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By BRETT WILKISON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County’s preliminary budget talks have revealed what some say are growing fault lines between leadership and labor about how to address the county’s looming $43 million deficit.
The different stances of the two groups were most apparent this week when employees, at the request of management, offered cost-saving suggestions — a list of 167 items covering everything from consolidation of departments to limiting space heaters.
Among the top 15 ideas presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors were those with the potential to save the most money across the largest number of departments.
Supervisors did not endorse any of the ideas, but they quickly backed off at least three. Those proposals called for savings specifically from the county’s upper-echelon employees, including supervisors and managers.
Several supervisors and County Administrator Veronica Ferguson said they were not interested in such proposals because they were not “equitable,” meaning they do not take savings from the entire workforce.
“When we’ve taken a hit in this county, we’ve taken it across the board,” Supervisor Valerie Brown said.
Not true, said union officials who criticized the county leaders’ reaction as a repeat of past budget years, when they said cuts targeted mostly rank-and-file workers. That pattern is likely to continue in June, they said, when the county could shed as many as 500 mostly filled jobs, an unprecedented number, to help balance the budget.
“Our members give and give and give. And our members get laid off” year after year, said Carl Carr, field representative for Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the county’s largest bargaining unit with about 1,800 members.
Both sides cited past budget moves to support their claims.
Brown mentioned unpaid furloughs that all employees have accepted over the past two fiscal years and in the coming one. That mandatory time off has resulted in a 3 percent to 5 percent pay cut countywide, officials say.
A representative of the county’s 370 midlevel managers also said his group’s ranks have been significantly thinned in recent years.
But union officials said most cuts still have been in their ranks, and a county personnel official later confirmed that all of the 53 workers laid off through cuts to the 2010-2011 budget were represented by bargaining groups. This year, more concessions from management are needed to soften the blow on line workers, SEIU officials said.
Two versions of an idea they’ve pushed recently were among the proposals rebuffed Tuesday. They would either temporarily freeze or cut deferred compensation, a benefit that funnels a percentage of salary and an additional county payment into a retirement account separate from the pension system.
The benefit goes to about 40 percent of the county workforce, or nearly 1,480 of 3,700 employees, including several hundred SEIU-affiliated supervisors.
SEIU members, who receive the lowest county-paid deferred comp benefit — about 0.5 percent of salary — have pushed to have the freeze applied to all county workers, a move they said would save up to $4.1 million.
The two deferred comp proposals that showed up in this week’s presentation, however, would target a smaller county group of 600, including supervisors, management, unrepresented workers and confidential employees — largely payroll workers, clerks and executive secretaries. The maximum estimated annual savings is $2.8 million.
SEIU officials insisted the narrower proposal did not come from their ranks. And not all labor groups were supportive.
Ed Clites, president of the county’s second-largest labor group, the 530-member Sonoma County Law Enforcement Association, said his members, who receive a 2 percent county-paid deferred comp benefit, likely wouldn’t support the proposal.
It drew stronger opposition from mid-level managers, whose leaders said it chipped away at one of the main benefits they have left.
“If we’re going to give up a couple-million-dollar benefit, we’d like to see others following suit,” Sonoma County Administrative Management Council Chairman Ray Leonard said.
A third proposal would save up to $50,000 by eliminating a decades-old benefit that pays half of the Board of Supervisors’ contribution to their pensions.
Six of the county’s 11 bargaining units have a similar but smaller benefit for a portion of their members.
Supervisors did not single out the idea Tuesday, but some of their comments suggested it, too, would face opposition.
Overall, county leaders sought to portray the presentation as a constructive airing of ideas. They downplayed any hints of a standoff.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane praised employees for “great creativity and commitment,” while Supervisor Mike McGuire said “very difficult decisions” ahead require new ideas.
“We can’t just do what we’ve always done,” he said.
Facing such dire financial problems, Ferguson, the county administrator, said it was “natural” for one group of employees to target another for budget cuts.
“The most important thing is that we have an equitable application of some of these,” she said, repeating the newest buzzword.
She said her office would work with employee representatives and bring some proposals back to the board with more details on savings figures, timeline and feasibility.
Not all the ideas were so disputed. Some, such as a cut in pension benefits for new employees, already are being discussed. Others would extend existing efforts, including a spending freeze on training and a halt to annual county buyback of vacation time for rank-and-file workers and holiday time for elected leaders.
However, such “one-time” measures may not be sufficient this coming fiscal year, county leaders said.
Property tax revenue — the county’s main source of discretionary money — is in its second year of decline. It is projected to be down 2 percent, or $4 million, from the current fiscal year and sales tax revenue is projected to be flat, officials reported Tuesday.
County costs, including salaries, benefits and public services, also continue to rise.
Ferguson’s preliminary budget proposal seeks to tackle the deficit head-on, cutting by 25 percent general fund spending at all departments.
By necessity, high-profile programs such as the Sheriff’s Office helicopter, services for youth offenders, seasonal park upkeep and community policing are on the potential cut list. A preliminary tally of positions to be trimmed is due next Friday.
In the longer term, departmental consolidations are not out of the question, Ferguson said.
“Significant and ongoing savings are the top priority,” she said.
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Pearl illustrates the reason Unions are needed. To protect the averager person from people who dont agree with them and are power hungry.
Ban Public Employee Unions.
Make the cuts you need to make.
Fire the employees who snivel.
Replace them with 99rs in their 100th week.
It’s a two-fer!
MEMORANDUM
TO: All Personal
Subject: Early Reduction Program
As a result of having to increase the retirement contributions for management, elected’s, union heads and the soon to be retired, we must of necessity reduce our work force. A reduction in staff plan has been developed which appears to be most equitable under the circumstances.
Under the plan, younger and less senior employees will be placed on “Early Reduction”, thus permitting the retention of those employees who represent the future of the Sonoma County (until they retire).
Therefore, a program to phase out younger and less senior employees by the end of the current fiscal year via “Early Reduction” will be placed into effect immediately. The program shall be known as RAPE (Reduction Able Personnel Early).
Employees who are RAPE’d will be given opportunity to seek other jobs at Sonoma County, provided that while they are being RAPE’d they request a review of their employment status before actual reduction takes place. This phase of the operation is called SCREW (Survey of Capabilities of Reduction Early Workers).
All employees who have been RAPE’d or SCREW’d may then apply for a final review: this will be called SHAFT (Study by Higher Authority Following Termination).
Program policy dictates that employees may be RAPE’d once and SCREW’d twice, but may get the shaft as many times as Sonoma County deems appropriate.
@sheperd
Then there were no tests done that show no levels of mold as a health risk? I go back to why move over a 100 staff, when it affects fewer than half a dozen? Should you not deal with the affected group. As stated before, how do you know you will not have an issue at another location with this group or a whole new group. It would be a pretty expensive experiment at the tax payers cost!
@batts555-the hearsay that you were told DOES need to be substantiated, by you. Do your own research before you spout off about the mold issue. Go up to the building yourself and check it out. There has been a mold/damp problem for a couple of years now. And for all you other people who have nothing better to do than talk about what you heard someone else say, or what you think you heard…do what “How do you define equitable?” did, sit in on the Board meetings, listen up, pay attention. Talk to people who actually WORK for the County. crikey…..
@Moving on up… and out…
I’m looking at what kind of Management decision making process. Ex: The Division moves to a new location and say 2 months later the same small group with allergy issues complain about the same issues in the new location. Or a new group has different allergy issues in the new location.
1. You have just wasted a lot of money, time, manpower and resources.
2. What do you do now? Try to break your Lease and move AGAIN. Or go back to square one and deal with the group, which should have been done in the first place.
Did Management ever consider this kind of scenario?
I have been a County employee for some time now. This sham of asking imput from the workers and then arrogantly sits there letting the County Administrator answer is very typical for how they operate.
The Board is out of touch, arrogant, and unaware of how they treat the people that do the work for the County and this meeting was just another example of what I am talking about.
If they want to cut, cut. Don’t ask us and then ignore any of our imput.
As far as equitable – as lower paid staff have taken pay cuts and must pay more for health insurance, I have many colleagues in the Sonoma County workforce who have had to drop there families from their county health plan because they simply cannot afford it. I have not heard of one manager or supervisor who has had to do this.
Additionally, there are more managers/per staff than I have ever seen.
This is tragic. This is crazy. This is inequitable.
At Bats555…if you think it is bad to move workers from one facility to another due to possible mold issues, I wonder what you would think about moving a department from one building to another for “cost savings” and utilizing money that was saved in the department’s budget due to Mandatory Time Off program that the county has gone through the last several years? But wait…it gets better. Not only are they using MTO money, they are using MTO money that was to be utilized to mitigate layoffs in their department per direction of the Board of Supervisors. So, instead of using the savings they had realized from MTO to keep people in jobs, they decided to layoff workers (not vacant positions only, actual living, breathing people) and use the savings to move to a new building!!! To be fair, the amount of money they used was only several hundreds of thousands of dollars!!! So, you know, they more than likely couldn’t have saved any jobs with that amount of money, right?
As an observer sitting in the audience at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting this last Tuesday, April 19th, I was appalled at the very apparent class divide being shown by some members of the Board and also by County Administration when it came to talks of balancing the county budget. There was a wonderfully transparent and inclusive agenda item that shared ideas that were not from the Department Heads or CAO’s offices, but from the employees that provide the services to the citizens. Instead of allowing the presentation to be completed as a transparent item from the employees to administration, CAO Veronica Ferguson instead jumps in and hijacks the presentation being given and presents what the real intent is of this administration. The intent is to continue to have decisions made that affect the lives of hard working, public servants, by the Department Heads and CAO’s office and to heck with the ideas that the employees come up with! To me, I continue to think of the comedic definition of insanity, “to continue to do the same thing, over and over again, yet expecting a different result every time.” For the last several years, the County (like the rest of the country) has had difficult economic times, and in trying to balance the county budget the Board of Supervisors and the CAO Office has gone to the Department Heads and have asked for them to make the “tough decisions” needed to help balance the budget. The “tough decisions” the Department Heads are making however, are not affecting their own lives, heck, it isn’t even affecting their own PENSIONS!!! (County paid contribution to the deferred comp account is a pensionable figure that bumps up final compensation at retirement) If the Supervisors and CAO want to really talk about “tough decisions” they should talk about offering up some of the benefits that they get that are above and beyond what represented rank and file workers get. If they want to talk about “tough decisions” they should talk to those making less than $50k a year whose husband or wife has already been laid off from their job and who is now facing a possible layoff from their job with the county and they need to find a way to put food on the table for their family! County paid contribution to the Deferred Compensation accounts for management and unrepresented doesn’t put food on their table!!! All it does is grow the amount of money that they will be making when they retire!!! This is the waste, fraud and abuse that idiots like Scott Walker should be focusing on! Also, I think it is time for the Board of Supervisors and CAO Veronica Ferguson to look up the definition of “equitable” because it appears to me that they define it as we (management) get to keep all benefits and perks that we feel we are entitled to, and you (represented workers) need to give up your benefits and also your jobs so that we can keep what we got. Insanity at its finest!
Just like in corporate America, those at the top are richly rewarded and the rest of us get the crumbs.
Except in this case, we the taxpayers get to fund these outlandish perks and salaries for our “leaders.” Cell phones, cars, deferred compensation, travel budgets — really? In Sonoma County?
Instead of targeting the folks who actually are on the front lines with the public, we should be looking at all the managers and department heads. What exactly are they producing for the public that funds them?
Why should members of the Board of Supervisors participate in the County retirement plan? And are they receiving county contributions of 50% of the amount of the total contribution? This is an elected office, not a career. End this bonus now!
In addition, a 25% across the board general fund decrease may not be enough if the state doesn’t come up with some funds. So, SEIU get ready for tough times and less revenue from a dropping membership.
This is hearsay and not substantiated (yet) but I heard there is a planned physical move of a Division in Human Services Dept. The Family, Youth and Children’s Division is in the initial planning stages to move FYC from their current location to a building across town. The reason for the move: aprox. 4 staff members are complaining about mold allergies. I believe the building leaser has done numerous tests and have found no levels of mold that would be considered a health risk. During these budget cuts it seems inappropriate for a Division to move on complaints of allergies from 4 people. I understand this kind of move could cost upwards of $700,000 to $900,000 or more. The County could easily keep more staff on board with this kind of money or help keep the Sheriff’s search and rescue helicopter from being grounded. Why not work with the small group who have issues than move over 100 staff? And who is making these types of decisions – County Management. I had sent an email to Doug Wilks of the PD this morning about this issue asking if someone can look into this and confirm. Had not heard back yet, I guess this is not that important to look into. What do you guy’s think?
I hope we can find out what the entire pay package is for the upper management of the county. Not just the base salary figure that is readily available on the State Controller’s website. It could be an eye opener…Some of the extra perks given to county officials would be embarrassing even for a State Senator…
Didn’t upper management get raises last year? This year 500 rank and file employees may be let go….
That doesn’t sound to “equitable” to me.
The reason line –staff workers are usually out the door in layoffs goes to seniority. Management positions may be cut, but the people sitting in those chairs have seniority and have come up through the ranks. They bump down into lower level job classes, thus bumping that person down to a lower level, until the person out the door is the lowest in the rank order, typically a represented line staff person. But that doesn’t mean the “management” employee wasn’t effective, and in some cases have bumped down to now be represented by the union….
And I believe McGuire has already taken a (20%?) voluntary pay cut to his 6 figure salary. 1 out of 5….
the Supervisors are insulated from their county employees by managers(they have staff to deal with us).
As far as I’m concerned one of the most important employees to hang on to is the guy at the other end of that shovel filling pot holes.
When I was a young man, ABdick corporation would not let the paper companies modify their contracts. ABdick insisted that the contracts be fullfilled. After the paper shortages were over and supply lines normalized. The paper companies droped ABdick as a customer in mass.
I would pray that the leadership and rank in file think twice about hardball tactics in this very troubled times.
The acromen PICNIC comes to mind “problem in chair, not in computer”.
Information services runs almost ten million dollars over in costs verses income, that is just one division, that should be able to justify its own existence. The county needs to work smarter, not just subsidize needless work to maintain large departments. Trufully how many websites does a little county like Sonoma Really need?
It is not about size, but quality of the services rendered, and does it serve the public interest.
The one thing that any individual can change is their attitude.
Let’s begin by cutting the County Supervisors pay and their benefits such as administrative help and car allowances. Put up or shut up. One Admin worker for the supervisors…stop going to all your little luncheons and parties and focus on balancing a budget. Lead by example, not by your mouth.
@ The Observer: county management has already “relented”, they have relented on every cut to date BEFORE SEIU ever did. This includes significant cuts to the health care benefit and mandatory furloughs.
To GAJ and others.
I like your support of lower-paid employees, but all furlough days, etc. that have been implemented so far applied to them as well as higher-paid employees. Including the lowest-paid janitor, or whoever the lowest-paid County employee is.
Strangely, ALL members of the Board of Supervisors and the County Administrator and ALL her “assistants” are “upper echelon” employees making 6-figure incomes. Not counting perks like free cars.
I don’t always agree with you folks, but could you please divide up the work and track where spending really goes? Get a copy of the proposed budget. Look at health insurance costs, and then look at retirement benefits. See WHO gets what.
The P-D has already published some good articles on retirement benefits and salaries, which are directly linked. But maybe retired supervisors and upper management get a better deal? I’ve stated that almost no rank-and-file employees get 100% of salary on retirement, and this is a fact.
Maybe I could help?
Despite what management is saying, the frontline employees are making greater sacrifice than the management. More frontline employees have been laid off and are expected to be laid off. Please be aware that those are the employees that work WITH the public. Management says they are making sacrifices too, but they were NOT laid off (being the decision makers why not protect yourself?). Not only that, but MOST county workers DO NOT get county contributions toward deferred compensation that adds to managers and some other staff’s retirement. It’s a lot of money and management doesn’t want to give the money up. Remember, management are the ones with the perks and high salaries.
People can gripe about the unions all they want but the frontline staff are the ones who are doing the major sacrifice. There has been no direction to management from the Board of Supervisors to lay some of themselves off or give up the county paid deferred comp contributions. MANAGEMENT IS NOT UNION but the unions are the target both by management and the public.
Remember that most county workers are middleclass. Workers fighting against workers is what our corporate masters want. It keeps us distracted from what damage they keep doing to the economy and to the people of America. It encourages private workers to attack public workers while our corporate masters 2% laugh all the way to the bank hoarding their money and purposely not creating jobs.
Like what’s happening in Wisconsin, private and public workers need to support each other. Find candidates who represent the voters and not the candidates taking bribes from rich corporations to destroy the working middleclass and their families.
I would suggest that the rank and file county employees compile a list of outside contracts that are wasteful and/or fraudulent. The people who actually do the work are in the best position to know which contracts are going to somebody’s brother in law and which are unnecessary. They would also know when second rate materials are being used at first rate prices. Sonoma County is infamous for little rackets such as these. The people who are getting the kick backs are the upper echelon employees and, perhaps, the supervisors.
I make $85k and $110k with overtime. I have a contract that is good through 2013. You cant cut my pay and we already gave back about 10%. There is a lot more places to cut other than me. I have a family to support also.
So 3 years ago things were ok. I make $65k. My take home is $30k. The we lost 5%, then 2.5% then my medical contribution went from $600 a month to $1300 a month. We turned off cable, got rid of cell phones, and do what we can to conserve utillities. We have one car payment on a used car. How much more do you want to take now? You want that used car? How much of my paycheck will satisfy you? How much more will I have to cut? 4 years ago things were fine. Inflation and paycuts and benefit increases have eaten away any financial safety zone we have. How about cutting welfare recipients pay? I am sure some of them take home more than I have left in mine.
According to Veronica, when it comes to cuts, we are all created equal. Except that some of us are a little more equal than others.
Get ready folks…the SEIU will flood the “rotunda” with bodies and camp there until management relents on cuts for itself.
“Equitable” – where was that word when they were originally handing out salaries? I think to be equitable, the CAO ought to make the same scale as a Senior Journeyman/woman.
While I have beefs with the SEIU regarding Cathy Neville, there is a much, much larger fight looming that promises to be well worth the price of admission and that will make the Neville/Cooper/County/BOS spat seem like a picnic. You guys might even get SF Chronicle or NY Times Bay Area coverage on this!
When you back the union into a corner, there is always hell to pay. Five hundred jobs and no change in administrative status quo is a very tight corner.
//Ferguson’s . . seeks . . cutting by 25 percent general fund spending at all departments.//
Surely, not all departments are of equal in the essential services the to the public. Do families, when necessary, cut all expenses– food, mortgage, entertainment and travel–equally? Hardly.
The meat axe method to spending cuts does not reflect well on the county’s administrative leadership
Everyone making over $50,000/year should share in the pain of reduced pay and benefits.