I was surprised to get an almost immediate response to my last letter, from none other than the president of the Chico Police Officers Association (Union). But I wasn’t surprised that all Tyler Rainey had was “False”. He sounded like Jim imitating Dwight on “The Office”
I can’t reprint his letter here so I gave you that little giggle. And then I went back to the contracts for more ammo.
I found even more outrageous stuff. See, I think it’s a little unreasonable and irrational, the way council caters to the cops – 8 minutes equals a half hour of overtime? Read on. And then read the contracts yourself, I couldn’t fit it all in 250 words.
In my recent letter, I quoted the very generous CPOA contract:
https://chico.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/2021cpoa_mou_signed_0.pdf?1673455511
The city recognizes 11 “established holidays” – including Christmas Eve and the day after Thanksgiving. The contract states, “City shall provide ten (10) hours of Holiday Time Bank pay… Employee’s Holiday Time Bank shall be credited with one hundred and thirty (130) hours…”
Overtime is “work in excess of their normally assigned work shift or regularly scheduled day off.” Eight minutes beyond the end of their shift is 1/2 hour of OT, every 45 minutes is rounded up to an hour. They get 1-1/2 hours of CTO for every hour of overtime, or they can take 2 hours of STO. “Upon separation from city service” unused STO hours “are converted back to CTO, and employee shall be compensated…”
CTO “shall be limited to a total maximum amount of $60,000 each calendar year. If the requests
submitted by Employees exceed the amount available for payout… payout for each Employee shall be prorated so that the total of all payouts does not exceed $60,000 per calendar year.”
“Effective the first full pay period of July 2022, the City shall increase the salary schedule by 5%.” And again in July 2023. Chief Aldridge claimed 19 new hires since January 2022.
Did Tyler Rainey use his “CPOA Time Bank” hours to compose his letter? “The CPOA Time Bank, established for use by CPOA Employees for the sole purpose of performing or conducting CPOA business without loss of pay” City Contribution – 100 hours.
Juanita Sumner, Chico Ca
All I knew about Tyler Rainey was what he told us – he’s president of CPOA. You can find out more by checking with Transparent California. I have a question – how’d you rack up so much overtime Tyler?
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/chico/tyler-rainey/
Police Officer (2019)
| Regular pay: | $72,945.60 |
|---|---|
| Overtime pay: | $19,457.91 |
| Other pay: | $11,526.64 |
| Total pay: | $103,930.15 |
| Benefits: | $34,284.40 |
| Pension debt: | $27,853.53 |
| Total pay & benefits: | $166,068.08 |
$19,457.91 in overtime – another $11,526.64 in “other pay”. That’s how you take an reasonable sounding base salary of $72,945.60 and turn it into $103,930.15. That was 2019 – I searched the most recent files for 2021 and found this:
| Name | Job title | Regular pay | Overtime pay | Other pay | Total pay | Benefits | Pension debt | Total pay & benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tyler Rainey | Police Officer Chico, 2021 | $71,825.00 | $9,898.26 | $18,212.31 | $99,935.57 | $38,150.15 | $34,994.37 | $173,080.09 |
Well, that’s so interesting. His base pay goes down about $1,000, his overtime is only about half – but look at that, he’s doubled his “other pay”. Think that’s when he was elected president of the CPOA? Because that’s about the time former president Peter Durfee decided to make his successful run for county supervisor, so he had to give up some of his “duties” with CPD. Look back at my letter – Rainey gets paid by the taxpayers for doing CPOA business. When I looked at their campaign contribution reports, I see that includes regular luncheons with other CPOA members. Great – we pay them for the time they sit plotting to screw us. Talk about a kiss afterwards!
Something else I’ll point out is that Transparent California figures the employee’s pension deficit using their salary plus the measly contribution they make toward their CalPERS costs. I’ve done the math on their figures, it’s good. Rainey has racked up a personal pension deficit of $34,994.37, that he also expects the taxpayers to pick up.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Another impactful article, Juanita. Chief Billy talks the talk of transparency, but does he walk the walk? How can 100 +/- officers have power over the City Council? CPD already soaks up 50%+ of the annual expenses to run the city. Chicoans should be aware that the City Council gave Chief Billy full authority to purchase a pile of weaponry at the council meeting 4.5.23. Taxpayers will be paying for this build-up of armament… with no cap on expenses… no limits on the use…and no accountability that crime will go down while expenses rise. Is Chico a college town or a combat zone?
Thanks Scott – part of that budget is hours and hours of unnecessary overtime. They use overtime to drive up their yearly pay, after showing us what look like reasonable salaries. You’re right, there’s no transparency – looking at the contracts, you can see how they write everything in doubletalk to make it as confusing as possible. What it comes down to is there on Transparent California – one cop after another adding 10’s of thousands of dollars to their annual pay by collecting 8 minutes here, 45 minutes there – an hour a week and you’ve got 52 hours of overtime that was never used for serving anybody.
Are you aware, they dress and shower on the clock? They do their reports on overtime. They have every excuse for that overtime except that it was necessary to keep our town safe.
I don’t want the anarchy that city council has brought here with their open doors for bums policy, but we need cops that understand how a budget works, and how they’re killing our town with their greedy demands.
The Chico Police Department is committed to transparency, public trust, community partnerships, and compliance with the law. As such, the Department has authored the following Annual Military Equipment Use Report, in accordance with the annual reporting requirements set forth in Assembly Bill 481.
The paragraph above came from the CPD website, supposedly assuring Chicoans that the CPD is “committed to transparency.” As you have pointed out, Juanita, the CPOA and higher-ups of CPD, and the City Council talk the talk but do not walk the walk. The confusing language of benefits given to CPD officers appears to be written to confuse the taxpayer. There is also NO ACCOUNTABILITY even mentioned…shouldn’t the CPD have goals and objectives to meet when the council approves the purchase of a superabundance of new weaponry?
Yeah, I agree – I don’t feel safer as a result of their policies
Scott, I sent a note to your email – let me know if you received it – thanks JS