When I first started doing this five years ago, I used to worry about not having anything to report or comment on. What I have found in the five years since is that, while there are quieter times and more busy times, there is never really a period of time in Davis when nothing is going on.
However, with August’s break, the flow of city news does tend to slow down temporarily. The unique thing about this year is that right after the council gets back from their break in early September, the city has major issues to consider and a looming deadline of September 30, by which time it has committed to finding $2.5 million in cuts to personnel costs.
We are reminded of this quiet and ticking time bomb by a letter to the editor of the Enterprise a few days ago in which the writer urged the city not to close Community Pool.
Closing the community pool is a tough issue for me because, first of all, it probably is underutilized and I am increasingly favoring having pools and other recreational activities run by community organizations and non-profits rather than by the city itself, which has scant resources.
We can always find a group of people who will back a particular service or expenditure. Most services did not simply arise without community support.
At the same time, the public has largely been asleep on the pending city budget crisis. I do not think the average person in Davis has any idea how bad the situation is that the city is facing fiscally.
If it takes closing services that people like to get their attention, then perhaps there is a value to that. At the same time, I opposed the notion of using tier cuts to achieve budgetary savings precisely because of the above argument – why this service over that service.
What we need to do is fix the structure of the system itself, rather than finding savings through nickel-and-dime approaches. We also desperately need the city to lay forth a vision for what the service priorities are, how they will be funded, and what services are optional.
To some extent, if we can shift the burden on some of these services to the community, we can alleviate fiscal problems with the city.
What caught my attention were the comments in the Enterprise in response to the letter to the editor urging the council to keep the pool open.
One is from Paul Brady, who wrote, “I, too am very disturbed by the planned closure of the Community Pool complex.”
But the key point is here, “As with many, if not most cities, previous city councils made contract promises to employees that we realize now were unreasonably expensive and almost impossible to keep without reducing city fire, police and community services. Closing Community Pool is part of the proposed reduction in recreation programs.”
He continued, “The problem is that these pension and healthcare costs are rising rapidly while Davis population and tax revenues are almost static. We just do not have enough money to pay these increasingly large employee costs, so it appears that pools and parks and programs will have to go.”
Crucial point: “The City Council needs to negotiate with employees, and ask them to pay some of their costs.”
Responding to Mr. Brady was an undisclosed individual under the title “Our not The” which I think should have been “Thee,” but I digress.
That individual wrote, “Mr. Brady would like to point out that keeping promises to the human infrastructure of the city, the employees who have worked their lives as part of the infrastructure that maintains the Community Pool, parks, and city support systems are what is taking the pool et.al. away from you and children such as yourself and Davis families. This appears as veiled (albeit misguided) opportunism, that shamefully rides on the heartstrings of a child. However, the note that tax revenues are ‘almost static’ does lead the discussion in a pragmatic direction.”
The individual continued, “If a community does not support sustainable and progressive taxation that keeps the promises it makes to itself – and as part of that Self, those that maintain the ‘things’ that bring the community together, the community may become a society that supports pointing fingers through fences instead of shaking hands in parks and retirement parties.”
And that letter concluded, “We have the choice of what type community we build and society we become, and we can not get there without keeping the promises we make.”
Mr. Brady responded and the key point in his response was: “The claim that the community does not support sustainable and progressive taxation is incorrect. We voted for an extra 0.5% city sales tax, a library and three school parcel taxes. Property taxes remain high as house prices have not declined much in Davis. We are in large part a public employee city, but we do not want to give up too many services and lose facilities without asking city employees to share some of the costs!”
The part that catches my attention in this interchange is the notion of “keeping the promises it makes to itself.”
We have spent many pages on this site recounting the history of bad mistakes that, along with a poor economy, have led us to the place we are at. To summarize, during good times, we relied on the housing bubble and a one-time bump in sales tax revenue from a half-cent sales tax measure to pay for a stunning increase in compensation to employees.
The residents of Davis did not benefit from the economic boom of the last decade, the city employees did.
To put numbers on it, during one four-year period, firefighters received a 38% pay increase, police received about a 20% pay increase, and other sectors received more like a 10 to 15% pay increase.
80 percent of general fund costs now go to employee compensation, in the form of salary, benefits or retirement.
The result is that the city, in order to make ends meet, will have to cut spending and that means at the expense of the employee.
The question then arises as to what form does that take and which employees.
The promises, such as they were, that were made were not sustainable outside the narrow confines of the housing bubble that may have irreparably burst in 2008.
We cannot pay the employees their current level of salaries and benefits and also pay almost their entire pension obligations. We cannot pay for people to stop working at 50 and 55. We cannot pay for lifelong health insurance for people who retire when they have as much as 30 years additionally to live.
Before the recent collapse of the stock market and fears of a double dip recession, we were concerned that a new $7 million bill would be coming due in 2015 to pay for reduced earnings projections by CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System), coupled with rising health care costs.
In June, it seemed like there was a reasonable possibility that the $2.5 million cut was a strategic shift toward the council planning for the worst, rather than hoping for the best using overly-rosy figures. Now it seems that that number is the mere tip of the iceberg and that we are going to plunge to depths that we have not seen for some time.
The reality is that closing Community Pool is probably the start of a steep retraction of city services that will be far deeper than even the worst pessimists believed.
Had past councils even for a moment paused to ask whether this behavior was sustainable they might have been able to foresee this crisis and move to prevent it.
But, as Stephen Souza seeks to run for reelection, we should forever remind him that in 2008, three months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that he never saw this coming. He and Don Saylor went from candidate forum to candidate forum bragging about a balanced budget with a 15 percent reserve as though it were stable and sustainable.
The reality is that it was never as balanced as the council dressed it up to be. Unmet needs added up to $20 million in unmaintained roadways. Unfunded health care liabilities loomed around the corner. And worse yet, a house of cards was about to implode on itself in the form of pension and salary obligations, propped up by a housing bubble that even in Davis was about to burst.
In the face of this calamity, the petty argument over keeping our promises falls apart and, unfortunately, so too does keeping the pool open.
I have kids, too, who love the pool, but not at the expense of core services.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]”We cannot pay the employees their current level of salaries and benefits and also pay almost their entire pension obligations. We cannot pay for people to stop working at 50 and 55. We cannot pay for lifelong health insurance for people who retire when they have as much as 30 years additionally to live.”[/quote]And, because we are, we need to cut many of the positions we’ve established over the “good years.” The sooner, the better. This means many services and facilities we’ve come to enjoy probably need to go, too.
Nice article!
On the subject of closing Community Pool- We can’t! That facility is where Ed, the head of the three-man crew who “maintain” our city pools, takes his naps. Seems Ed gets to work about an hour ahead of the other two guys and stays one step ahead of them in the rounds. On numerous occasions Ed has been caught sleeping at Community Pool.
Meanwhile, due to lack of proper maintenance, the Civic Center Pool has a massive chlorine resistant algae bloom in the dive pool, which is now spreading to the lap pool through common plumbing. I’m told that copper of silver algaecides are now necessary, which I assume will shut down the Civic Pool. That pool serves about 400 Davis Aquatic Masters fitness swimmers daily, as well as many others. Now Davis’ dedicated swimming community will most probably need Community pool as a backup while the city spends even more of or dwindling resources to repair the damage caused by Ed,s neglect of a very valuable community asset. Maybe it’s not necessary to close down Community pool. Maybe it’s time to close down Ed, one of those precious, dedicated, over worked, under paid city employees.
[i]”… we need to cut many of the positions we’ve established over the “good years.” The sooner, the better.”[/i]
Cutting positions is not too hard. We have been doing that in tiers for the last 3 years. However, cutting out the fat is a bit trickier in Davis, due to our “layoff guidelines.”
The thing to understand here is that a senior employee whose position is eliminated can “bump” a more junior employee from his job, using what are called “retreat” rights.
So if we have some unnecessary, high paid jobs, filled with underproductive personnel, we cannot get rid of them so easily by eliminating their postions. Such higher paid people will simply bump out a less senior person.
[i]”That facility is where Ed, the head of the three-man crew who “maintain” our city pools, takes his naps. Seems Ed gets to work about an hour ahead of the other two guys and stays one step ahead of them in the rounds. On numerous occasions Ed has been caught sleeping at Community Pool.”[/i]
Orion?
The UCDavis outdoor pool is closing Sept, 30 this year; in prior years they have been open until mid-October. With budget situation at UC Davis seems we shouldn’t be surprised to see hours cut at this popular pool in 2012 (hopefully it will remain open for at least a few hours a day).
I rode my bike by the manor pool (Slide Rock Park) Sunday afternoon; and noticed the big water slide was closed down. Due to regulations undoubtedly arising from absurd litigation precedent, 2 employees are required to attend to the slide alone (i.e. they can’t also be lifeguarding; they must be dedicated to watching only the slide); obviously this staff time was no longer affordable. So we have this nice new pool complex at manor with a nice new slide that is now unaffordable to use. My guess is they will close the diving pool in 2012; eliminating one lifeguard staff and undoubtedly saving a lot of money on liability insurance (maybe just closing the high dive but leaving the low diving board open will save enough money)
I lifeguarded in my late teens; and don’t remember nearly as many staff being employed to watch over a pool as is used now. Undoubtedly regulations prompted by lawsuits; perhaps with some moderate tort reform we could more easily afford to keep the pools open!
One vision of the future for Davis and other towns is more and more unemployed people who finally have the spare time to go take a swim and visit the library–only the pools and library will be closed. Contributing to a hot, bothered, and ignorant future.
Jimt,
My son lifeguards at Manor Pool. He tells me that they were short by five of the normal complement of 11 guards on Sunday (many guards packing to leave for college) That is why the slide was closed. It takes two guards for safe operation of the slide because the guard stationed at the bottom signals the guard on top when the previous slider has cleared the way. Actually, the guy signaling all clear from the bottom is also guarding that pool.
Lifeguard salaries are a bargain for the city. It’s the 20 year employees who have been promoted to their level of incompetency, who sleep on the job, that are breaking the budget.
Rifkin,
The guy listed on the city email list as pool maintenance crew supervisor is Ed Hunter
[i][quote]”The thing to understand here is that a senior employee whose position is eliminated can “bump” a more junior employee from his job, using what are called “retreat” rights.”[/quote][/i]Rich, the only “bump and retreat” process with which I have some familiarity usually results in lower pay for the person who takes the lower level position. Not necessarily as low as an employee with much less service gets paid, but limited by the top of the lower pay band.
I wouldn’t assume that a long-time, dedicated assistant to the assistant director would end up underproducing in a more demanding, lower level position. In addition, many reductions in force include incentives to retire rather than bumping someone.
If David is reasonably correct about the magnitude of our budget problem, what can we do that wouldn’t involve significant personnel cuts? It would be better to plan for this rather than end up with attrition driving staffing and organizational structure.
[quote]Due to regulations undoubtedly arising from absurd litigation precedent, 2 employees are required to attend to the slide alone (i.e. they can’t also be lifeguarding; they must be dedicated to watching only the slide); obviously this staff time was no longer affordable. [/quote]
I stopped going to Manor pool because of the absurd rules, e.g., I went down the big slide with a hat on and was told that was against the rules. I don’t blame the City here, but jimt brings up a good point. Providing something as simple as a pool now becomes absurdly expensive. DAC has no lifeguards and kids playing there every day. I realize its not feasible for the City. Its just sad that the absurd litigation means that fewer kids can enjoy the pool.
“DAC has no lifeguards and kids play there every day”
I have graphic memories of the tragic drowning of a young girl at DAC because my children and their father were there the day it happened.
While I agree that many rules, such as the hat, may be overkill, but in the case of pool safety it really is a matter of life and death, not just “absurd litigation”.