One thing that becomes clear this week – a surprisingly tumultuous week given that it was the first week of August and council has now begun their month-long vacation – is that anyone who believes that things are going to get better needs to take some time to re-assess.
Within that context, the City of Davis, which has asked its employees to take a $2.5 million pay cut, is paying its new city manager at least $44,000 more than the predecessor, Bill Emlen, received.
If all things were equal, my reaction would be to find the best guy you can find, and pay him or her what it takes to get here. The City Manager is the most powerful job in the city. And it is not even close.
The council has the power to hire and fire the city manager and city attorney. That’s it. The city manager gets to hire and fire every other employee on the city payroll. He has the power to restructure departments, the power to implement the type of change that this council has been pushing.
But a city manager is actually a good deal more powerful than that. Because of the Brown Act, the city manager can control the flow of information. One thing I realized this week was how much that is true.
You see, under the rules of the Brown Act, a city councilmember can only speak to one other councilmember on a given issue. There are good reasons for that, because it prevents private deals from being cut – at least legally – behind the scenes.
But the city manager can speak to all councilmembers and because they cannot compare notes, he can tell them different things. What became clear is that, during the budget discussions, different councilmembers were told different things about the budget and the nature of cuts. They could not compare notes and they could not ensure that the city manager told them all the same thing.
I bring this point up to illustrate just how powerful a position the city manager actually is.
This city manager seems to be a decent- to good- hire. He has a good track record. He seems personable. But you never know until the person sist down at his or her position and begins to work just how good a fit a particular hire is.
The question is whether or not we could have paid less and gotten a comparable city manager. It is a critical question, because I really believe the raise that the city manager position got, and the raise Mr. Pinkerton himself got over his previous job will represent a problem.
In budget terms, $44,000 is not a tremendous amount. As others have brought up, a good city manager could ostensibly save the city millions, and $44,000 would be a drop in that bucket.
But we are not writing this number on a chalkboard and pushing numbers around the room, we are instead asking real people to take real pay cuts. And we are hoping that they will come to the bargaining table and take concessions before September 30 when we have to cut $2.5 million.
That $2.5 million number is the real reason that we should not have paid the new city manager that much more than the previous one. We are asking employees to sacrifice their earnings to make the city budget more manageable.
The reality is that we have no choice but to cut the budget, given the flat line revenues and increased costs for retirement. We have no choice. Projections are that we would have to pay $7 million more for retiree pensions and retiree health by 2015.
The city budget is such that 80% of the budget goes to pay for employee costs and a lot of the remaining 20% is the support payments for programs that are staffed by employees. In other words, it would be difficult to cut that 20% without also laying off staff.
So the reality is that we will have to cut this spending. The only real question among the five members of council was when and how.
I think we need honest discussions here. At least $7 million and probably a whole lot more will be cut between now and 2015. That means there will have to major concessions in the bargaining process. It means restructuring city government. And it means layoffs.
I have gone over the numbers many, many times, and the problem that put us into this bind was the structure of the firefighters’ contract. The average salary of the average firefighter went from around $50,000 in the year 2000 to now being between $80,000 and $100,000. Along with that, pensions went up to a 3% at 50 formula, of which we are paying a higher percentage of, at a higher rate.
From 2005 to 2008, firefighters got a 38% pay increase, police got a 20% pay increase over that period, and no other labor group got more than a 15% pay increase over that period of time.
In 2006, miscellaneous employees saw their pensions increase to 2.5% at 55.
People are getting a higher rate of pensions and retiring earlier. That was all driven by the firefighter contracts.
We were able sustain that level of increase in two ways.
First, we passed a half-cent sales tax, which essentially the council handed to the firefighters. The increase was supposed to help buffer us against state cuts to city funding, but instead it went entirely to support a 38% increase to a group of people that donated tens of thousands to the council majority.
Second, we stayed in the black because we experienced double-digit increases in property tax revenue each year, where our property tax revenue increased dramatically during the bubble.
But, once the bubble broke, the city had no ability to meet current salaries. We promised to pay millions to retirees in health care that we had not budgeted into past budgets, meaning we must now pay future money to fund past obligations.
And when CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System) lost huge amounts of money in their investments, the cost of pensions went up.
We have had flat revenue now for four budgets, but costs are about to dramatically increase. We have to pay for it somehow.
The city manager hire is absolutely critical to finding a way to pay all of our obligations, without huge cuts to city services or tax increases.
There has been a suggestion that we could have paid a lot less to the current city manager than we did. I do not necessarily buy into that. First, we have a pay structure in the city, and putting the city manager at a lower pay rate than the deputy city manager, the finance director, public works director, police and fire chiefs, etc., I think would have been untenable and unsustainable.
Second, we are at the lower end of the scale, as it is, for cities.
Third, you are asking the city manager to do a lot and fix our problems.
So, I understand why the council did what they did. The problem that they now face is convincing the city employees that all of the numbers I just laid out, and more, are true and that the city’s budget stability is in peril.
That is a tough sell. They have apparently, according to my sources, been sold a bill of goods that first, the crisis is not real and second, that the council is going to back off the budget that they passed.
Neither of which is true, but unfortunately council paying the new city manager $44,000 more is just more evidence to the average employee that they are being lied to by the council and city staff.
If Steve Pinkerton wants to make a splash, perhaps the first act that he should do is to immediately take a huge pay cut and ask that other department heads and managers do the same.
As I said many times, looking at the numbers, understanding where dead wood is, I believe we can easily cut $2.5 million without harming a single employee who makes less than $100,000 a year. But it is going to take real leadership from the employees, as well as the new city manager, to make that happen.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]If Steve Pinkerton wants to make a splash, perhaps the first act that he should do is to immediately take a huge pay cut and ask that other department heads and managers do the same.
[/quote]
This would be a great gesture though it may be asking a lot…
“They have apparently according to my sources, been sold a bill of goods that first, the crisis is not real and second, that the council is going to back off the budget that they passed.”
Can you elaborate David? Who has told the employs this, what employees, and why?
[quote]I believe we can easily cut $2.5 million without harming a single employee who makes less than $100,000 a year.[/quote]
$100k seems a bit high to place the “no pain” cutoff. I’d try putting the adjustment floor much lower — maybe around $50k FTE — then establish a sliding scale from 0% at the floor to whatever it takes at the top to achieve the necessary reduction, and see if that looks realistic.
Which begs the question: is there an easily-accessible source for city salary data that would enable citizens to assess the impact and distribution of proposed salary cuts?
[quote]There has been a suggestion that we could have paid a lot less to the current city manager than we did. I do not necessarily buy into that. First, we have a pay structure in the city, and putting the city manager at a lower pay rate than the deputy city manager, the finance director, public works director, police and fire chiefs, etc., I think would have been untenable and unsustainable.
Second, we are at the lower end of the scale, as it is, for cities.
Third, you are asking the city manager to do a lot and fix our problems.[/quote]
[quote]So, I understand why the council did what they did. The problem that they now face is convincing the city employees that all of the numbers I just laid out, and more, are true and that the city’s budget stability is in peril.
That is a tough sell. They have apparently, according to my sources, been sold a bill of goods that first, the crisis is not real and second, that the council is going to back off the budget that they passed.
Neither of which is true, but unfortunately council paying the new city manager $44,000 more is just more evidence to the average employee that they are being lied to by the council and city staff.[/quote]
You cannot have it both ways. Either the city SHOULD or SHOULD NOT have paid Pinkerton the extra $44,000 over what former City Mgr Bill Emlen was paid. In my book, the City Council has set the wrong tone for upcoming budget negotiations with city employees by continuing the “keeping up with the Jones mentality” for the City Manager position. But the City Counicl will then turn around and ask for “shared sacrifice” from its City Employees by way of pay cuts. The City Council cannot have it both ways either…
My hope is that City Staff has been working feverishly behind the scenes to reorganize, reconfigure, or whatever else it needs to do to creatively figure out a way to reduce the number of layoffs that will inevitably have to occur. More layoffs just contributes to the downward spiral of the recession, bc those laid off cannot contribute taxes, which means less tax revenue coming in, and on and on it goes. There are very, very tough times ahead, no matter how much “spin” is put on the current dire situation…
There are two approaches to hiring a leader to extract cuts from the budget:
Hire him for less and let him lead by example.
Hire him for more and turn the screws on everyone else.
While the first is preferable I think it is clear that the second is the way the council chose.
“As I said many times, looking at the numbers, understanding where dead wood is, I believe we can easily cut $2.5 million without harming a single employee who makes less than $100,000 a year. But it is going to take real leadership from the employees, as well as the new city manager, to make that happen.”
The numbers may be right, but the guy’s steering the boats all make 100k+ . What invariably happens is that positions in park and street sign maintenance,etc. are cut, remaining employees are required to perform the same duties with reduced staff and furlough days, shockingly, they fail, their positions are eliminated and lucrative contracts are given to family and buddies of management . I’ve seen it happen three times in Sacramento in the last 30 years ! Each time, the city has taken back the maintenance, hiring more new employees to replace the old ones . Each time, some columnists and bloggers point out the cut from the top option, but I’ve never seen it applied !
@ Jim Frame:
Here is the basic salary data:
[url]http://agency.governmentjobs.com/davis/default.cfm?action=agencyspecs[/url]
Based on a number of comments raised during the last year or so, I’m curious…
Would y’all support the following as what the employees should accept or have imposed…
no city employee except City Manager be paid over 100k per year; [b]and[/b],
all city employees go to 2% @ 60; [b]and[/b],
all non-safety employees pay the 8% PERS employee contribution; [b]and[/b],
there be no city contribution for retiree medical until the employee is 65 years of age (and, hence covered by Medicare, except for some employees who were hired 25+ years ago and who are ineligible).
May take legislation to achieve all of the above for current employees, but should we be strongly pursuing all/some of these?
If so, I could envision a lot of employees asking, “y’all want fries with that?”
Forgot one… no COLA’;s for the next 3-5 years.
[quote]Second, we are at the lower end of the scale, as it is, for cities.
[/quote]
I don’t doubt this at all, however I’m inclined to believe that this is probably not just limited to the CM position but could also be applied to a number of other positions within the city as well, especially at the lower end.
[quote]As I said many times, looking at the numbers, understanding where dead wood is, I believe we can easily cut $2.5 million without harming a single employee who makes less than $100,000 a year. But it is going to take real leadership from the employees, as well as the new city manager, to make that happen.[/quote]
Only time will tell if this is the course taken. But should history repeat itself, the lower level employees will probably be hit the same as the higher level, or possibly even have to bear the brunt of the blow.
[i]”If Steve Pinkerton wants to make a splash, perhaps the first act that he should do is to immediately take a huge pay cut and ask that other department heads and managers do the same.”[/i]
In a sense, Mr. Pinkerton already did this when he agreed to my reform in his contract. While the City will pay 6% of the 8% “employee share” which funds his pension until June 30, 2012, Mr. Pinkerton will begin paying his full 8% employee share beginning on July 1, 2012. Out of his pocket, that will be a cut in compensation of $11,280 per year. He will lose this amount every year going forward, as long as his base salary stays at $188,000.
If at some point after 3 years he gets a raise to $200,000, the Rifkin Reform will cost Pinkerton $12,000 a year more than it would have if he had continued to pay the original 2% for employee share.
By agreeing to this change, Mr. Pinkerton is setting a very good example for all miscellaneous employees. They need to pay the full employee share. Most of them have never paid anything to fund their pensions. All safety employees (cops and fire) pay their full employee share.
On $100 million in base salary, the Rifkin Reform represents an annual savings to the City of $6 million. Pinkerton’s first “gesture” should be worth 136 times as much as the $44,000 extra he is costing taxpayers in total comp in his first year.
[i]”Either the city SHOULD or SHOULD NOT have paid Pinkerton the extra $44,000 over what former City Mgr Bill Emlen was paid.”[/i]
A pedantic quibble: What someone is “paid” is not the same as what his “total comp” is. They are close, but not the same.
Part of the reason Pinkerton’s total comp his first year will be higher than Emlen’s was in 2009 (the year the CC used to make the comparison) is because the pension funding rates have gone up. Certainly, pension funding is compensation. Down the road it will be cash in the pensioner’s pocket. However, CalPERS charged lower rates in 2009 than they charge today.
Also, the rates charged for the cafeteria have gone up by roughly $2,500. That is $2,500 more in total comp, but not $2,500 more in “pay.”
For those reasons, even if Pinkerton were paid the same salary as Emlen, his total comp would be higher.
[quote]There are two approaches to hiring a leader to extract cuts from the budget:
Hire him for less and let him lead by example.
Hire him for more and turn the screws on everyone else.
While the first is preferable I think it is clear that the second is the way the council chose. [/quote]
I agree completely. I believe the council’s choice for city manager makes their intentions very clear.
DG: [i]”I believe we can easily cut $2.5 million without harming a single employee who makes less than $100,000 a year.”[/i]
What do you mean by $100,000? Do you mean base salary? Do you mean salary plus cash-outs? Do you mean salary + cafeteria + cash-outs? Do you mean total comp? For total comp, do you include the $16,000 a year or so in unfunded retiree medical?
A substantial percentage of City employees whose base salary is under $100,000 per year make a total comp way over $100,000 per year. The cafeteria benefit costs $18,000 for all FT employees (save firefighters, who cost even more!). Pension funding costs for non-safety are another 26 percent of salary and rising! For safety it costs 34.907% this year (9% of which is paid for by the employee). So on a salary of $94,000, the taxpayers pay an extra $24,352.58 just to fund the pension. (The employee pays $8,460.)
A lot of people who work for the City whose annual salary (without a furlough) is say $90,000 will have cash-outs for unused medical, unsued vacation, and other unused leave which will boost their taxable income to over $115,000. Some (mostly fire personnel) also make a lot of money in overtime. (Every firefighter and fire captain is guaranteed a minimum of 12 hours of OT every duty cycle.)
[quote]A lot of people who work for the City whose annual salary (without a furlough) is say $90,000 will have cash-outs for unused medical, unsued vacation, and other unused leave which will boost their taxable income to over $115,000.[/quote]
Do you have statistics to back this claim? You say a lot will have cash-outs but again, “a lot” is just too genericized of a term for me. Please show me your numbers. With regards specifically to the number of people employees who will have cash-outs (and not take the leave or benefit), exactly how many is “a lot”?
[i]”no COLA’;s for the next 3-5 years.”[/i]
The City needs to get away from this union notion of COLAs. No one in the private sector (in competitive industries) gets a COLA. No one who works for the City of Davis should ever get a COLA.
Instead, the City needs to increase employee pay on the basis of how much its revenues have grown. If the taxes collected increase by 4%, then total comp to the workers can increase by that amount. If the City’s revenues do not increase at all one year, then total comp cannot increase.
A major reason we are in the pickle we are today is because we have written long term contracts (4 years usually) which locked us into pay and benefits increases without knowing if we had the money for them.
I concede that there are a few city jobs which may need to pay an increase in total comp more than the rate the revenues to the city have gone up. But those jobs are very few. For most, unless we want to decimate city services–that is, close rec programs, swimming pools, not maintain streets or sidewalks, not repair buildings, not trim trees or mow lawns or clean weeds in parks and so on–we have to stop ever having a COLA written into a contract ever again.
[i]”You say a lot will have cash-outs but again, “a lot” is just too genericized of a term for me. Please show me your numbers.”[/i]
If you send me your email address, I can send you a spreadsheet of the medical cashouts for all employees in January of this year which was prepared for me by the city staff.
Mr Toad and Sequoia,
I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.
First, “Hire him for less and let him lead by example” This strategy would depend upon the complete reasonableness and good will of city workers at all levels. While that may be the case, I suspect not from the background of how we got into this economic mess in the first place, at least as represented by many of the contributors to this blog.
Second, “Hire him for more and put the screws on everyone else”
This makes the opposite of the above rosy assumption and portrays the council members as completely lacking in a sense of equity and fairness.
I doubt that either of these stereotypical views portrays the intent of our city council. I would like to think that they are capable of a more nuanced view of the situation. There is certainly a middle ground where Mr. Pinkerton is perceived as already having led the way by his acceptance of the modification of the contract as pointed out by Rich. Hopefully, city employees will demonstrate a realistic view of the current situation and will come up with their own compromises and creative solutions to help mitigate the current situation. And hopefully, if they do come up with sound alternatives to layoffs, the city leadership will be responsive to their suggestions.
[quote]Instead, the City needs to increase employee pay on the basis of how much its revenues have grown. If the taxes collected increase by 4%, then total comp to the workers [b]can[/b] increase by that amount.[/quote]Not meaning to put words in your mouth, but I assume you mean that under no circumstances should total comp increases exceed the revenue increases (as you clearly say), but in the event that revenues increase that does not obligate the city to cover total comp. As an example, if revenues increase 1%, and all the employee and employer contributions to retirement, medical, dental, etc. exceed 1%, the employees need to absorb those costs. By the same token if revenues increase by 8% in any given year, and increases to retirement, medical, etc. are LESS than that, there should be no expectation for any salary increases.
Another possible corollary is that there should be no merit promotions, nor merit increases unless the aggregated total of increased employee costs fit under the revenue increase cap. Under current practice, an employee hired at the lowest step of a 5 step classification would expect ~ 5% merit increase per year. One way of interpreting your proposal is that there should be no merit increases unless an equal $ savings in personnel costs is achieved elsewhere in a given year.
[quote]If you send me your email address, I can send you a spreadsheet of the medical cashouts for all employees in January of this year which was prepared for me by the city staff.
[/quote]
No thanks. I’d just prefer the totals. Also, you have always been a strong proponent of eliminating the whole cash-out policy as if to suggest that doing so will translate into a 100% savings of the money currently spent for cash-outs, as if those employees currently receiving any sort of cash out would simply elect to surrender the benefit. I would argue otherwise. I think “a lot” of the employees would choose to take the benefit and the time off. I know that if I were receiving medical or leave cash-out my employer told me I could either take the benefit or get nothing – I would take the benefit and take the leave. What would you do?
[quote]No one in the private sector (in competitive industries) gets a COLA. No one who works for the City of Davis should ever get a COLA.
[/quote]
Again, using the term “no one” makes this statement an absolute. I would be astounded if you could actually provide conclusive evidence to this effect. I know for a fact that you can’t because I know for a fact it is wrong. Where i work (which is non-union), we received a 2% COLA a while back. Granted for me it amounted to only about 25 cents more an hour but it was a COLA nonetheless.
[i]”I assume you mean that under no circumstances should total comp increases exceed the revenue increases (as you clearly say) …”[/i]
If total labor cost increases are in excess of revenue growth, that most likely* means we will have to cut services or cut workers and outsource their jobs.
*Keep in mind that labor costs are not the City’s only costs. As such, if things like bond revenue financing goes down or capital costs fall or supplies become cheaper, then those savings can be plowed into labor costs above revenue growth without reducing services. But in general, since labor is 80% of the general fund and 70% of the total budget, it is unlikely we can raise total comp faster than total revenues without reducing services.
[i]”… if revenues increase 1%, and all the [s]employee and[/s] employer contributions to retirement, medical, dental, etc. exceed 1%, the employees [s]need to absorb those costs[/s] cannot get a pay raise that year.”[/i]
Fixed.
[i]”By the same token if revenues increase by 8% in any given year, and increases to retirement, medical, etc. are LESS than that, there should be no expectation for any salary increases.”[/i]
No. This is wrong. Salaries would rise in that instance.
One thing I would change from what you stated was “in any given year.” It makes more sense to me to average a few years so you even out the changes. In other words, the increases in total comp for 2012-13 should be based on the average annual increases in revenues to the city from 2008-09 to 2011-12.
[i]”One way of interpreting your proposal is that there should be no merit increases unless an equal $ savings in personnel costs is achieved elsewhere in a given year.”[/i]
Yes, unless the cost savings can be found elsewhere in the City’s expenses. Otherwise we face the same problem: costs go up faster than the City can afford, and services get cut. It’s not like giving someone a merit raise increases the size of the pie.
[i]” you have always been a strong proponent of eliminating the whole cash-out policy as if to suggest that doing so will translate into a 100% savings of the money currently spent for cash-outs, as if those employees currently receiving any sort of cash out would simply elect to surrender the benefit.”[/i]
This is false. You have me confused with someone else.
Rifkin… thank you for your clarification of your perspective.
Rifkin (or any others who wish to comment)… from your perspective, should we be pursuing the same strategies, for other government entities, including DJUSD?
HP: For the DJUSD, I advocated this same sort of approach a number of years ago. That is, I thought it made more sense to reduce salaries across the board by 4% than it did to fire those with the least seniority and hold salaries steady. I think The Vanguard expressed this same opinion.
What happened was the DTA opposed the cut in pay–understandable. I have never said or thought that good teachers are paid enough money as it is–and those lowest on the totem pole got the axe.
Yolo County is also running up against these same issues. They have been greatly reducing services in order to not control the costs of total compensation. They also seem to have a lot of top-heavy administration in some departments.
The ideas that David Greenwald and Joe Krovoza are pushing right now–to make some cuts at the top of the city’s administration–probably are even more pertinent to Yolo County.
My own view is that, as much as possible*, we should try to save people’s jobs, to spread the pain.
*The one exception to this that I believe in is with regard to fire department staffing. Either in one fell swoop or a little bit at a time, we need to go back to our old model of 3 men on a truck. That means eliminating 9 jobs. I would hope we could afford to do that through attrition or maybe some greenmail. I am not sure if that is any longer possible. The overstaffing is costing us about $1.4 million per year.
[quote]You cannot have it both ways. Either the city SHOULD or SHOULD NOT have paid Pinkerton the extra $44,000 over what former City Mgr Bill Emlen was paid.[/quote]
On the contrary, I don’t think this is a simple black and white issue. I think there are considerable nuances and shades of gray. And the tension I have presented is the back and forth I have experienced in my own mind. In some sense, the final verdict will depend on how things play out in the future.
[quote]”They have apparently according to my sources, been sold a bill of goods that first, the crisis is not real and second, that the council is going to back off the budget that they passed.”
Can you elaborate David? Who has told the employs this, what employees, and why? [/quote]
Yes please do. Forgive me for saying so but “my sources” is just too generalized. Would this source be a city staff person, high level, low level, etc.? I can understand the need to protect your sources but I believe you can elaborate a little more and still maintain their confidentiality. For all we know “my sources” could include Joe Sherman – I say that jokingly of course. But I think a little more elaboration regarding the validity of the source gives more weight to the statement. Also, as SODA points out a little more elaboration on the statement would not hurt either.
[quote]There has been a suggestion that we could have paid a lot less to the current city manager than we did. I do not necessarily buy into that. First, we have a pay structure in the city, and putting the city manager at a lower pay rate than the deputy city manager, the finance director, public works director, police and fire chiefs, etc., I think would have been untenable and unsustainable.– David Greenwald[/quote]David, this makes no sense at all and is inaccurate. If the City Manager’s compensation had been equal to our last City Managers’ compensation, it would have been $30 to $40,000 less.
And it still would have been higher than the compensations of positions under it.
[quote]Part of the reason Pinkerton’s total comp his first year will be higher than Emlen’s was in 2009 (the year the CC used to make the comparison) is because the pension funding rates have gone up. Certainly, pension funding is compensation. Down the road it will be cash in the pensioner’s pocket. However, CalPERS charged lower rates in 2009 than they charge today.–Rich Rifkin[/quote]It’s a small part of the reason, Rich. While the new city manager’s total compensation was over $40,000 more than Bill Emlen’s, it was also $30,000 more than the amount we budgeted for the city manager position. Presumably, the difference between the over $40,000 difference in total compensation and the $30,000 additional over the amount budgeted this year for the City Manager position accounts for these increases.
[quote]This is false. You have me confused with someone else.
[/quote]
Wait a minute, aren’t you Rich Rifkin? If so, isn’t this a statement from your last Enterprise column?
[quote]…and we should no longer allow any cash-outs for any unused time off.[/quote]
[quote]Third, you are asking the city manager to do a lot and fix our problems.– David Greenwald[/quote]That is an terribly elitistly phrased comment. We are asking teachers to “do a lot” and to fix a lot of problems, and we are asking employees who go out in the middle of the night to climb down into our waste water treatment plant to fix an emergency with an already skeletal staff to do a lot and to fix very difficult problems. Yet they are not paid $188,000 a year, and we are not increasing their pay by tens of thousands of dollars over last years pay for the position.
David, you maintain inconsistent positions. You carry the torch for cutting $2.5 million from the budget in labor costs by Sept. 20, give lip service to protecting the lower paid workers, but illustrate a psychological identity and sympathy only with the very highly compensated CEO, of whom we are “asking a lot”.
You refer dismissively to “dead wood” who you can identify, when in fact we have an extraordinarily lean staff for the most part and the “dead wood” are people whose livelihoods are at stake. (And we have also have legal seniority issues to deal with when it comes to lay-offs — we can’t just pick and choose people you identify as “dead wood”).
Of course we can always find some ways to reduce positions, and we will have to do so, unfortunately. But I find an inconsistent message regarding whether we will balance or budget using methods that are elitist and ruthless, or progressive-minded and compassionate and, in my value system, fair.
Don Shor:
Thanks for the link to city salaries. Unfortunately, it’s too general to be of much use in determining how one might structure cuts to attain a desired net reduction. Somewhere there’s a list of actual salaries (not just ranges) that are currently being paid (not just “might be paid” if the position were to be filled). That’s the list I’d want to start with.
Of course, those salaries would be distributed among various bargaining units, so it wouldn’t be as simple as calculating numbers and saying “this is what we cut.” However, making that calculation would give the city a rational basis for negotiating salary reductions.
“David, you maintain inconsistent positions. You carry the torch for cutting $2.5 million from the budget in labor costs by Sept. 20, give lip service to protecting the lower paid workers, but illustrate a psychological identity and sympathy only with the very highly compensated CEO, of whom we are “asking a lot”.”
Actually you are misreading me, I never took an ultimate position on whether it was a good move or not. I simply laid out some reasons why it could be a good move and why it could be a bad move.
[i]Somewhere there’s a list of actual salaries (not just ranges) that are currently being paid[/i]
If there is, and someone wants to send it to me, I’ll be happy to host it on my server and post a link.
I have the actual list but it’s not in a form I can post.
SEQ: “you have [b]always[/b] been a strong proponent of eliminating the whole cash-out policy …”
RIF: [i]”This is false. You have me confused with someone else.”[/i]
SEQ: [i]”Wait a minute, aren’t you Rich Rifkin? If so, isn’t this a statement from your last Enterprise column? “… and we should no longer allow any cash-outs for any unused time off.”[/i]
That is not a statement from my last column. It is a comment made in the online discussion. It appears nowhere in my column.
Second, your conclusion does not follow from that one fragmentary comment which you take out of context. I stand by my statement: I am not someone who has “always been a strong proponent of eliminating the whole cash-out policy.”
When I recently learned (from a mid-level employee in the city’s finance dept.) that those who qualify for management leave almost all cash it out entirely, it made me change my mind, that we should get rid of the benefit if it is not being used for the purpose it was intended.
I am not inherently against giving a benefit to managers who don’t get overtime but otherwise must work more than 40 hours a week due to late meetings. I am simply against a fraud: that they need more time off. When they all cash this out, it suggests they just want more money. I’d rather give them a higher paycheck, if some of them are in fact overpaid.
Second, I have long thought the city gives too much time for vacation leave for senior employees. The vacation schedule, esp. when seen with the 14.5 days of paid holidays, is too much.
I have also been told (by my source in finance) that most people with the city 15 or more years cash out vacation time each year. I think we should cap paid vacation days at a lower number–today the max is 28 days. That is more than five and half weeks. I think 20 is more reasonable, esp. if those who get the higher amounts are simply using that for a cash out.
As to medical cash-outs, I have not “always been a strong proponent of eliminating the whole cash-out policy.” Just the opposite. Those who read this blog know that I have, until very recently, always been a strong defender of letting the employees take that benefit however they want: as cash, the way Bill Emlen did when he was CM; or as medical premiums, the way I am told Steve Pinkerton will take the benefit.
The reason I defended medical cash-outs, up until recently, is because they treated employees the same from the payer’s perspective. Whatever choice the employee made did not increase the cost to the City.
However, my view is now slightly different on medical cash-outs, because of a change made in the latest contracts which has changed the picture. (I should note that I was unaware of this change until a month and a half ago, though the changes are more than 1 year old. My bad for forgetting or missing this when I read the new contracts.)
The way the contracts now work, new hires (since January, 2010 for most labor groups* and since August, 2010 for cops) can no longer take a cash-out if they get their medical coverage through the City; and if they get their insurance through their spouses, the new hires can cash-out no more than $500/mo (or $6,000 per year).
I am fine with this reform. It’s a smart idea. But it changed the picture in my mind. I think all employees, regardless of when they were hired, should have this same cap on medical cash-outs. That puts everyone doing the same job from a total comp perspective on equal footing. It does not make sense to me, if we can avoid it, to give one guy who takes a $6,000 medical plan another $11,000 in cash-out; but at the same time give a new worker who does the same job the same medical plan but not give him any cash-out. This is a question of fundamental unfairness in my view.
Jim Frame: this is a bit out of date, but here is the Controller’s information for Davis ([url]http://lgcr.sco.ca.gov/CompensationDetail.aspx?entity=City&id=11985724000&year=2009&GetCsu=False[/url]). I hope that helps you. You can also submit a public records request with the city clerk if you want more details.
CORRECTION: [i]” I’d rather give them a higher paycheck, if some of them are in fact [b]underpaid[/b] [s]overpaid[/s] … due to working long hours.”[/i]
Sorry for this error. It originally said the opposite of what I intended. My bad.
[quote]I have the actual list but it’s not in a form I can post. [/quote]
Is that because it’s confidential, or because of formatting? Is it something you can send via email?
History (my first love, but couldn’t find a way to pay for groceries with that ‘major’)…. misc. employees got their contributions for PERS in-lieu of salary increases… as did public safety…. the latter got salary increases equal or above the employee rate when they started to pay for the employee ‘share’… actually, wise, because they paid income tax on their portion, but in retirement they won’t pay taxes for their contributions… it appears that in 5-10 years, tax [b]rates[/b] will increase… if misc. employees were offered an 8% salary increase AND they had to pay the 8% employee share of PERS, most would be fools not to accept that…. but it looks like they will get 0% salary increases, AND be asked to pay the 8%. Fair? that is for others to decide… look at David’s #’s between public safety increases vs. misc. Guess where the public stands on PS vs. Misc. compensation…
[quote]erm: You cannot have it both ways. Either the city SHOULD or SHOULD NOT have paid Pinkerton the extra $44,000 over what former City Mgr Bill Emlen was paid.
dmg: On the contrary, I don’t think this is a simple black and white issue. I think there are considerable nuances and shades of gray. And the tension I have presented is the back and forth I have experienced in my own mind. In some sense, the final verdict will depend on how things play out in the future.[/quote]
For me, the issue is not “nuanced”, and is very black and white. It will be difficult if not nearly impossible to ask city employees to take a pay cut, if the new City Mgr is receiving over a $40,000 increase from the former City Mgr. That $44,000 could have saved an entire City position. I agree w Council member Sue Greenwald, here. I see your “position” as being very inconsistent… we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one 🙂
I would also add, a “keeping up with the Jones” mentality is what got us into this mess in the first place…
[i]”History (my first love, but couldn’t find a way to pay for groceries with that ‘major’) ….”[/i]
A lot of history majors get jobs working as historical consultants. When an old building is proposed to be torn down or local government wants research done on its inventory of historical or possibly historical properties, they hire historical consultants, who can make godd money writing reports. Also, the state of California employs histoy majors in the Office of Historical Preservation.
On the Davis Historical Resource Commission, where we are paid nothing and all volunteers, our chairman, Rand Herbert, and vice chairman work as historical consultants, though the latter, Mark Beason, is now working for OHP. As a city, we are terribly lucky to have these guys volunteering their time. They are our commission’s most valuable contributors by a long shot. (We have also been blessed to have a number of excellent architects whose input is highly valued.)
I should add one thing about those historical reports: most of the time it is the developer proposing a project who pays the fees for them. It is not usually the government entity. Yet it is state law, CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) which requires these reports. The idea is that our collective history, embedded in some old buildings, is a common good like clean air. As such, a CEQA test tries to show how a project will or will not harm our common good; and if it does cause harm, how the harm can be mitigated or reduced.
Rich… a test… can you guess (or know) when Davis first passed a “dark sky” ordinance?
HP: It was when Julie Partansky was on the council. I know it was her initiative. I would guess that was roughly 1999. I am pretty sure it was before 2000.
I thought it was a bit nutty at the time. However, it really cost us no money. And it is defensible in the sense that it benefits no one to point lights up into the sky. So I am perfectly okay with it.
I always thought Julie’s most interesting idea, one which never got anywhere, was to plant more fruit and nut trees in our parks and greenbelts, “so the homeless can graze on them.” I know of a handful of fig trees and a few pomegranite trees planted on public spaces. I have never picked fruit from any of them, but I have seen others doing so–well before the fruit is ripe for picking. That anecdotal evidence suggests to me that more fruit trees–which in many cases take more maintenance–is not such a good idea. They suffer from the tragedy of the commons.
My subsequent alternative to the Partansky Plan, the Rifkin Rectitude, would be to plant fruit and nut orchards on publicly owned lands which are now fallow. I am thinking of a couple of large lots on E. 5th Street in Mace Ranch and the Grande School site. There are probably others. Maybe some well off land owners, such as the owner of the empty Mace Curve lot or others like it, would volunteer their land for this purpose*.
I would also imagine that church groups, such as the gleaners, could manage the orchards, watering, weeding, pruning and picking. Then when the trees bear fruit, that produce could be given to the community meals program for the poor; or if there is too much at any one given time, it could be sold at the Davis Farmers’ Market and the cash raised could go to the programs for the poor, such as the homeless shelter.
Once those fallow lands get approved to be developed, the orchards could be mowed down and mulched up.
*I bet they would get a tax write off and not have to do anything for it.
“I see your “position” as being very inconsistent… “
I don’t have a position. I agree with you that it could be a problem trying to work with the employees, but I also see an upside to the contract if the guy really is that good. It will depend on the latter how this goes.
Rich… the first “dark sky” ordinance was adopted by the Davis City Council in early 1942… it was in response to the fear that Japan was about to start bombing west coast cities. Today’s history trivia.
[quote]Rich… the first “dark sky” ordinance was adopted by the Davis City Council in early 1942… it was in response to the fear that Japan was about to start bombing west coast cities. Today’s history trivia.[/quote]
LOL
[quote]erm: “I see your “position” as being very inconsistent… ”
dmg: I don’t have a position. I agree with you that it could be a problem trying to work with the employees, but I also see an upside to the contract if the guy really is that good. It will depend on the latter how this goes.[/quote]
Your exact words, which does not sound like you “don’t have a position”:
[quote]If all things were equal, my reaction would be to find the best guy you can find, and pay him or her what it takes to get here. The City Manager is the most powerful job in the city. [/quote]
But you are overlooking the “if all things were equal” qualifier and then used the verb tense “would be” rather than “is”, which means if we didn’t have an issue with employee perception and bargaining concerns. That reflects the fact as I said elsewhere that the amount of increase is not going to break or make the budget. But the political considerations are very strong and why I couched that term with “if all things were equal”
[quote]But you are overlooking the “if all things were equal” qualifier and then used the verb tense “would be” rather than “is”, which means if we didn’t have an issue with employee perception and bargaining concerns. That reflects the fact as I said elsewhere that the amount of increase is not going to break or make the budget. But the political considerations are very strong and why I couched that term with “if all things were equal”[/quote]
Perhaps you need to be “clearer” when taking “nuanced” positions!