The critical moment of this council occurred on Tuesday night and actually began the previous Tuesday night. You see, on June 14, Mayor Joe Krovoza changed the trajectory of the budget discussions when he put forth an aggressive plan to put money into road infrastructure as well as pensions, while at the same time looking for $2.5 million in savings from personnel costs.
Flash forward to the night of June 28, a freak rain storm cooled the night and the area. Some of the council did blink in the face of those employees. Councilmember Stephen Souza blinked hardest, pandering shamelessly to the employees, clearly hoping that they will back and bankroll his reelection campaign.
Councilmember Sue Greenwald argued that the council needed to do this, but this was not the right time and suggested they wait until the fall.
Holding strong were the three newest councilmembers: Joe Krovoza, Rochelle Swanson and Dan Wolk. This was their first and toughest real test, and they passed it with flying colors.
The new council was elected just over a year ago and sworn just under a year ago. It is easy to forget that their tenure did not start well at all. With Don Saylor still as mayor, he dominated the council for the next six months.
Two things stand out most about the first six months of the new council, like the night of the first meeting when they whipped through item after item with little debate. Mayor Don Saylor would make the trains run on time, but it came at the cost of debate and with it scrutiny. The failure to scrutinize the ZipCar contract would lead to a public relations nightmare and a startling finding that city staff was claiming the contract said one thing, when in fact there was no language in the contract to say that at all – it was merely at most a verbal agreement.
Then, little was done about the budget – the key issue that had gotten Mr. Krovoza and Ms. Swanson elected in the first place. In their one test, the council quietly voted to support the last of the MOUs from last time, a disastrous MOU process which has set up the seemingly draconian cuts of this year.
By that point, many believed that they had been duped, that this council was the same as the last one. But a funny thing happened when Don Saylor left for Woodland – everything changed.
Whether Don Saylor was riding roughshod over the neophyte councilmembers or whether they were simply biding their time, deferring to their more senior member, everything changed on January 3, 2011.
Some have dismissed this new council as being a more civil version of the last council. Indeed, gone is most of the vitriol, vanished the night that Stephen Souza realized he did not have the votes to become Mayor or Mayor Pro Tem.
Interesting that I bring up civility, for as one reader wrote this week, I derided Don Saylor for pushing for civility. Lost somehow in translation is the fact that Don Saylor was derided not because he was pushing for civility, but rather because it was a phony political ploy and too often I had witnessed him, both on and off camera, being anything but civil. He was able to cover up incivility using his soothing and monotonic voice, but he was as ruthless as anyone.
The reality is that, while this council is more than just civil, they are also far from perfect. The water rate issue is one that they inherited and they have taken great strides to make the process much more transparent, to the point where they may in fact end up jeopardizing their own project – which is commendable.
The issue of ConAgra is concerning. The council wants economic development, but needs to recognize that, while ConAgra may not be ideal for a business park, other land is politically infeasible.
As we pointed out yesterday, for several years the severity of the budget has been downplayed. This year was no exception. Even with the new council, the first rounds of the budget failed to incorporate real numbers and it failed to incorporate the express wishes of the new council from both the November and February workshops.
This both angered and frustrated Mayor Joe Krovoza, who pointed out on Tuesday that the council’s wishes were not reflected in the budget. It also angered the Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson, who demanded to see realistic numbers.
Paul Navazio, the finance director who is serving as Interim City Manager, sterilized the budget when he left out critical assumptions. Thus, in the out years of the budget he had a small surplus.
But the budget assumptions were completely unrealistic. They did not account for full funding for roads, despite the intention by the new council to fully fund roads. They assumed a flat rate of salary for employees for the next five years, which is completely unrealistic. They assumed no increase in the pension costs. They assumed no change in health care rates. They assumed no downward revision of the PERS rate of return.
In short, it was a budget that was balanced on paper, much as the state’s is, that failed to incorporate probably about $7 million in likely additional costs. We are talking about 20% of the general fund unaccounted for in the budget.
But this council, unlike the previous council, which was either blind to the reality of the numbers or willing to allow the numbers to provide them with cover to do nothing, saw through the numbers and step by painful step forced the city manager to play ball by their rules, not his own.
This leads us to the next major dilemma, hiring a new city manager. Here is the problem that we face. It is obvious that the new city manager will not be Paul Navazio. I can state that with categorical certainty, even as I cannot get anyone to even let me know if he is officially a candidate.
But if it is not Paul Navazio, the city council has a dilemma. You see, the one area where the city is not overpaying right now is at city manager level. The City of Davis is almost at the bottom, compared to other comparable cities, in terms of compensation. And it is a problem for hiring a new city manager.
Councilmember Sue Greenwald argues that the interview process is inadequate, we cannot know if we have a good city manager on paper, and therefore we are better off paying less money.
While there is something to that position, I still think you have to hire the person that you think is best and that under ideal circumstances you could certainly pay more to get that person.
The current city manager makes just over $150,000 per year. It would not kill our budget to hire the next one at $180,000 or even $200,000.
It would not kill our budget, but it would send the wrong message to the rank and file employees. I argued strongly against hiring Chancellor Linda Katehi at $400,000 for the university at a time when people were being furloughed and laid off.
Hiring the new city manager at a time when you just told employees they have to eat $2.5 million collectively is a huge mistake.
So, while I disagree with the councilmember that we cannot know if we have a good city manager on paper, I agree that we cannot pay them more than we paid Bill Emlen and Paul Navazio.
That puts us in a bind, I know. I would suggest, frankly, doing what we did with the fire department. When Rose Conroy left in a huff, we brought in a retired former Fire Chief from outside to run the department on an interim basis and oversee the merger with UC Davis. This gave us someone without a stake in the department politics to do the job he was hired to do.
So, why not do the same for the city manager? Bring in a retired city manager, give him strict orders on what we want to do in order to right this fiscal ship, and then he can leave in two years. If the economy has turned around and the finances are better, we can then hire someone good at a more competitive price.
Unfortunately, we are hardly done, and if anything the next three months will be more difficult, but the courage of conviction shown by this new council led by Mayor Krovoza and Mayor Pro Tem Swanson is reassuring. Now we need to find a way to get employee concessions so that this does not become a lay off-fest.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Joe Krovoza, Rochelle Swanson and Dan Wolk are to be commended for facing up to the fiscal disaster prior councils and upper management have created by working to realistically solve the problem. Joe and Rochelle are fulfilling their campaign promise to bring fiscal solvency back to the City by dealing with bad budgetary practices, the unfunded liabilities of employee pensions and the years of deferred infrastructure maintenance and accomplishing this during a time of economic recession. Dan has joined with them in this difficult task and thanks to them our City’s future will be better.
[quote]Councilmember Sue Greenwald argued that the council needed to do this, but this was not the right time and suggested they wait until the fall.[/quote]No. Councilmember Sue Greenwald argued that we could only achieve the necessary structural changes during this year’s labor negotiations because council is simply not authorized to make these changes during the current budget year. The only thing we can unilaterally accomplish is layoffs.
Councilmember Greenwald stood firm for the structural changes that we need to get the city budget back on track.
I suspect that even David Greenwald (no relation) will come to understand this by October.
Nice analysis. The “new kids on the block” (Krovoza, Swanson, Wolk) are to be commended for standing firm and making the difficult choices, refusing to “kick the can down the road” anymore. And our city staff/employees need to be given credit for beginning the process of finding creative solutions, e.g. Community Pool closure.
[quote]Whether Don Saylor was riding roughshod over the neophyte councilmembers or whether they were simply biding their time, deferring to their more senior member, everything changed on January 3, 2011.[/quote]
Council members Krovoza and Swanson had only been on the the job for two months at the time, hardly enough time to get their feet wet, so I think a bit of leniency needs to be afforded to them.
[quote]So, why not do the same for the city manager? Bring in a retired city manager, give him strict orders on what we want to do in order to right this fiscal ship, and then he can leave in two years. If the economy has turned around and the finances are better, we can then hire someone good at a more competitive price.[/quote]
I strongly disagree with this statement. “Keeping up with the Jones” is a disastrous way of carrying on fiscal policy. There are plenty of adequate city managers out there to fill the position at the salary level of Bill Emlen. Ramping up the salary is no guarantee of getting someone any more qualified – Supt. David Murphy being a perfect case in point. There will always be some city that will pay more; and there will always be James Hammonds who will take off for greener pastures…
[quote]It is obvious that the new city manager will not be Paul Navazio. I can state that with categorical certainty, even as I cannot get anyone to even let me know if he is officially a candidate.[/quote]How do you know this David? If you can state this with categorical certainty, you know something that I don’t, and that raises concerns.
Sue: I can say this: not one councilmember has even confirmed that Navazio is even in the pool, but I can read between the lines. Just as I can infer from your statement that he is indeed in the pool.
[quote]So, while I disagree with the councilmember that we cannot hire a good city manager, I agree that we cannot pay them more than we paid Bill Emlen and Paul Navazio.[/quote]I never said that “we cannot hire a good city manager”. That is a complete distortion. I said that it is difficult to know what kind of city manager someone would make based on a few hours of interviews.
You are correct, I did not phrase that well.
[quote]Sue: I can say this: not one councilmember has even confirmed that Navazio is even in the pool, but I can read between the lines. — David Greenwald[/quote]You cannot know with certainty. I don’t know with certainty. Anything could happen. We could end the search and reopen it.
This is a closed session item and you can’t know with certainty.
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
… quote from Donald Rumsfield. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns[/url]
One of my all-time favorite Rumsfield-isms.
Personally I can’t think why a retired city manager would be a good hire, unless you are aware of a city that has been managed in such a way that payroll costs are contained and long-term liabilities are accounted for. Maybe they should just extend the interim contract for a year and see if Paul can give satisfactory response to the current council directions.
Elaine
On what are you basing the assertion that “there are plenty of adequate city managers out there to fill the position at the salary level of Bill Emlen” ?
Sacramento was able to enlist the services of a former city manager that was known as a pragmatist and popular with much of the workforce and council ! Whether this will turn out well remains to be seen, but the squabbling among departments seems to have calmed for the moment .
“Bring in a retired city manager, give him strict orders on what we want to do in order to right this fiscal ship, and then he can leave in two years. If the economy has turned around and the finances are better, we can then hire someone good at a more competitive price.”
David-You want a retired city manager who, guided by the collective wisdom of the council majority, kow-tows to them, but is the terminator with employee groups, willing to accept a two-year limited term, in which he/she is expected to correct the errors of a decade or more and do it all on the cheap ? Good luck with that . I would be more than a little suspicious of the motives of candidates for such a job .
[quote]Councilmember Stephen Souza blinked hardest, pandering shamelessly to the employees, clearly hoping that they will back and bankroll his reelection campaign.[/quote]
Unless there is some evidence to support this statement, I think it goes over the line and is unfair. Souza, like other members of the council, did take firefighter union money, and did support the fire department. It could be true that Souza is pandering to the city workers, but it could also be true that he is genuinely concerned about their fates. In the lack of evidence, we owe him an assumption of the latter.
Don – Suppose that your first standard of a city manager’s job performance is how little he is willing to be paid, and that your second standard is that he always promises everything that angry taxpayers and ratepayers demand. Then a retired former city manager could be a great choice. An even better choice would be a retired former city manager, with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
[quote]On what are you basing the assertion that “there are plenty of adequate city managers out there to fill the position at the salary level of Bill Emlen” ?[/quote]
In this job market, I’m sure we would have no trouble finding one… and as I noted, paying more does not in any way guarantee better quality…