Salary Reductions

There seems to be a bit of confusion as to what sort of salary reductions are being made by each bargaining group. There also seems to continue to be confusion about my compensation as well. Whenever there is a reduction in employee pay, I will be the first to take a cut and I will take a cut in excess of our line employees.

Once all of the agreements are finalized, I will put the specific details of each bargaining groups salary cuts on the blog. However, in the interim, I will attempt to summarize the proposed overall impact in pay to each group.

2009:
Employees recevied 4 percent salary increase (COLA) given in labor agreements.
Employees salaries reduced by 3.8 percent via 80 hours of furloughs.
Police Officers received 2 percent salary increase in excess of COLA per their labor agreement.

2010 (proposed):
Employees give up 4 percent salary adjustments (COLA) granted in labor agreements.
Employees give up 6 percent of current salary. Some groups will be paying more PERS and/or giving up some other forms of compensation such as deferred compensation paid by City.

2011 (proposed):
Employees give up 4 percent salary adjustments (COLA) granted in labor agreements.

Thus, by 2011, most groups are earning approximately 18 percent less than they had anticipated earning in 2011. In contrast, the City's General Fund is generating about 40 percent less in revenue than we had anticipated in 2011. The City is also continuing to pay increased costs toward each employee's medical insurance and the City continues to pay ever increasing pension payments to CalPERS.

The Executive Management Group and the City Manager agreed to give up an additional one percent of compensation, thus reducing our pay by about 20 percent.

If there is any confusion on this matter, any employee is welcome at any time to stop by my office and discuss this or any issue with me in person. You can email me or post questions on the blog as well.