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Wayne Goldberg
By KEVIN McCALLUM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Santa Rosa’s interim city manager, Wayne Goldberg, on Tuesday became the first city employee to take a salary cut since the City Council earlier this year asked employees for concessions to help bridge its $3.8 million budget gap.
The council accepted an amendment to Goldberg’s contact providing for him to take two unpaid furlough days between now and early October, when the new city manager takes over. Based on Goldberg’s salary of $15,890 a month, amounts to about $1,500 in pay, which is in line with the 5 percent concessions the council is seeking from other groups.
“We’ve expressed to him our gratitude for his willingness to be the symbolic leader of the 5 percent giveback by our staff,” Mayor Susan Gorin said after the meeting.
The city’s Police Officers Association was first union to reach an agreement with the city over the concessions, but their deal did not involve salary cuts. Instead, contract changes gave the city the right not to fill six police officer positions. Previous agreements had given the union veto power over elimination of vacant positions.
Winning concessions from other groups has been slow going, but progress is being made, Gorin said. Other unions groups have agreed to concessions, and will be stepping forward in the coming weeks, Gorin said.
Goldberg was hesitant to characterize his move as something that might spur the negotiations with the city’s unions and executive staff.
“I’m willing to do my part, and if it has an impact on other people then that’s fine,” he said.
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How many times is the PD going to rerun the same article? Slow news day? I know this was run last week…and I have noticed that the PD is rerunning certain stories over and over…I mean recycling is good but not for news!
Robin Williams said it best, “Reality, what a concept.”
Kudos to Mr. Goldberg for leading the way, but here is the reality message I received from this article.
The creation of the second tier employee has been averted in this instance.
The Police Officers Association gave away the veto power, the city will not fill 6 positions, the police officers work longer hours which puts the city deeper in the red.
Does anybody else read it this way?