate or defend their position.
Souza and Saylor then make the claim without any supportive evidence:
“We are not aware of more significant employee concessions attained by other jurisdictions through negotiations even in these times. They are reductions in excess of any the city of Davis has accomplished in prior negotiations.”
Even a quick examination on Google demonstrates the claim in the first sentence is untrue, many jurisdictions have gotten more substantial concessions than Davis and imposed deeper cuts. They do not even attempt to demonstrate the accuracy of the first statement.
The second statement may or may not be true, it is difficult to know at what point we faced a $3.5 million deficit in the city. It also should be noted that we face an impending pension crisis and we have a $42 million unfunded liability in retirement health benefits.
Councilmember Heystek in an interview with the Vanguard in December offered a very different picture of the final agreement:
“The biggest problem that I have with the contract is that it does very little to address our structural challenges in any meaningful way and it sets the tone for the contracts that we are poised to consider and adopt in the very near future.
There are some issues that are specific to the Davis Firefighters Association and there are some issues that are not necessarily specific only to that group. Issues about pension and retiree medical. There is also the issue of union bank hours and overtime. But on both fronts, the issue that is specific to that bargaining unit and issues that that bargaining unit faces, that are also confronted with the other labor groups, those issues were not addressed in a significant way.
The council apparently decided to take the bait on short-term salary reductions that begin increasing once again in a matter of six months. And so on paper, an outside observer might think that we’re reaping some kind of significant fiscal benefit, when it has been demonstrated that from the first year to the last year, the decrease is minimal to none given the fact that PERS rates are going to be going up and that we are continuing to cover the medical, we’re covering PERS, we’re covering the medical benefits.”
Councilmember Heystek also pointed out that this contract puts the onus for reform on future councils:
“Things that concern me the most are those things that some of us would trust future councils to go farther on. The issues of vesting or new hires, retiree medical benefits, the sharing in the decrease in PERS rates, etc. All these things, we tell that we are going to give them a letter and tell them this is what our thinking was and this is what we would do in the future. There is nothing to guarantee that any of us will be on a future council to effect any change. So when we say that we’re going to have to count on future councils to continue and carry the torch, I can’t as much as I’d like to trust people who are following us to do that kind of work, there’s nothing that guarantees that they will do that. In fact, as we continue to play politics with certain bargaining groups, the prospect that we will drive a harder bargain will be less.”
Finally, there are a range of issues that Souza and Saylor never address. One is the request for the Finance and Budget commission to review the contract. Second was the request for an outside negotiator. Third, was the request for greater transparency and the sunshine period.
I was hopeful that the two councilmembers would actually defend and explain their decision. Instead, we saw a piece that largely presented information that was already put out by the city and almost no added insight into their thinking. What is interesting, is that apparently they did feel the need to write something, but they used one-quarter of their space to reprint the guiding principles for labor negotiations that arose six months ago rather than explaining their vote on December 15. Add to that their failure to disclose their potential conflict with the large amounts of campaign contributions that they received from this bargaining group and this was an exceedingly poor and uninformative piece.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
corrupt individuals. Morally bankrupt.
Councilman Saylor’s political ambitions will NEVER allow him to “cross” the interests of the Firefighter’s Union. Not only do they offer contribution support and produce their own campaign mailers for the candidate of their choice but historically have been a reliable army of “foot soldiers” in political campaigns. Both Saylor and Souza have little interest in addressing the fiscal problems of the city in any other way than returning to the Ponzi-like schemes of the past, back filling ever-increasing city budget shortfalls with development fees. They trust that the Davis voter will surrender to this “extortion”(threat of ever-increasing local taxes)and yield to their developer-patron’s(John Whitcombe) “marching orders”. A look at the last OP-ED Enterprise piece co-authored by Saylor and Souza is instructive in weighing the credibility of their latest OP-ED. That Enterprise OP-ED piece, in support of Whitcombe’s CV project during the Measure X campaign, was discredited by the serious investigating reporting of the Enterprise’s reporter, Claire St.John(the first and last investigating reporting piece that the then newly hired reporter has done for the Enterprise). The untruths revealed by Ms. St.John’s investigating reporting can only be categorized as unacceptable ignorance of the facts or a deliberate breach of the public trust.
On Monday’s, public access to the Enterprise site is free and unrestricted. After midnight tonight, you have to rely on other means. Here’s the link to Sunday’s op-ed to read for yourself online:
[url]http://www.davisenterprise.com/story.php?id=631.0[/url]
My column in this Wednesday’s Enterprise will reply to the Saylor & Souza piece. I’ll thus hold my fire on the topic for now. –Rich ([url]http://lexicondaily.blogspot.com/[/url]).
Good thinking wdf, that slipped my mind and why I rarely link Enterprise articles.
Rich: look forward to it.
Coincidentally, Matt Rexroad has an interesting quote by Willie Brown that is relevant to this discussion:
[url]http://www.rexroad.com/tabid/59/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2480/If-Willie-Brown-is-talking-about-it.aspx[/url]
This is the source:
[url]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/03/BA2V1BBGHH.DTL#ixzz0bagO8vMd[/url]
Is it reasonable to assume that Davis doesn’t get as many calls for Fire Department services as other cities (City of Sacramento, for instance), perhaps because of a certain level of affluence, maybe stricter building codes?
If that assumption is true, then shouldn’t Davis benefit from some sort of dividend for not having to pay as much for FD services?
The way I read and understand things, it looks like Davis doesn’t benefit from such a dividend.
[i]Is it reasonable to assume that Davis doesn’t get as many calls for Fire Department services as other cities (City of Sacramento, for instance), perhaps because of a certain level of affluence, maybe stricter building codes? [/i]
The DFD gets a lot of service calls, though most of them have nothing to do with fires. Most of their job is to assist the ambulances, whether they need assistance or not.
Affluence and building codes, however, do probably explain why so few of our structure fires* are major catastrophes. (It also helps that our city is not built in a forest.)
We have the same codes as every other city in California. But Davis is quite young. There were only 3,800 people in Davis 60 years ago. 98% of our existing sq. footage was constructured after WWII; 60% of it was built after the Grenada War.
So the applicable codes for our buildings are the newer codes. For apartment complexes and industrial and commercial buildings that means fire-sprinkler systems and less flammable construction materials.
Davis also has the advantage of mostly having low-rise, low-density homes, which, if they do catch on fire, are not as difficult to fight and less likely to spread as fires in older, denser, taller structures. Because of our relative wealth, we are less likely to have fires caused by people using faulty cooking equipment.
Further, we have very little industry. So our department is less likely to have to face chemical dangers and fires in old, industrial or warehouse complexes. (Contrast that with Woodland and West Sacramento, where our firefighters will help out in those kinds of fires.)
On the other hand, we do have more than our fair share of large, multi-unit apartment complexes (filled with students who might be more likely to cause a kitchen fire). When a fire in a large complex starts in one unit, it can quickly spread to other units (esp. if the complex does not have fire sprinklers**.) There was a terrible inferno on Drake Drive in the late 1980s, for example, which destroyed every apartment in a large complex.
*Most of the fires the DFD fights are grass fires in fields on our periphery. Also, the DFD responds to a lot of I-80 vehicle accidents and freeway brush fires.
**I don’t know if older buildings are required to put in sprinkler systems, if they were not required at the time they were built. It seems to me now just about all non-single family homes now have them.
[i]**I don’t know if older buildings are required to put in sprinkler systems, if they were not required at the time they were built.[/i]
I looked up the California Fire Code: [quote][b]Section 903.1.2,[/b] CFC Existing Buildings and Structures. All existing buildings and structures shall be retroactively protected by an approved automatic extinguishing system when buildings with a total building floor area in excess of 2,000 square feet, or more than two stories in height when additions or alterations for which a building permit is required will exceed 1,200 square feet in area.
The following provisions shall apply to all sprinklered residential buildings:
a. In the event that a building is partially retrofitted with an approved automatic sprinkler fire extinguishing system pursuant to this section, the building fire extinguishing system retrofit shall be completed throughout the unprotected building interior areas within two (2) years from completing the initial partial retrofit. [/quote]