Mayor Krovoza Pledges to Fight for Rank and File Employees –
On Tuesday night, the City Council Chambers were packed in part by city employees, protesting the proposed city budget that sought to deal for the first time with the very real fiscal reality that the City of Davis faces.
City employees have some very real concerns. Unfortunately in part they have been misled by people like Bobby Weist, the President of the Davis Firefighters Union, who organized this protest but is also largely responsible for many of the conditions, at least on the compensation side, that along with the prolonged economic downturn has led to the need for reform.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Weist is about the last person who should be complaining about budget cuts. Mr. Weist is well-compensated, making over $108,000 in the last fiscal year and around $150,000 in total compensation.
In fact it is people like Mr. Weist who have put in jeopardy non-management, non-public safety rank and file employees by advocating for irresponsible past fiscal policies that created a huge inequality in pay & benefits from the economic bounty of the real estate boom and the increased city sales tax which ended in 2007 with the collapse of the economy.
The huge inequality in compensation and retirements that the firefighters and upper management created to feather their nests comes at the expense of other employees and the well being of the City’s overall financial capabilities long term.
Under Bobby Weist the firefighters received huge increases in pay, benefits and retirement as opposed to the rank and file non-public safety employees.
Mayor Joe Krovoza tried to clarify this point in a statement to the Vanguard late Wednesday, in which he expressed appreciation to all city staff and recognized, “Their concerns are legitimate in these very tough times.”
At the same time the Mayor understands, “The sooner the Council acts to account for future cost that we know are coming, the sooner we will have a budget that won’t overly impact our staff and services in the future. A sustainable, long-term budget framework is what we seek.”
The bottom line that many seem to miss is that, “If we don’t act, future cuts will be far more severe.”
There is too much talk about balancing the budget on the backs of city employees. As the Mayor pointed out, that is unfortunately inevitable. “When personnel and benefit costs account for 80 percent of the General Fund, that does have to be a point of focus,” he said.
The bottom line however, is that the focus here is not on the rank and file.
Mayor Krovoza emphasized that point to the Vanguard, “There are paths that hold the promise of minimal staff and service disruptions. I am confident of that.”
He added, “I will make every effort to preserve the positions of our rank and file staff. These are often the people on the front line of serving our citizens, and so if we want to maintain service to our citizens, we shouldn’t be looking there for cuts.”
The rank and file are not the problems. The problems, quite frankly, are the Bobby Weists, the firefighters who are making over $100,000 per year, retiring at the age of 50 with nearly 90% of their final pay.
Mr. Weist on Tuesday acknowledged that he has worked in Davis for 28 years, and based on city disclosures via a Public Records Act Request, we know his pay last year was over $100,000. Should he retire in two years, he would be getting 90% of the final base pay.
Another firefighter spoke as well, Kirk Talon. He also has worked for the city for nearly 30 years, and he lamented the cuts and the fact that people were going to be laid off and lose their houses.
He said, “I’ll probably lose my house too and that’s okay.”
This is a guy who made $101,000 last year. He makes $130,000 to $140,000 per year in total compensation. He’s going to lose his house if the city has to institute a 8 to 9 percent pay reduction? Give me a break.
When Mr. Weist himself spoke, it was an interesting conglomeration of lies, inaccuracies and blatant hypocrisy.
He started out, “We have been watching the discussion about laying off five people so we can keep a 15% reserve… It gives me heartburn, it really bothers me that we’re doing that. But I kind of understand. I think we could have gone about it a different way rather than lay five people off and ruin families to keep a fifteen percent reserve… So we can probably be praised at league of cities.”
No one I have spoken to knows remotely what this refers to. The council never had any sort of public discussion about laying off anyone to keep the reserve. We are talking about $140,000 this year that needed to be closed. That is not five people’s salaries or total compensation.
And according to Mayor Krovoza, the city found some accounting maneuvers to restore the reserve without any cuts to personnel or services. So this is just a blatant fallacy by Mr. Weist which is likely intentional, making it a lie.
“You see signs here that say welcome to Wisconsin and that is exactly what it sounded like,” Mr. Weist continued. “It sounded like the Governor for Wisconsin
Wisconsin? Really. He is somehow comparing the actions of the council that would make cuts in the budget to the efforts in Wisconsin to eliminate collective bargaining, cripple unions among other things, for public employees.
As one commenter who generally supports public employees and unions remarked, “As for being in Wisconsin, it’s a little over the top. The members of the council aren’t being vindictive. They are not doing this so they can cut taxes, privatize services or bust unions. There is no other agenda here beyond balancing the budget.”
Bobby Weist continued by talking about what a great job the employees of this city do.
No one on the dais disagreed with that, in fact, every one of them said that they did a great job and that this is a tough decision. But there is a reality here that seems missing and that is, total compensation for public employees accounts for a huge percentage of the budget. You cannot cut services without it impacting city employees and you cannot cut costs at this point without doing so as well.
“You are talking about ruining people’s lives,” he continued.
Ruining people’s lives? First of all, that’s just ridiculous. But as the Mayor pointed out, the goal here is to find ways to cut costs that will not involve layoffs and have a minimal impact at least on rank and file workers.
If it ruins Mr. Weist’s life to take a 10% cut on his $150,000 total compensation, his priorities are out of whack and he is out of touch with the economic reality that the rest of this city and this region have to face.
“I didn’t hear one dime of that $2.5 million going into retiree medical or anything else. I heard it going into roads and other things and infrastructure, nothing else,” he continued.
Almost all of that savings will go to shore up pensions and retiree health over the next five years. Roads are important and they are severely underfunded and this has been done for years to support employee compensation especially those employees at the higher salaries, most significantly Mr. Weist and the firefighters. And yet he mocks it.
As I said at the beginning, a huge reason why we are having to make the kinds of cuts we are facing is because of the unsustainable policies of the council – bought and paid for by the firefighters, who used their influence to amass huge salaries and benefits.
When Bobby Weist was getting his 38% pay increase over four years in the last MOU, how much did Josie and other rank and file workers see?
And yet Bobby Weist only bears part of the blame. The other part belongs to the past councils, as embodied by Councilmember Stephen Souza who was singing to the masses on Tuesday night talking about 33 layoffs, which are not in the works unless all other efforts fail.
If there are 33 layoffs it is because the employees chose to have 33 layoffs. It is because they will not have given any concessions at all in this. But I doubt it will come to that.
Still, Stephen Souza, who claims that he supports these cuts, keeps trying to kick the can down the road as he tried to remind his colleagues that we need a budget by the end of June, and the other issues can be resolved later.
“Later” has come, and the council recognizes that they have to start to implement tough changes sooner rather than later. But they also recognize that the rank and file workers are not the problem.
Bobby Weist has done a good job of scaring the rank and file into believing that their jobs and salaries and retirement are in jeopardy, all the while diverting them from the fact that Mr. Weist, his union and upper management have put the city in the predicament it is in.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Many of us who work for the State have seen our salaries go nowhere over the past many years and most of us have lost ground to inflation. Retiring in your 50s is a ridiculous idea imho. I can see a fire fighter may have to move to a different area of service in his/her 50s and perhaps the City should honor their service with another job at perhaps a higher salary than they would get otherwise, but we cannot afford the status quo.
WE can reduce the number of firefighters who respond to emergencies and we should look to make these expensive services more efficient while trying to minimize disruptions.
But I am sick of firefighters whining. There is a backlash developing against unreasonable and unrealistic demands. Other cities are being forced to make far more draconian cuts (public safety is 80% of Stockton’s budget! and Stockton is broke.)
I’ve been very impressed with Joe Krovoza’s leadership here on many fronts. We need to do what we can here but labor has to realize change is coming–talk to any State worker.
I also am encouraged by Joe Krovoza’s commitment to ” make every effort to preserve the positions of our rank and file staff.”
To me this is a much more encouraging tone than I had objected to over the comment that everyone would have to make sacrifices. From my perspective, the rank and file workers have already paid their dues in terms of services provided for much lower compensation than the
> $100,000 group .
I agree completely that the rank and file workers are not the problem. I do however remain concerned about what happens if “all other efforts fail”. If that were to occur and rank and file layoffs did happen, that would have a real possibility for ruining people’s.
Medwoman: Completely agree. As I think I laid out a few weeks ago, if I start terminating positions I would look at a couple of planners, a deputy city manager, and positions like that first. I still think an across-the-board reduction in salaries for department heads and managers has to happen, but obviously they have to agree with it. It starts at the top with leadership.
David- There are myriad issues with respect to the City budget, compensation, and economic sustainability into the future and I appreciate your furthering that discussion. But:
I have know Bobby Weist for many years. To say that he does not care about the rank and file is just not true. This attempt at character assination is not helpful to the discussion and I urge you to reconsider and not proceed in this manner.
We can certainly urge Bobby to take a more constructive approach in his dialogue and his recognition of overall city budget issue. But, do not question his care for and committment to his fellow firefighter.
Hello Bob,
I read it a bit differently. I don’t see Davis as questioning Bobby’s commitment to his fellow firefighter, I see him questioning the accuracy of his statements and his commitment to the rank and file workers.
I agree with you that the tone is sharp here, but so was Bobby’s tone on Tuesday.
The “new kids on the block” (Krovoza, Swanson, Wolk) did a magnificent job at forcing the issue of greater fiscal responsibility when it comes to the city budget. Joe Krovoza provided the courageous and tough leadership that was necessary on this issue. He made two things clear, which in my opinion were right on target:
1) the CC is trying to protect the economic future of our city employees so their benefits will be there when they need them;
2) show city staff the ugly budget numbers, the real fiscal picture of the city’s dire financial circumstances, and then let city staff digest the grim reality, and decide for themselves where they want to start making the cuts.
Disappointingly, what I heard from the employees that spoke that night was a lot of complaining that was largely irrelevant to the issue at hand, e.g. we have made sacrifices, we feel unappreciated, we make Davis the fine place it is. It was a lot of nonsensical spin that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, grandstanding to “rally the rank and file”, but was of very little substance. But I chalk that up to it being the first opportunity for the city employees to see the stark budget numbers. They really needed some time to digest the full implication of those numerical figures, and think long and hard how to address the severe budget shortfalls and unfunded liabilities. Mayor Krovoza made it very clear he was perfectly open to suggestions from city staff on where to make cuts, and very much wanted them included in the budgeting process.
Kicking the can down the road, as has happened in the past with the Gang of Three, is not going to work anymore. Our past misleading methods of bookkeeping, by placing things like road repairs in the unmet needs category, and then declaring a “balanced budget”, are thankfully coming to an end. Mayor Krovoza sent a clear message to our interim City Manager that is no way to conduct business.
In Mr. Weist’s speech, what I literally took away from his words was the notion that the city can do away entirely with its reserves and not fund any road repairs, so the city would be able to continue paying city employees their current contractual salaries/benefits. Firstly, even if the city chose to budget in this way, it would not solve the budget problem by a mile. Secondly, it would be completely irresponsible budgeting. Deteriorating roads are an extreme safety hazard.
So I would encourage Mr. Weist to take some time to think about the stark fiscal realities the city is facing, and come up with some solid workable suggestions on how the city can address its fiscal nightmare without resorting to laying off city employees. Because I suspect the first to go will be firefighters, as the city goes to three man teams like every other city is having to do. If Mr. Weist wants his pension to be there when he retires, so he can live comfortably after having given many years of valuable service to the city of Davis, he’d be wise to put his thinking cap on and get creative…
There’s an interesting way in which last night’s edition of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” connected the local economy (such as you might see in Davis) to the national/global economy. That when you have fantastic retirement packages, you create situations that are fiscally unsustainable in a larger context. The first two segments of the show are relevant, here:
[url]http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-june-22-2011-mitchell-zuckoff[/url]
I don’t know Bobby Weist. Weist is not a friend of mine. I don’t know him from Adam, but it is DUMB to blame him for anything. He is a union leader; his job is to get the best deal he can for his members. Not the city. Not the taxpayers. Not the members of other unions. HIS members. If he can get his guys a starting salary of $200K and full retirement after 5 years, he has a fiduciary responsibility to do just that. He is not the problem, and his union is not the problem. The problem is the council members, former and current, who placed his union’s political contributions above their oath to serve the city. No union leader is going to say, “Please Sir, can we have a little less?” Weist did his job; the council didn’t.
[i]”Mr. Weist is well-compensated, making over $108,000 in the last fiscal year and around $150,000 in total compensation.”[/i]
Total comp is more than $150,000 for a fire captain. Not counting things like sick leave benefits or paid holidays or money for uniform expenses or other equipment, the following is what makes up the cost to taxpayers for a fire captain in the 2010-11 fiscal year:
base salary: [b]$102,646.80[/b]
overtime: [b]$5,300[/b]
cafeteria: [b]$21,700[/b]
PERS: [b]$23,450.69[/b]
retiree medical: [b]$19,530[/b]
life insurance: [b]$4,896[/b]
survivor benefits: [b]$24[/b]
worker’s comp: [b]$1,812.50[/b]
[u]Medicare: [b]$1,488[/b][/u]
Total comp: [b]180,848 [/b]
Note 1: Starting next week, the base salary for a fire captain will increase to $103,716.04. All firefighters and almost all city employees will get a raise in pay beginning on July 1**. Keep in mind that base salaries for firefighters are lower now than they were in 2009. And note that other employees have lost income due to furloughs.
Note 2: Beginning on July 1, the employer contribution rate goes up. That means for a fire captain, it will cost Davis taxpayers $26,869.71 to fund his pension in the 2011-12 fiscal year. That is a $3,400 annual increase in pension funding costs for just one employee! And in the years following, the increases in funding costs will be much, much steeper.
**For example, all sworn cops are getting a 2% annual pay increase, next week. Civilian police employees will get a 3.5% wage increase. Employees in PASEA are getting a 3% increase in salary. They got a 2% increase last year. Those in the “management group” will get a 2% raise, starting next week.
I made a typographical mistake, above. Instead of writing $21,076 for the cost of the cafeteria benefit, I wrote $21,700. That reduces the current total comp for a fire captain to roughly Total $180,200.
I have always, over the years, fought hard for a more equitable pay distribution among our employees.
Management in cites is paid far higher than equivalent management at the state and federal level. That is because we compare our management salaries with those of other cities — not other public agencies — and cities have boot-strapped each others’ salaries up.
I am going to give you an example. I just looked up the salary on line of the executive director of the state water resources control board. This year’s salary was $126,679.00.
I believe that our city manager makes about $158,000 a year base salary, and that is low compared to other cities. I will assume that total compensation is the same, although I know that the state does not give the high cafeteria cash out or the golden parachutes, etc. that are given to city managers.
Now lets look at what the executive director of the state water resources control board does. That executive director is the administrative head (just like the city manager is) of an organization that oversees the water resources of a state whose economy would be the eight largest in the world if California were a country instead of a state – in a state where water management is one of the most complicated and critical functions. Overseas hundreds of the highest trained professionals in the state – attorneys and engineers. Oversees a budget of $703,773,000 — which is very small in comparison to its scope of responsibility, but still far, far larger than the city budget.
What does a small-town city manager do? Oversees small local police and fire department, a small local public works department and parks department, etc. As important as the job is, and as central to our lives – the pay is much higher than that of comparable state and federal management pay.
[quote]I am going to give you an example. I just looked up the salary on line of the executive director of the state water resources control board. This year’s salary was $126,679.00.
I believe that our city manager makes about $158,000 a year base salary, and that is low compared to other cities. I will assume that total compensation is the same, although I know that the state does not give the high cafeteria cash out or the golden parachutes, etc. that are given to city managers.
[/quote]To clarify, the base salary for the Davis City Manager is now about $158,000 a year whereas the base salary for the executive director of the state water resources control board is now $126,579 a year. I am assuming for the sake of comparison that the total compensation would be proportionately higher, usually about 35% to 40% higher than the base salary.
Excellent article, very informative.
Good work by the new city council majority of Joe Krovoza, Rochelle Swanson and Dan Wolk to begin solving the City’s fiscal crisis.
It is clear that the root cause of municipal financial woes throughout California and in Davis is due in large part to the [b]excessive public safety pay & retirement packages[/b] that are based upon an irresponsible and unaffordable retirement formula that begins at 50 years of age multiplied by every year worked, plus cost of living adjustments and lifetime medical benefits for themselves and their spouses. This creates retirements for most firefighters and policemen in their early 50’s to be able to get from 80% to 100% of their annual pay received in their final year for the remainder of their lives. 80% of expenses of most city budgets is devoted to labor costs (salaries, benefits including costly health care & retirements) and the lion share of those labor cost are firefighters, etc. This is simply unaffordable and unsustainable. The Davis city council is doing the right thing by warning city workers, especially firefighters and higher management that their days of gorging on the City’s coffers are ending. They either agree to salary and benefit cuts or risk layoffs.
The sad thing is Joe, Rochelle and Dan are inheriting this mess, but must clean it up. Prior council majorities of Asmundson, Saylor and Souza took no action to address the dangerous fiscal trends that these labor MOU’s were creating and in fact kept voting for policies that obligated the City to finance the unaffordable. They did this in spite of Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek warning to the contrary.
What would Avatar say to all of this??
The current pattern of “across the board cuts” creates a public illusion that the services are still there, they may just take awhile to get it. But in Davis and elsewhere, we have reached a budget crisis point now where that is simply not true. Yes, there is a door with an operational title and a number in the phone book, but nobody’s really there that can help you.
As one who has been involved with a multitude of municipal budget cut strategies over the years, the current situation and political rhetoric that accompanies it is all too familiar. There is another strategy, however, that has not been mentioned. By no means is it a silver bullet, it is equally draconian, but it has many virtues over the present path being taken.
Bear in mind that we have already gone through a series of cuts throughout the city structure. In other words, there already has been crippling cuts everywhere. Using an anatomical metaphor, when a body loses so much blood, it goes into shock and ceases to be functional beyond a faint pulse.
More universal cuts in the city infrastructure–especially of the magnitude facing us now–will render the city into a operational coma. Any surviving employees will probably just stay in the office and accept phone calls and visits from irate citizens because they have no co-workers and equipment to do even basic tasks.
The other budget alternative I referenced is to eliminate entirely select city services. Tell the citizens, “We don’t do that anymore.” Vested interests will scream, of course, but at least the complaints are compartmentalized instead of city-wide as we see now.
Implementing such a budget strategy is easier for the Council too, if no less painful. The sit down and prioritize what services are critical (not essential or desirable) to city government existence. Then they fund these operations at a base-line level, telling department heads that only crucial operations will be recognized.
Once the set operational budget is met, everything left is “We don’t do that anymore.”
Meanwhile, services judged as crucial will remain relatively intact, and more importantly, continue to be functional.
[quote]The other budget alternative I referenced is to eliminate entirely select city services. Tell the citizens, “We don’t do that anymore.” Vested interests will scream, of course, but at least the complaints are compartmentalized instead of city-wide as we see now.
Implementing such a budget strategy is easier for the Council too, if no less painful. The sit down and prioritize what services are critical (not essential or desirable) to city government existence. Then they fund these operations at a base-line level, telling department heads that only crucial operations will be recognized.
Once the set operational budget is met, everything left is “We don’t do that anymore.”
Meanwhile, services judged as crucial will remain relatively intact, and more importantly, continue to be functional.[/quote]
Very thought provoking…
WDF1
“”””””” What would Avatar say to all of this?? “”””””
Same old BLAH , BLAH , BLAH , that David always types !
Avatar: I’d like to hear a good and intelligent argument as to where I am wrong.
David ,
First of all , you need to listen . If you were successful at that, then you maybe could be a fair reporter as you like to put it .
But , we both know how you operate , when you can’t be 100 % sure you talk in circles and half-truths .
So why converse with you when your mind is closed , your world view is negative , and you don’t do anything positive with your blog .
Anybody can yell , but you can’t lead , sorry buddy !
I didn’t think you could do it.
Oh dear, where is Don Shor when we need him ?
Two questions for Avatar ?
1) What did your post have to do with the current subject matter ?
2) Do you really believe that the purpose of a reporter is to lead ? My understanding of the role is to obtain and report information. The purpose of a politician is to lead. I don’t think David sees that as his role, do you ?
medwoman – Not that I really enjoy defending Avatar’s positions, but David has long ago “renounced” being a reporter. He clearly intends to influence, persuade and drive opinion, none of which are the domain of a reporter, and all of which are the domain of an intended “leader”. Surely you don’t really believe that the only way a person can “lead” is by being a politician?
I take a different approach than does David regarding firefighter pay, but we end up in the same place. David argues a socialistic point – “no one who makes that much money should complain, and they should give some of what they make to those who make less”. I don’t buy this argument in the least. However, I do believe there is a very serious problem with firefighter pay. The fundamental problems for Bobby Weist are that his employer is cash strapped and firefighters are grossly overpaid for their skill set and what they contribute. I don’t mean to demean what they do, but the right benchmark for firefighters and policemen is the pay grade and retirement system for the US military. I don’t doubt for a moment that firefighters and policemen are brave, and that periodically that they save lives. But, in no way, do they reasonably compare to the contribution and sacrifice of the full-time members of US military. Therefore, I suggest that the appropriate benchmark for them is the US military pay system. If that system and pay scale were adopted for firefighters and policemen across the country, many of the municipal budget woes would be greatly diminished. Secondly, the proof of my hypothesis is that there are long waiting lists for fire fighter jobs, and this is not a recent phenomenon. Any market sensitive employer would determine that a compensation for a job with a very long waiting list can be decreased. but, because of union influence in elections, the employers are actually working to keep the current job holders “happy” so that they continue to be elected. Unions in government jobs where pay is determined by elected officials is a bad thing, and we will see their power erode in the coming years.
BTW, David, for as much as you wrote about the situation and impact of what the governor of Wisconsin has been doing with respect to public employee unions, I think you owe us your thoughts regarding the Connecticut union vote denying the negotiated budget deal between a democratic governor and union leaders. My guess is that the backlash from Connecticut voters against the unions will be very severe.
To Adam Smith: Very thought provoking commments…