Budget/Fiscal

For some time, it has been clear that the firefighters do not want to be under the authority of anyone they cannot control.  That is why they did not get along with Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley, it is why they took a no confidence vote against Police Chief Landy Black and Assistant Chief Steve Pierce, and it is why they attempted to discredit UC Davis Chief Nathan Trauernicht when the city moved to name him chief of the City of Davis Fire Department in addition to the UC Davis Fire Department.

In the winter and spring, they held public meetings and walked precincts trying to scare the public on staffing cuts.  They have protested in front of city hall for weeks.  None of these actions have produced much in the way of results for the union, however.

by Rob White

I attended the California Economic Summit in Los Angeles last Thursday and Friday. It was hosted by the California Stewardship Network and California Forward, which has several staff located right here in Davis and Sacramento. Information about the Summit can be found here.

The California Stewardship Network website describes the organization as founded in 2008 when “the Morgan Family Foundation launched the California Stewardship Network as a civic venture, investing $ 1.5 million over 2 years in matching grants to 10 economic regions that agreed to focus on breakthroughs led by stewardship teams composed of business, community and government civic entrepreneurs.”

by Cary Adams

In August, Marrone Bio Innovations (MBII) went public, raising $65 Million, less costs, and establishing an initial market cap of $230M (it has since “popped” to almost $350M, as of this writing). At the same time Bayer announced its intention to relocate its Davis operations -acquired last year for $425M from AgraQuest – to new facilities in West Sacramento, consolidating global Bayer CropScience R&D for a major growth effort here.

There’s much to celebrate here in terms of economic development for our region and especially our AgTech/BioTech/CleanTech communities. But those two successes are linked and the story of that linkage is deeply inspirational and includes a dash of disappointment in the background that makes the flavor of success all the more interesting.

This morning the Sacramento Bee published an editorial that showed the PERS (Public Employees’ Retirement System) costs to local governments across the region.  Writes the Bee: “The numbers are alarming. To replenish its recession-battered pension fund, CalPERS is requiring cities, counties and special districts to pay out millions more in retirement contributions.”

“The retirement system made two policy changes that have raised costs for its clients,” the Bee writes. “It lowered its expected rate of return on investments, and it changed accounting practices to cover massive recession-era investment losses over a shorter period of time. Both changes were long overdue. But they will cost local governments, and taxpayers, a bundle.”

by Rob White

Below is a high-level description of the activities that we at City Hall are working on each and every day. Many of the activities are divided amongst two staff (Sarah Worley and myself), but we work closely with the City Council, City Manager, other City departments and staff, and community organizations to achieve these efforts.

For the 2005-2009 MOU, the firefighters received an aggregate 36% pay increase just in salary.  That did not include benefit increases – the 3% at 50 that would make for windfall retirement pensions – and other perks.  Not only was the increase unsustainable, it was unequal.  The police officers at the same time took a much more modest 17% increase, and most other bargaining units saw about a 15% increase.

The firefighters took advantage of several key things.  First, the city’s general fund budget was booming with double-digit revenue increases from property taxes for several years.  Second, somehow, city leaders managed to convince the public that, despite the real estate revenue boom, they city needed more revenue and got the public to approve a half-cent sales tax generating $3 million that would effectively go to the firefighters.

The handwriting is on the wall – or at least it would be if the leaders of the holdout employee bargaining groups, the Davis City Employees Association and the Davis Professional Firefighters Association, were being realistic rather than chasing rainbows.  The city has done their research, they have done the fiscal analysis and they are in the process of dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s.

When your fact-finder, who is typically pro-labor, writes, “There is not much margin for error,” and, “The DCEA failed to identify a source of money to fund generous pay raises or to retain lucrative benefits such as the PERS [Public Employees’ Retirement System] pick up and no employee contribution to health insurance premiums,” you are not going to win this.

By Rob White

While attending a board meeting for the Innovate North State Innovation Hub, I was asked to provide a quick summary of Davis-related tech activities. My list was considerably longer than any of my colleagues from other areas of Northern California and it occurred to me that Davis has many examples of a vibrant technology sector. Since many of these activities probably would not be on a typical Vanguard reader’s radar, I thought it would be important to highlight some of these activities as a way to demonstrate the value of the sector to the Davis community.

Provided below is a list of tech related activities that are occurring now and over the next 3 to 4 months.  This list is by no means comprehensive and does not cover all of the activities associated with the university.

When a normally labor-friendly process largely upholds the city position in bargaining, it is a very bad sign for the two hold-out labor groups and a very good sign for the city.  For a variety of reasons, some of which were laid out by the city’s representative on the three-member panel, the city cannot implement the recommendations of the fact-finding panel.  However, the overall findings largely back the city’s position.

This is in marked contrast to the previous fact-finding session which looked at the 2009-10 contract.  Here the city’s representative in the process was Samantha Wallace, who is a Community Services Superintendent for the city of Davis and works under the HR director, Melissa Chaney.

Panel Largely Agrees with City Position But Slows Down Pace of Reform – The city has now released the report of the second fact-finding panel in an effort to resolve the impasse between the city of Davis and the Davis City Employees Association (DCEA.)  The panel members were Dave Owen, President of DCEA, Assistant Police Chief Darren Pytel, representing the city, and John LaRocco, Chair and neutral member.

“On February 18, 2010 and following unsuccessful mediation, the DCEA requested factfinding pursuant to Employer-Employee Relations Resolution No. 1303. While the record is not entirely clear, the parties endeavored to select a factfinder but encountered some difficulty in scheduling a factfinding hearing,” Mr. LaRocco writes. “Factfinding did not occur. On May 25, 2010, the City Council adopted a resolution imposing the City’s last, best, final offer on the members of the DCEA bargaining unit.”

Imagine for a second a scenario where the Davis firefighters took the same agreement as all other bargaining units of the city of Davis and then, when the city of Davis proposed staffing cuts, the firefighters said, look, we’ve taken contract concessions, we understand that the city needs to find additional cuts, let’s create a subcommittee that can look at alternative service providing models.

Under that set of scenarios, it would be perfectly reasonable for the city of Davis to look at the firefighters as partners in the city’s efforts to cut costs, and to work with them on a solution that both sides could live with.

On October 7, 2013, the City of Davis received the recommendations of the fact-finding panel appointed to hear the labor dispute between the city and the Davis City Employees Association (DCEA).

The most recent round of negotiations with DCEA began in March, 2012. Since then, several other bargaining groups – representing a majority of the city’s employees – have reached agreement with the city on contracts containing much-needed economic concessions. DCEA is one of two groups, along with the firefighters, that have not yet reached agreement.

It was a night where the subtext not only became the text, but became more important than the text itself.  It began like every other night this fall, with a protest in front of City Hall by the firefighters pushing for public support, for traction, for anything that could prevent their last vestiges of power from slipping away into the night.

But something different happened on this night – something that represents not just a game-changing event, but a new game altogether.  A few minutes before 6:30, in walked a group of men and women wearing the white shirts of the Davis Police Officers’ Association (DPOA).  They had had enough, they were ready to take back their city.

“The check book is tapped out,” Chamber leaders Gregg Herrington and Michael Bisch write in an op-ed today.  “Therefore, Davis business leaders are adamant that our City Council continue to rein in the unsustainable growth of city employee compensation. The Davis Chamber PAC supports the council’s hard-earned gains and trusts that the council will remain resolute during Tuesday evening’s closed-session meeting with negotiators who are bargaining with the Davis City Employees Association and Firefighters Local 3494, the only groups that have not accepted the city’s reasonable position.”

Tonight’s Davis City Council meeting is quickly becoming extremely important in terms of the future of the city’s economic sustainability.  While the city must grapple with the critical issue of shared fire services, as well as moving toward a permanent full-time chief, the city faces the continued unpleasant reality that two of its bargaining units continue to hold out on accepting the concessions that the remainder of the city’s employee groups have taken.

On Monday afternoon UC Davis Fire Chief Nathan Trauernicht responded to complaints from a retired Davis fire captain about a dereliction of duty, arguing that he monitored the scene from his vehicle and determined that his assistance was not needed.  Chief Trauernicht noted that, in more than three years of service as Chief at UC Davis, this is the only complaint he has against him.

For the last several months, the Davis firefighters’ union has been clamoring for a permanent, full-time chief to head up the department.  It turns out that the city believes the most qualified person for the job is already in the area and in the employment of the UC Davis Fire Department.

The city of Davis’ staff report buried the lead when it recommended toward the end the immediate hiring of UC Davis Fire Chief Nathan Trauernicht as the new fire chief for both the city of Davis and UC Davis.

Staff notes that UC Davis would be receptive to implementing the “shared management oversight prior to finalizing a Joint Powers Agreement.”

In a move that offers the promise of some fiscal savings, but figures to change the way fire service is managed in Davis and UC Davis, the city staff is recommending that council “direct staff to prepare the documents necessary to create a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) between the City of Davis and UC Davis to provide Fire Management Services for each entity.”

The move also may resolve firefighters’ concerns about the next fire chief.  Staff recommends that the city agree to this one-year joint exercise of powers agreement “for Shared Management Services between the City of Davis and UC Davis.”

The Davis Professional Firefighters Union continues to protest on Tuesday afternoons in front of Davis City Hall, pressing for a new fire chief, and for changes to staffing and overtime policy, but, while the union has been both vocal and visible, there is little evidence that their struggles have gained them any advantage.

Jesse Hodorowski, a 22-year veteran firefighter, 14 of the years with the city of Davis, spoke during public comment and stated that he was deeply concerned about the fire department.

In the waning days of the old council, the city imposed the last, best and final offer on the Davis City Employees Association.  Everyone else in the city had accepted the city’s contract offer, which at the time the Vanguard strongly criticized as insufficient – a belief that history has proven rather dramatically to be correct.

DCEA held out for a better contract and even the old council finally had enough and imposed the last, best and final offer.  The problem was that the city failed to go through the entire process, which has now become even more difficult, and the Public Employment Relations Board overturned it.

By Steve Pinkerton

Editor’s note:  On September 10, 2013, firefighters’ union President Bobby Weist and two of his members explained to the Davis City Council their concerns about the major changes the department is undergoing under the control of non-firefighters.  They were joined by about a dozen members in the audience. Among their complaints was the amount of overtime.  Mr. Weist told Council, “we just went on a strike team, people were forced to work overtime prior to leaving on a strike team.  They went on a strike team, they were there for ten days, working 16 hours and when they came back, they had to come back to work.”

Prior to Tuesday’s City Council Meeting, Mr. Weist and about a dozen firefighters took to the streets complaining about staffing levels, calls for service, and overtime.  Davis City Manager Steve Pinkerton sent out a lengthy response to the complaints by the firefighters, in response as well to requests for clarification from the city council.  We have reprinted that response in its entirety.