Tag Archives: Chico Police Officers Association

Hit me, beat me, make me read the employee contracts.

1 Aug

We have our regular Sunday meeting coming up this weekend, and I’m trying to get some stuff together for a good conversation about the employee contracts. The contracts are all up in December, so we need to start talking about them now. Council will be discussing the following contracts at next Tuesday’s meeting:

2.3.

CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATOR (Gov. Code Sec. 54957.6.) Negotiator:  Brian Nakamura, City Manager Employee Organizations:  Management Employees, Confidentials, Public Safety Management Employees, Chico Police Officers’ Association, Chico Public Safety Association, International Association of Firefighters, Service Employees International Union (Trades and Crafts Unit), Chico Employee Association, WPEA/Local 39

They should be posting information for us as the talks continue, but I’ll bet we’ll have to bitch for it.  The current contracts are available on the city website, on the Human Resources and Risk page, under “Labor Contracts”, here’s the link:

http://www.chico.ca.us/human_resources_and_risk_management/labor_agreements_home.asp

I’ll tell you right off the top – they’re HORRIBLE to read. No lie, they really suck. “Whereas City and CPOA have memorialized their agreement regarding matters within the scope of their representation…” 60 pages, the first 10 of which include title pages, table of contents, and definitions. Then stuff like The CPOA Time Bank – “The CPOA Time Bank is established for use by CPOA employees for the sole purpose of performing or conducting CPOA business without loss of pay…” Wait a minute – what? 

Here’s what’s worse from my standpoint – $taff loads documents in such a way that I cannot cut and paste.  Instead of giving a link and hoping people wade through all that SHIT, I want to take out bits and snatches of interest to discuss here and at our meeting Sunday, but that means, I have to open both screens and go back and forth and type it. That just makes me so mad – my time is worth something, and I just get so frustrated sitting at the computer doing stupid stuff like that. But, I can’t think of any other way to get people to pay attention than to put the outrageous words right in front of their  faces.

I’ve always wrestled with the concept of  “CTO” and “STO”. CTO is “Compensatory Time Off in Lieu of Overtime Payment“, STO is “Selective Time Off in Lieu of Overtime Payment“.  This is an exercise in accounting.  “CTO shall be accrued at a rate of one and a half hours for every hour of overtime worked.” So, they can choose to take an hour and a half of time off for every hour of overtime worked.  Sounds fair, and good for the city, right? But something sounds weird about “Payment for unused CTO …Employees may request payment for a maximum of forty (40) hours of unused CTO…The maximum amount of CTO that may be accrued and utilized at any time shall be limited to 200 hours. Employees may choose to leave CTO in place into the following calendar year. Payment for such hours will be made at the Regular Pay in effect at the time.”  

Then, “Selective Time Off” – Employees who work overtime “may accrue Selective Time Off in lieu of overtime or CTO…STO will be accrued at the rate of two hours for every hour of overtime worked.”  When an employee doesn’t use that STO? They can have it converted to CTO and get paid for it. But here’s what’s changed – they used to get paid for TWO HOURS when they’d only worked one. Even though they were paid at the regular rate instead of overtime, they still ended up with an extra half hour of pay. That sounds petty, but it really adds up. Now the formula says, “Number of STO hours divided by 2, multiplied by 1.5, equals CTO hours”. In other words, they’re getting paid for the hour they actually logged, at overtime, which seems fair to me if indeed it was an overtime hour in the first place. 

My concern is, they can roll these hours over, year after year, through pay increases, and end up getting paid a higher salary for hours worked years previous. I don’t know if it actually works that way, you read it and let me know. All I know is, these guys as much as double their base salaries with overtime, “other pay” and “special pay” and it’s all here in these contracts for any dummass who wants to read it.

Me, I fell asleep while typing and accidentally closed the contract page at least twice. My family has gone out to clean the garage because I kept reading snippets aloud and asking “does that make sense to you?” or “is this crazy or what?”

I’m going out to clean the garage. 

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Where does the money go?! Chico councilor Randall Stone offers some answers

19 Jul

Thanks Councilor Randall Stone for sending me an interesting link to a table he’s posted regarding average salaries, by department, Downtown.

You can see it at this link:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=524942580893900&l=bf000f939b

But I’ll summarize – the fat paychecks are in “Public Safety”, police and fire.  Number One, Public Safety Management – and I’m not sure, but I think this covers everybody over the rank of “officer” – is paid an average, average, of $128,900/year.  Those salaries range from about $98,000 to the police and fire chiefs’ salaries at about $185,000/year.  

Peter Durfee, president of the Chico Police Officer’s Association, wants us to remember that these salaries include overtime. He makes the same circular argument the cops and fire have always made – if you’d hire more officers, we wouldn’t need so much overtime…but overtime is cheaper than hiring new officers…”  They won’t take structured overtime out of the contracts – the CPOA was just screaming for MORE structured overtime last year. Former CPOA president Will Clark said they needed to schedule overtime for EVERY three-day weekend. This is NOT cheaper than hiring new officers, especially if the new officers are paid their agreed-upon salaries of $63,000 – 80,000. Instead, everybody through the rank of sergeant is allowed to spike their checks with OT. The lieutenants just demanded and got raises because their underlings were spiking their paychecks so high as to be getting more salary.  But Durfee insists that overtime is not the same as pay. I can’t follow his reasoning, it’s like chasing a greased pig. 

Management certainly ain’t doing too bad, averaging $96,000 a year. Considering the city manager makes $212,000, and his immediate subordinates like Assistant City Manager make  $185,000 a year, you realize there has to be ALOT of management to average that out to $96,000.  At this point, Brian Nakamura has trimmed so many of the worker bees, about all we got left down there is Management.

As Randall Stone has reminded us, these figures are just PAY. They don’t include the pensions, benefits, and other expenses we pay to float these salaries.  

Thanks again Councilor Stone, and hope to see you again soon at an upcoming CTA meeting. 

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Chief Beery needs to go, maybe Trostle too

9 Jun

I sent the letter below to the Enterprise Record last Sunday, Dave Little responded bright and early Monday that he’d run it, but hasn’t.   So, here it is, I won’t wait for him next time.

People have already forgotten Beery’s threats to close the airport station – guess why – because people don’t care unless something crawls right up their ass.   If he’d threatened Station 5, all those little yupsters over there in the subdivision that used to be North Valley Swim School would have their panties in a knot. If you don’t hold the stinking fish right up to their noses, they don’t give a shit. That’s the kind of people that have moved here over the Boom Years – stupid lemmings. If I have to read one more letter about the cops being cut, I’m going to barf – the cops have people like ex-chief Maloney’s wife writing in, spreading bullshit. Laurie Maloney is a fed pig. She sits with her husband on his $150,000+ pension and benefits, and she’s afraid the public is going to turn her apple cart over. Mrs. Piggy is going to get pushed out of the slops trough, oh no!

We need better chiefs. We need LEADERS, not mule drivers who threaten and whip. We may need to turn an apple cart over, get your gloves.

Who needs Dave Little – this is our newspaper!  Here’s my letter, if you send me something that’s not creepy or obscene, I’ll print it. 

Whenever we ask the public safety departments to curtail spending, they threaten to cut positions and close stations. This time Chief Beery is threatening to close the airport fire station, which will put the city afoul of federal air safety restrictions.  We ask the chief for leadership – instead he threatens public safety and the viability of the airport to protect his department. 
 
Our Finance Director has revealed  the city is losing about $70,000/month with the defeat of Measure J, the cell phone tax initiative. Meanwhile, the city spends over twice that amount – over $158,000 a month – paying the employee’s share of pension premiums. 
 
The police and fire departments, having the biggest budgets at about $22 million and $18 million, also pay nothing toward their pensions, so their pensions comprise the lion’s share of the ominous unfunded pension obligation.  
 
These pension agreements are a threat to public safety. During this last round of contract talks, it became very clear that most public safety employees will see their co-workers laid-off and positions go empty before they will step up and pay their own shares, for pensions of 90 percent of their highest year’s pay, available at age 50. 
 
Council signs these contracts because the public safety employees routinely make the biggest expenditure in every council campaign. If council was really working for us, they’d refuse to sign these contracts until the employees came back with a better deal.  
 

Juanita Sumner, Chico

UPDATE:  The ER finally ran my letter, over a week after I sent it. The cops made an offer to pay their own share the other  day, but they also wanted a raise to cover it!    They say they got a pay cut – no, they just didn’t get a raise. They call that a pay cut. 

We don’t need yer stinkin’ deals, Coppers!  

 

How dare they tell us, they don’t make enough money to pay their own pension premiums! They’ve made “sacrifices”?  Look at these salaries – this is just a sampling from one page, with regular pay and overtime:

  • Anthony Ferreira, Police Officer – $71,219.20 in reg pay, total $97,473.35 with overtime
  • Donald Finkbiner, Police Officer  – $71,219.20 reg pay, total $83,070.98
  • Daniel Fonseca, Police Sergeant – $87,913.76 reg pay, tot $121.145.91
  • Scott Franssen, PS – $95,638.40 reg pay, tot $126,657.16

You can see more salaries at the Enterprise Record. You’ll see “compaction” on page 2 – Lieutenant Jennifer Gonazales, at a regular salary of $101,000 year, is not allowed overtime, being an “at will” employee – she’s just supposed to be available for whatever comes up?  From what I’ve seen, she spends most of her overtime in meetings, like the Police Advisory Board meetings, making high school style reports on subjects like mental illness among the homeless population. She did receive about $15,000 in “special” and “other” pay, without any details beyond that description. But, down at the bottom of the page it says that for CSU  Chico, “Other pay includes police training, uniform, holiday OT and special assignment stipends; summer stipends or pay; and payments for indirect instruction, educational achievement, and misc. incentives.”

But, Gonzalez and the other lieutenants pitched a bitch because many sergeants, who are supposed to be subordinate to the lieutenants, were jacking up their $80 – 95,000 a year salaries with overtime, to waaaay more than the lieutenants were getting paid. So, despite the bullshit storm being stirred up by Peter Durfee of Chico Police Officers Assoc, they did so get raises in their new contracts. it makes me sick to have to listen to even Channel 7 perpetuating this horseshit campaign, letting Durfee shoot his mouth off on the news without any opposing viewpoints.

Durfee, by the way, padded on more than $30,000 to his seemingly innocuous-looking $63,000 salary, taking home more than $95,000 in 2012.

Here’s a response my letter got from a cop groupie, sitting next to her scanner in a negligee:

Linda Hinchcliff Rouland · Clear Lake High

Chico PD is the only city bargaining group that has come forward offering concessions to contribute toward their retirements in an effort to offer savings and keep their department operating. No one else has, and the city managers rejected the offer.

Yes, they certainly did reject it, and good for that. I wish people would try harder to be informed before they accuse ME of spreading misinformation – but this woman is obviously going to support the cops no matter what they do.  

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Oh God our city is doomed

22 May

Thanks to John Salyer, Stephanie Taber, Sue Hubbard and the other citizens who showed up at last night’s catastrophe city council meeting. 

I went down, but left at 10 pm. I have a rule, and they also made a rule, that these meetings should not go on after 10pm, it’s just counter-productive. I get up too early, can’t always take a nap in midday, and by 10:00, I lose confidence in my motor abilities – you don’t want to be on the road with a woman who can’t tell a big raccoon from a person in the dark. Last night I slowed down because I thought I saw a pack of mice scurry out in front of my car – I screamed out loud – it was leaves blowing across the street. 

Better safe than sorry.

I also have a low tolerance for bullshit – I can’t eat it, I don’t care how much sugar you put on it. And Scott Gruendl is a regular lawn feeder. When he started rambling about his experience with the mentally ill, I made my way toward the lobby. At 10:00, with a full agenda, they had still not made it past Item 4.1.

And let’s talk about Item 4.1. I don’t remember when I’ve seen three items crammed into one before. Item 4.1 was supposed to be three reports from the city attorney, on three different ordinances, all slightly related by way of ALCOHOL. But all three deserving of separate conversations. Instead we got fixated on the sit/lie aspect of the item, and the other two subjects – a “social hosting” ordinance and a fee for “alcohol related businesses” got swept off to the side. Only a couple of speakers mentioned those subjects on a side note.

“Social host” ordinances involve holding the “host” of a party responsible for underage or other problem alcohol consumption. In Chico, when we discussed the Disorderly Events ordinance, Chico PD made it clear they want the city to go after not just the “host” of the party, but the landlord or property owner. That provision failed, I believe, because the city attorney and local property owners groups convinced them it was slippery legal ground. The Disorderly Events ordinance was passed without the landlord responsibility clause, and the cops have been trying to get it back in the door eversince. This “Social Host” ordinance completely lends itself to holding landlords responsible for their tenants’ activities, even though tenants can sue their landlords for harassment if landlord oversteps his right to control the property. 

Chico police officer and president of the Chico Police Officers Association, Peter Durfee, expressed support for both the sit/lie and social host ordinances, as well as a general distaste for landlords. He feels landlords are responsible for their tenants’ behavior.  The Disorderly Events landlord provision fell apart  when they realized, they’d have to notice landlords, some of whom live out of town. How would they identify which houses were rentals, and which were owner-occupied? The impracticalities just started to pile up, and the subject was dropped. That’s how far I expect them to get with any kind of “social host”ordinance.  There are too many subjective decisions to be made – and no, I don’t trust Chico PD to make subjective decisions, I don’t think they are the sharpest pencils in the plastic pocket protector. The salaries Chico pays only attract greed, and greed isn’t a good indicator.

But only a couple of people even mentioned “social host”. Most of the comments were directed toward the sit/lie ordinance, with most of the speakers in favor. It’s hard – I so agree there’s a problem, but I don’t think a sit/lie ordinance will help.

In San Francisco, where they have the ordinance in place, the arrested are processed and back in their own pee puddle in less than four hours. How’d you like to be the shop owner who made the complaint? Last night I watched career homeless man Bill Mash go off on a rant that Colliers is harassing “the homeless.” Wow. If I were the owner of Colliers, I’d get an armed security guard. Bill Mash is unstable. He’s exactly the kind of creep that, as Wayne Cook put it, is “poisoning” the atmosphere Downtown.  He’s hostile, in your face, and bigger than me. One woman said if I didn’t like “looking at” those people, I didn’t have to go Downtown. Maybe she’d like to set up an escort service for small women and children who don’t feel safe around these freaks. It’s a lot more than “looking at” them. 

But a sit/lie ordinance is not going to do it, not when the DA won’t prosecute, whining that he has no space in his jail. They will just be processed at our expense and turned back out on the street. One guy in that article on San Francisco had amassed 10’s of thousands of dollars in fines for the same violation.

Randall Stone also made one of the best points of the meeting – most of the annoying things these people do are already against the law. You aren’t allowed to block a public sidewalk, urinate or defecate in public, have an unruly dog – most of the stuff they do is illegal. But the cops won’t do anything.  Trostle admitted – all a person has to do, is refuse to obey a cop, or even mouth off to a cop, and it’s “malicious,” and the cop can arrest them.

Let me tell you my own personal experience with Peter Durfee, mentioned above. One morning, I woke up to find my neighbor had again had a loud party, and there was one of her friend’s vehicles parked in my driveway, right next to a “NO PARKING” sign. So, at 8:30 on a week day morning, I walked over, knocked on her door, asked if she knew whose vehicle that was, and when she said yes, I asked her very politely to tell them they’d have to move it, it was on my property – thanks! You’ll have to take my word for it, I was perfectly nice and sweet. And then, as I walked away, she said, perfectly audibly, “Or what?”  I turned and told her, “or I’ll have to have it towed.” And I hot-footed it out of there. I don’t like trouble – are you kidding, at my size?

I left the property for about 15 minutes to ride my bike over and  take in one of my tenant’s trash cans – they were out of town for the weekend, and asked me to get their cans in – and when I got back about 15 minutes later, Peter Durfee and his partner were sitting in my driveway, blocking not only my gate but my other  tenant’s driveway. He stayed a half hour, telling me I wasn’t allowed to go to my neighbor’s house to tell her to move her car off my property. He never said exactly what I was accused of, just said, next time I have a “problem” with my neighbor, call him. I still have his card with that message on back. I told him I thought it was crazy that, at a time when the cops were whining short staff, he would come to my house and stay over a half hour, blocking my ingress and egress from my home, over 100 feet onto my private property, harassing me over my neighbor’s trespassing on my property. Officer Fat Ass has no respect for private property rights – I asked him to leave several times and he refused, still blocking my tenant’s driveway as well as mine.  He seemed to be determined to get me to obey him, like some fat little god.  He finally told me that if I ever went to my neighbor’s door again, for ANYTHING, he’d arrest me. In exactly those words, he threatened to arrest me. I went in the house, and he and his partner sat in my driveway for another five minutes, then turned around and left. 

So, there you have the “quality” employees we attract with these salaries, and this fat little creep with the extra chin is the PRESIDENT OF THE CPOA!  Sums it up, as far as I’m concerned.

But even Officer Fat Ass did not discuss the ACE ordinance, the third subject of attorney Barker’s report. The ACE – or “Alcohol Compliance and Education” ordinance should be a dead fish, but the cops keep bringing it back – it’s a fee, that would go straight to the cops, to be used at their discretion. Chief Trostle says he’ll hire a cop to dedicate to alcohol related issues – how vague and – excuse me – unenforceable is that? Is this “dedicated” officer just going to be laying around in some kind of wrapper, to be brought out just for alcohol-related problems? No, they just want another $100,000 + a year to hire a new cop, I got Trostle to admit that at that Chamber function I attended.

Well, Barker shot ACE down last night – she said in 2010 the state legislature passed Prop 26, prohibiting a government from just tacking fees onto stuff without a specific purpose. Prop 26 “defines ‘tax’ as every charge that is imposed by a municipality...”  Furthermore, “alcohol fees were used as an example of what should not be imposed…” 

Any fee must have a specific service that is provided, for example, Barker cited license fees, inspection fees, or a fee for an employee education program that is directly provided by the city.  They can’t just charge a fee and use it as they please. 

Mark Sorensen, feeling his balls last night, asked, “how does this differ from the ABC (Alcohol Compliance Board)?”, and Barker answered that Prop 26 essentially says that the only things a municipality CAN do are things already done by the ABC.

So, we don’t need an ACE ordinance. The cops are just phishing for money, again. We have about a $43 million budget. The cops get $22 million of that. They pay NONE of their pension premium or health insurance.  They repeatedly tell us, they need more money and “new tools” to do their jobs. Talk about “aggressive panhandlers”! 

We need a new council, and a new police chief. Our mayor is incompetent, which is what I tried to tell everybody about our City Manager Dave  Burkland and our Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy, and nobody would listen. Now we have to hear it from an outside. I missed that report, held somewhere around what? 11:30 at night? As if anybody was still awake. And don’t forget, council also approved contracts that continue to pay the “employee share.”

These meetings are agendized without any sense. The ACE ordinance is dead, why was it agendized? Why were three items jammed into one public comment session? Mary even said, “we didn’t think this through” as she realized there were 29 speakers and it was already after 8pm. She wondered aloud how they would sort the comments on these three different issues. She tries to act like a mayor, but she doesn’t have the slightest idea what she’s doing.

Our council is a pack of naked emperors, all buck naked. They expect us to sit and look at their junk and not say anything about their shortcomings? What a pack of useless ninnies. 

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Letter: Chico Council has allowed salary spike

1 Apr

I wanted to get back to posting people’s letters to the papers, keeps them circulating, gives us a chance to talk about  them. This letter from Stephanie Taber ran about a week ago in the Enterprise Record.  

Chico Enterprise-Record

Posted:   03/26/2013 12:09:27 AM PDT

The city of Chico “has 106 people earning more than $100,000,” according to your Wednesday editorial and your database at www.chicoer.com/salaries.That’s not a surprise if you’ve been paying attention but that takes time and effort, not something a whole lot of people seem to want to do including our long-term City Council members — both present and those who have recently left office.

I’m not sure either of our two newest members, Tami Ritter and Randall Stone, have any inclination to curb the city’s incredibly generous benefit package. But then I don’t sit in on closed-door sessions so I don’t know what direction they have given to our still new city manager. After all, if the council does not bother to give direction, nor ask what the financial impact is of any proposed memorandum of understanding (contract) with any of the unions or contracts made with upper management, or ask where the funds to pay for that and our infrastructure too are, well you can see how personnel costs just kind of get way up there. And the potholes too.

It is the council’s responsibility to lead, to give direction. The city’s fiscal crisis is not the fault of the economic downturn, nor the current city manager, Brian Nakamura. If there is fault it lies with the former city management staff and a council unwilling to tackle hard fiscal issues instead of feel-good issues: nuclear bombs, human slavery, plastic bags and corporate personhood.   You get what you vote for, plain and simple.

— Stephanie Taber, Chico

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Nakamura’s response to Stephanie Taber’s question about “compaction” between cop salaries. Or is it “compression” – he can’t make up his mind

2 Mar
Well, Stephanie had to resend her request once, but Brian Nakamura finally responded.  He’s done this to me – he always makes a dumb excuse why he hasn’t responded sooner. He told me he got my e-mail address wrong, and here he tells Stephanie he had a response in his drafts file. I guess he was too busy attending a ceremony for a cop killed 75 years ago, or maybe too busy driving between Chico and his home in Hemet?  Whatever – his response isn’t anything to write home to Mama about, but I’ll share it anyway.  For Stephanie’s request see

Hi Ms. Taber,

 I apologize as the email I was going to send you was still waiting in my draft box, but it was in regards to compression and my interpretation. Essentially, a compression issue occurs when a salary of a subordinate employee within a department creeps within a certain salary range of his/her immediate supervisor. In this particular case, and as you have identified, the incentive to become a manager is lessened when a subordinate’s compensation (with overtime) overlaps that of a supervisor with exempt status or fixed salary. Addressing the compression should not

 In regards to the newly created departments, those directors will be paid a salary commensurate with their span of control and duties. Their contracts will be negotiated in accordance with existing at-will employee contracts which spell out the salary and benefits available and as established in the management pay and benefits resolution(s). Severance is limited to a maximum of three months and that is still an option, not a guarantee.

To make it more clear regarding at will employee contracts I’ve provided you with a copy of a blank one for your review.

 If you have any additional questions Ms. Taber please feel free to contact me and I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

 All the best,

 Brian

First of all, it’s not “compression,” Brian, it’s “compaction” – please get your Newspeak straight! They make up these words so we don’t understand what they’re talking about, but this guy spins it out so fast he can’t even remember what he made up. 

There he says it though, Stephanie was right. “Compression” or “compaction” – a turd by any other name still stinks. What it means – a boss is not getting paid enough more than their (oooo!) “subordinate,” and that makes the boss just plain jealous. 

In the dictionary, “subordinate” is often substituted with “inferior”.   Is that really what Nakamura thinks of our employees? Well, that’s the problem – we have two police lieutenants making a formal complaint, which is often the precursor to a LAWSUIT, over the fact that their “subordinate” sergeants get overtime, and are therefore able to extend their “subordinate” salaries up to and often well beyond that of their supervising lieutenant. In other words, the “subordinates” aren’t “subordinate” enough!

One solution to this problem, which would also solve some of our financial problems Downtown, would be to take “structured overtime” out of the cop contracts. Cops through the rank of sergeant are guaranteed overtime, which they trade back and forth among themselves in order to as much as  double their salaries. It’s pretty convoluted – they tell you they are actually required to work that 15 hours on regular pay, but they get so much beyond that 15 hours (which can be used to sleep, eat, go to a gym…) that the average officer making a base salary of $65,000 can easily boost his pay to as much as $120,000.  Look at the salary chart in the Enterprise Record and see for yourself. The police budget is over $22 million – our total city budget is about $43 million. 

Instead the cops are demanding and Nakamura is recommending a pay increase for lieutenants. He’s already recommended a $13,000 salary increase for Chief Kirk Trostle (that’s in the “reorganization” report in next week’s agenda).  The new cop contract is full of raises, can you believe that? How is this “reorganization” saving us any money?

I’ve invited Mark Sorensen to discuss this topic at a Chico Taxpayers Association meeting, but I haven’t had any response from him. I’m predicting Sorensen will rubberstamp anything Nakamura puts in front of him. This will prove to be his undoing in 2014. 


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Stephanie Taber – Citizen at Large: What is “compaction”?

18 Feb

The city is currently in contract talks with various employee groups, and this week’s council agenda includes a little snatch of the cops’ contract.

6.1. SUNSHINING OF PUBLIC SAFETY MANAGEMENT INITIAL NEGOTIATIONS PROPOSAL
Under the terms’ of Council’s request to sunshine employee group proposals, the Council has received
the first proposal from Public Safety Management (PSM) for consideration. The fiscal impact of PSMs
proposal is approximately $10,367 per year in order to rectify an on-going compaction issue. The city’s
proposal consists of administrative changes and has no financial impact.

I’ve been reading these agendas for years now, and I still need to bust out my dictionary and do a lot of research online just to figure out what’s going on. “Fiscal impact” means, the new contract is going to cost us money, I got that much.  But, what’s “compaction?”  Long time council watcher Stephanie Taber wrote this note to staff:

Could you have someone in PSM define the word “compaction” as it is used in the “Fix Compaction for Police Management”.  It’s apparently the salary spread, or lack of it, between a sergeant and a lieutenant pay scale which is normally 5% but because at the lieutenant level they no longer get overtime it is obviously more advantageous to a promotable employee to stay at the sergeant level.  Is that the crux of the argument?

Also, what will be included in the benefit package offered to the newly created department directors.  I am particularly interested in whether they will pay their full share of their pension plan and if they will have a special severance package and if so what that would be.  They appear to be salaried position and increases will be based on merit???  A little more info would help.

Thank you.

st 

I think Stephanie is right – I just saw an episode about this on “The Office.” Dunder-Mifflin has just been bought out by Saber, and Michael and Jim find themselves vying for the office manager position. Then Oscar explains that sales staffers make more money because of commission, so they both change their minds and want to be salesmen.  

Yes, Chico PD and Fire often double their salaries with overtime. They agree to $60,000 salaries and end up taking as much as $120,000.  So,  I can certainly see this “compaction” business to be a problem, especially when you’re dealing with people who routinely put  their own interests ahead of the community. 

You’ll have to follow this link to get the report, and then scroll all the way to the bottom – Debbie Presson and staff purposely load these reports in such a way that they cannot be cut and paste. Even Mark Sorensen has complained about this – I feel it’s Presson’s way of keeping the public out, but you think whatever you want: 

Click to access 2-19-13CityCouncilAgendaPacket.pdf

I will also post any response Stephanie gets from staff, but don’t hold your breath, she usually has to yank their chain a few times, Goddess bless her! 

DISCUSSION:

I’d like to get a discussion going on this subject, so I’ll lead with a few snippets from the report. Now remember, I have to go between two screens and hand-type this stuff, thanks to city clerk Debbie Presson, so pardon me if I tend to get a little beee-chee.

The report leads off:

“Historically the compaction issue for the Police Department was masked by merit pay. Once merit pay was eliminated (2008) it exposed several structural problems.  The first structural issue relates to compaction. The second to internal promotions.”

“The police manager to police supervisor pay ratio immediately experience compaction when two lieutenants were promoted from the sargeant ranks. This compaction was never remedied, and eventually led to a personnel grievance filed by these two lieutenants.” 

(The spelling error there, by the way, belongs to our “quality employees”  – it’s sergeant, not sargeant)

There you have it. Two of our police department employees, lieutenants,  are complaining they don’t get paid enough. That’s the kind of “quality” employees we attract with these salaries. I have a salary sheet from 2010, listing four lieutenants – their salaries range between $108,000 and $126,000/year.  They’re complaining about salaries like that? And on top of that, they pay NOTHING toward their own pensions and benefits. They are eligible to receive 90 percent of their highest year’s pay at age 50. 

One of those Lieutenants listed on that salary sheet is Linda Dye, who recently invited me to get the hell out of the secret meeting I stumbled into one day Downtown.  Here’s something weird, maybe somebody can explain this to me – in addition to her $109,000 salary as Lieutenant, she received $11,557 in “special pay,” $3,619 in “other pay,” and $939 in “overtime.” Well, gee, I thought that was the problem, that Lieutenants don’t receive overtime? 

It says, right in the agenda report, “As a lieutenant, you are not eligible for overtime, are on call, and serve as ‘at will’ employees.”   

I’ll have to ask somebody about that and get back to you. 

UPDATE: Stephanie Taber reports she has had no answer to her e-mail question, nor was she able to get an answer at Tuesday’s meeting. They don’t discuss the cop contracts in front of the public, the item was included because by law they are supposed to show us the contracts before they sign them. Supposed to. They signed Kirk Trostle’s contract without showing it to the public – it was signed on Tuesday, and when I asked for it on the following Friday it still wasn’t available to the public. That just shows you how the city of Chico respects the rules. 

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I walked in on a Pig Party!

25 Jan

January is a tough month, dark and cold. It’s hard to fight that compulsion to hibernate.  I don’t like to leave my house, I like to be in my comfort zone in January. But, for some dumb reason, I fight it. 

So, yesterday I planned all day to go to the Economic Development meeting Downtown. There was an interesting item on the agenda – some folks from Glenn County are proposing a “solid waste converter” – simply put – a giant incinerator that turns trash of all kinds into electricity. The burning trash heats water, creates steam, and turns the turbines that run the generator. It’s been done in Europe and Asia for years. In fact, I read an article from Jennifer Arbuckle of Northern Recycling and Waste Services saying that alot of our trash, including recyclables, goes to China to be burned for electricity. Whether they buy it, or we pay them to take it, I don’t know.

NRWS is out of the Bay Area. A couple of years ago, they entered into a garbage franchise with the town of Paradise. They are in the business of sorting and diverting trash from the landfill. Here’s an interesting article on that:

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/northernrecycling-waste-services-reduces-waste-stream/content?oid=1932112

I don’t know why this option has never been discussed for Chico. All I’ve ever heard at the STF meetings is that Neal Road Dump is starving because our haulers have been driving to Yuba City for cheaper “tipping fees.” The city is considering “franchise zones” – meaning, town will be split up like a pie between Waste Management and Recology. This will mean guaranteed revenues for both companies, but they have to sign an agreement to bring all their trash to Neal Road. This will not be good for customers – rates will raise to meet Neal Roads’ higher tipping fees  and we will have no choice of hauler.

Bringing in an outside company with a different plan is sure to make this conversation waaaay more interesting. Right now, we are in the stone age of trash.

So, a gal named Kara Baker from KVB Inc was going to give the Economic Development Committee a little presentation, and I had really wanted to hear it, but last week Mayor Goloff had the meeting changed to Wednesday. 

Of course this was in the agenda, but these meetings have been on the same day at the same time for over 4 years now, without change, so I haven’t looked at the day on the agenda for at least that many years. I used to be on the notice list, but they drop you from those if you don’t keep asking to be added. So, I asked to be added again so I won’t miss out. 

It was an interesting trip anyway. Turns out, instead of the ED meeting, I walked into the city employee contract talks. Wow, ever walk into a barn full of brood sows? You know – momma pigs. Momma pigs are nasty creatures, with nasty sharp little teeth. They’ll attack you alright, and they’re omnivores – remember,  never trust a man who keeps pigs!

When I walked into that little room, as I fumbled around trying to get my notebook out of my bag, scarf off neck, etc, I noticed all this food on the table. I thought, “since when do they have food at these meetings? Little trays with bread or something – sandwiches? Before I could get a good look, Chico PD officer Linda Dye turned at me from her chair, like a momma pig, and said, very unfriendly, “There’s a meeting going on in here right now!” I was struck dumb – all I knew at that moment was, the room was hostile. I apologized, and she softened a little, then I left. Outside, in the breezeway between City Hall and the muni building, I encountered city clerk staff Debbie Presson and Dani Brinkley, clattering across the sidewalk and up that ramp with a wheeled catering cart, full of MORE FOOD. 

I have to go now, so I won’t speculate on this. But the word TROUGH keeps popping into my mind. 

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CTA meeting rescheduled – no First Sunday meeting this month – Second Sunday meeting instead!

4 Jan

I’m sorry to be a flake, Folks, but I will not be able to make the regularly scheduled Chico Taxpayer’s meeting, so the gang has agreed to meet Sunday after next – that’s January 13 – same time, 9am.

I’ve been wanting to talk over the unfunded pension liabilities, and our campaign to get city employees to pay their own “employee share”. We need to discuss the whole notion of who pays what regarding benefits/pensions. I believe the employees should get ready to pay more, a lot more, or get ready to give up this notion of 70-90 percent of their highest year’s salary at 50 – 55 years of age. 

A decent person would not expect others to pay these salaries and benefits, it’s just greed people. 

So, I hope to see hear some productive ideas on January 13, get a letter writing campaign going, try to get council to listen to reason. 

Plan B? There’s another election coming up in two years, and now’s the time to look for suitable replacements for Scott Gruendl and Mary Goloff. 

 

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The squeaky wheel might get the grease, but that’s not all it’s going to take to shut her up.

21 Dec

Debbie Presson sent me a note to say she’d had the report for the November 27 Finance Committee meeting amended to reflect the other questions I asked at the meeting, and the answers from staff. You can see that here:

Click to access 2012Minutes.pdf

The minutes for that meeting are posted there at the end of 2012.  

I also got a note from Brian Nakamura, with attached documents regarding the city’s share of CalPERS costs – yeah, it’s bad alright. You have to write to your council, and ask them what made them promise these outrageous packages in those closed door bargaining sessions they’ve held us out of for so long. Now we’re allowed to look at the contracts, sure – like a condemned prisoner stares out the cell window at the gallows. These idiots have put us on the hook for MILLIONS of dollars, a YEAR, in pension payments, more than the employees pay. And then there’s the “unfunded obligations” – that is on the agendas for the next six months! Nakamura is trying to spoon-feed us that manure, and I don’t know about you, but I’m spitting it out. 

We need to shut this city down. 

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