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A looming showdown between Board of supervisors approve 7-percent
raises for deputies. From the Red Bluff Daily News, August
23, 2006
RED BLUFF - The Tehama County Deputy Sheriff's Association will
receive a 7 percent raise this year in a new contract the board of
supervisors approved Tuesday. The contract will also increase correctional officer salaries an
additional 3 percent and promises all DSA employees a 5 percent raise next year. The additional money for correctional officers is intended to
stem the flow of jailers from the Tehama County Jail to higher paying jobs,
sometimes just across the street to the Red Bluff Police Department. When the
jail is low on correctional officers, patrol deputies have been moved off the
streets to cover the vacant positions. The contract, which also includes a shift differential pay of $3
and an increased uniform allowance to $700, is estimated to cost the county
$1.1 million over the next two years. The 7 percent raise will be prorated back to July 1 of this year
and the contract will cover the law enforcement entity through June 2008. Most of the funding for the raises comes from an increase in
property taxes, Supervisor Ron Warner said Tuesday. The county received an
estimated $1 million more than expected. "We always said that if we could find the funding - a
reliable source of funding - we would attempt to bring employees' pay
up," Warner said. Supervisor Ross Turner echoed Warner and referenced
conversations the county had with the DSA when it floated Measure A to force
the county to raise salaries last June. "We assured them that if funding that was not one-time
money was available, we would award them with parity
closer to other counties," Turner said. More than 57 percent of voters voted against Measure A that would
have require the hiring of more patrol deputies and
increased wages for all county law enforcement employees. It was estimated
that measure would cost the county $1.2 million in the first year. Future labor
talks key on pension reform New fronts are opening in the battle over benefits at Some city workers are already planning to make benefit
concessions for pay raises in the contract talks that start in January. But
the following year, a more tumultuous round of negotiations will focus on
pension reform – and leave Mayor Jerry Sanders with a legacy or a list of
broken campaign promises. Diane Silva-Martinez, president of the Deputy City Attorneys
Association, said it's hard to say how the contract talks will go, but that
workers are steeling themselves for a shift that is already sweeping the
country. “I think all employees and all union members, whether they're in
the private or public sector, know that there are going to be changes in the
future with respect to pension benefits and retirement health,” she said. A few weeks ago, Sanders began searching for a consultant to
help him establish a framework for pension and retiree health plans for new
workers that he said will be more affordable than those offered to current
employees. Last week, union leaders shot back, renewing their opposition to
a Sanders' pledge from last year to raise the
retirement age of all city workers five years. That idea got a boost this
month when outside consultants cited a steeper increase as one of many fixes “If the mayor wants to truly declare war and get no cooperation
with any of the unions, that's the path he'll go
down,” labor leader Judie Italiano said of boosting
the retirement age from 50 for police and firefighters and 55 for other city
workers. Employees are now in their second year of having salaries frozen
and take-home pay cut because of higher pension payments so the city could
shore up a retirement system that has a $1.43 billion deficit and maintain
services that were slashed in recent years. Even as residents adjusted to bumpier roads and fewer library
hours, police officers began protesting that their ranks were shrinking with
their paychecks. The criticism from police caused Sanders, a former police chief,
to dump last year's campaign pledge that city workers should expect four-year
salary freezes. In July, he told officers to expect a pay increase next year.
City officials are already expecting it will mean a boost in pay
for firefighters and possibly deputy city attorneys, who along with police officers, will have gone two years without a pay increase
when the fiscal year ends June 30. Two other unions, representing blue-and white-collar workers,
also will have worked two years with no increase, although both received 3
percent raises on the last day of their previous deals. They will get 4
percent raises totaling $26 million in July under three-year deals that end
June 30, 2008. The thinking at City Hall is that Sanders will seek one-year
deals with police officers, firefighters and deputy city attorneys when
negotiations begin in January. That would allow him to bring all five unions
fresh to the bargaining table the following year in a bid to overhaul the
pension system. If that is what unfolds, those 2008 negotiations would become
make-or-break time for many of Sanders' 2005 campaign promises about reining
in pension costs and restoring a teetering city to fiscal stability. Adding to the drama, the contract talks would occur in a year
Sanders faces re-election and four of the City Council's eight members would
be leaving office because of term limits. A fifth council member would also
be in a final term. Katie Keach, a spokeswoman for the
firefighters union, said it's too early to forecast the 2008 negotiations,
but she admitted they could be difficult if “there's still a broad distrust
of the city overall and city employees.” William Nemec, president of the police
officers union, expects the negotiations to be tough for two reasons: “We
have a mayor who's probably wanting to demonstrate that he's not going to be
pushed around by the big bad unions, and we've been stigmatized by that, and
because of problems with bad management, he's going to want to prove to
voters he's a good manager.” Union leaders said Sanders' comments on police salaries likely
mean the mayor will seek benefit concessions from everyone over the next two
years. “Our contracts are always a balance between retirement benefits
and salary,” said Joan Raymond, president of Local 127 of the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents
blue-collar workers. “What I see coming is a shift in emphasis toward
salaries away from retirement benefits.” Indeed, Sanders recently reiterated his commitment to having
employees pay half of their pension costs, a departure from previous labor
negotiations in which city officials agreed to pay some employee pension
costs in lieu of salary increases. Sanders said he feels an urgency to reduce city retirement
costs, but thinks that one of the findings in this month's report from
consultants at Kroll Inc. on wrongdoing by city officials has made his task
more daunting. For two years, City Attorney Michael Aguirre has been trying to
reduce the pension deficit by rolling back what he believes to be hundreds of
millions of dollars in benefits that the City Council granted illegally in
1996 and 2002. Kroll said the deals granting the benefits, which Aguirre is
challenging in court, were illegal but that no judge would throw them out. Aguirre has dismissed Kroll's analysis as incorrect and
incomplete, but most union leaders are using it to bolster a defense that the
benefits will stand. Only Silva-Martinez, president of the Deputy City
Attorneys Association, declined to weigh in, saying, “That issue is in
litigation.” “I think that gave hope to the unions that we don't need to
negotiate,” Sanders said. “I think that sets us back a little bit.” Italiano, general
manager of the Municipal Employees Association, the city's largest union,
refers to “I think it makes us feel like we have some reasons to discuss
with him that he's going to have to try to put an end to all this,” she said.
On the campaign trail last year, Sanders promised to take tough
stands with But he quickly took bankruptcy off the table. He didn't fire any
managers, and his talk of layoffs turned to touting a review of city spending
that would lead to cutting 500 positions, including many that have been
vacant for years. Keach, the firefighters spokeswoman, said a softer Sanders emerged in
last year's negotiations. “I think that his perspective changed somewhat when he got into
office and saw what the public employee situation really was,” she said.
“There wasn't nearly the same push at the negotiation table that there was on
the campaign trail.” The mayor never asked the two unions with long-term contracts
back to the table. Of the three unions with whom he negotiated, the
firefighters and deputy city attorneys ultimately signed one-year deals and
the police officers had a one-year contract imposed on them when talks broke
down. It marked the third time in five years a one-year deal was
imposed on police, and it was the second consecutive year that deputy city
attorneys have settled for a one-year contract since their union was formed. For years, the city's union heads have tried to convince elected
officials that Sanders maintained his opposition to any sort of tax increase in
a recent interview, saying it was “not even an option.” He said that left him
looking for places to cut from the budget and banking on favorable interest
rates next year to borrow money to pay down the pension deficit. Sanders' pension borrowing proposal, however, has been heavily
criticized by Aguirre and the Kroll consultants, including former Securities
and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt. Levitt's criticism, in particular, left Sanders staking
out his softest position yet in favor of the plan this month. “There's no painless solution to this,” Sanders said. “The city
has gotten itself in a deep quagmire.”
Lowering the education requirement for hiring In fact, despite a substantial increase in the number of
applications during the year following elimination of a requirement of a
two-year college degree, the department hired a third fewer officers than the
year before standards were lowered. Less than 10 percent of those who applied
under the reduced education standard were hired. The Columbus Police Department's minimum standard was reduced
from a college degree to a high school diploma or GED in March 2005 in hopes
of shrinking the department's officer shortage. Despite the ensuing increase in applicants, most failed
background checks and were ineligible to be hired, said Police Sgt. Paulette Teachey, one of two full-time recruiters for the
department. "The new requirements haven't changed anything, good or
bad," she said. Flaws found In the year before the reduced education standard, the department
received 87 applications, resulting in 33 hires. In the following year, 252
people submitted applications; only 21 were hired. Teachey said many
applicants have criminal histories, while others have used drugs. Falsifying
applications, missing exams and failing physical fitness tests are other
reasons for elimination. Applicants can't have convictions for felonies or
misdemeanors involving moral turpitude. Each must pass a background check, a
psychological exam, a physical fitness test and graduate from the police
academy. In March 2005 alone, the department received 69 applications,
but only eight could be hired. Teachey said
although the department has difficulty filling its officer shortage, it isn't
going to hire just anybody. "We're interested more in putting good
officers out there for the citizens," she said. The department has struggled with an officer shortage for years.
The International Chiefs of Police Association recommends She hopes a pay increase recently instituted by the city will
draw in more qualified candidates. New officers with only a high school
diploma or GED formerly started at a salary of $23,800, but now receive
$27,832. A $2,000 signing bonus and $1,000 relocation pay for new hires
moving from more than 50 miles away also were part of the package that took
effect July 1. New officers may also get a scholarship from The scholarship was created about a year ago. Salary gap Teachey said it's
too early to know whether the pay increase and added incentives will ease the
officer shortage, because the department needs two to three months to process
applications. Some other, smaller police departments still offer higher
salaries than Even if the department hires more officers, Teachey
said it's difficult to keep up with the number of experienced officers who
retire. Three veteran officers have already announced their intentions to
retire by the end of October. Many experienced officers are unhappy that new recruits make as
much as or more than they do, a situation the
department calls "compression," Teachey
said. Compounding the problem is that Most police departments have pay scales, and some officers
prefer predictable raises, Teachey said. Compression and the lack of a pay scale take away incentives for
new officers to stay with the department for long. Officers stay with the
department for an average of five years. "The problem is not so much
getting them in the door; it's keeping them when they get here," Teachey said. However, she and Barker-Wright remain hopeful, buoyed by
instances such as an Aug. 10 job fair that brought in about 50 applications. Nathaniel Campbell, a 26-year-old from Another applicant at the fair, 22-year-old Adrian Sellers, said she has always wanted to be a police
officer. "I want to make a change. I want to help people," she
said. She has a high school diploma and a few months of college. She's
a manager at Dollar General, and her salary there is comparable to police
pay, she said. If hired, she said she is not sure how long she would stay with
the department, because she wants to see new places. "If there's an
opportunity to leave, I might. City approves
5-percent raise for police, leaves door open for future raise From the Midland police will receive the 5-percent market adjustment
originally suggested by city staff in the 2007 budget proposal, although the
City Council has left open the possibility of providing an additional market
adjustment before the end of the year. The City Council approved the raise during its second and final
vote to approve the 2007 budget. Following the first vote during its last
meeting Det. Bill Anderson, a representative from
the Midland Municipal Police Officers Association, requested City Council
consider providing a 10-percent market adjustment for police. "After the budget season ends, we will have a 15 officer
shortage," District 1 City Councilwoman LuAnn Morgan said. "We
don't have enough offers to cover the area it's not like you can just get
someone off the street. It's a real concern and I don't know if we want to
make an amendment (to the budget vote) or if we can continue working on this
where we can approve the budget and continue looking at the best scenario for
compensation." District 3 City Councilman Scott Dufford
pointed out the city has had difficulty retaining equipment operators and
that a mid-year adjustment was made to their salaries in order to reduce the
turnover rate for that department. "I'd think we can do the same thing with our public safety
folks," Dufford said. City Manager Rick Menchaca suggested
the City Council wait until at least February to re-examine police
compensation or until the spring of 2007, at which point the latest data from
the Texas Municipal League's salary surveys would be available for
comparative purposes. "I'd prefer to begin as soon as the fiscal year
starts," Morgan said, to which Menchaca responded
that the data from other cities used to make comparisons is "a moving
target," and that the information currently available will soon be
outdated. Menchaca also suggested the City Council
establish a standard set of cities for comparison in order to better
determine how competitive its pay is for the police and all other
departments. "There's a lot of factors we have to take into
consideration, not just what other police departments make we have the lowest
unemployment rate in the state and we need to move now," Morgan said,
noting that opportunities in the private sector are attracting officers away
from the force. "We are moving now," Menchaca
said, pointing out that 90 percent of police will be eligible for a
10-percent increase to their current salaries -- 5 percent from the market
adjustment, and 5 percent for eligible officers who reach their anniversary
date and that over the past five years the average officer has received over
a 7 percent increase in salary. Menchaca added that
the City Council has the authority to retroactively raise its employees'
salaries going back to a certain date, such as the first day of the fiscal
year. The City Council resolved to have Morgan and District 2 City
Councilwoman Vicky Hailey lead a committee that will examine compensation
levels for police, as well as other departments, and to make recommendations
based on their findings. The City Council agreed that funds from the City
Council Project Fund, totaling about $360,000, could be used to make any adjustments
that are deemed necessary. "We appreciate all the input and we do take seriously all
the information we've received, it's not fallen on deaf ears," Mayor
Mike Canon said while addresssing police officers
present in the audience. "You all have heard some of the things we're
doing and hopefully this will be an ongoing process as we develop better
techniques to make sure we are fair and competitive. I think this committee
will be able to come up with new and better ideas for compensation, not just
for police and fire, but all employees." "The market was supposed to be established years ago,"
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