The agreements — with the Tracy Firefighters Association, Midmanagers Bargaining Group, Confidential Midmanagers Bargaining Group, Technical Services and Support Unit, Limited Service Employee Group and department heads — apply to 186 full-time employees and 18 part-timers.
The agreement with the part-time workers, which entailed no changes, was passed unanimously. All others were approved 4-1, with Councilman Bob Elliott dissenting.
According to statistics
provided by City Manager Leon Churchill, the contracts should knock $695,000 off the city’s general fund liability by the 2014-15 fiscal year. The recently passed 2012-13 budget includes a $2.2 million general fund deficit.
Savings will be achieved by having employees pay the employee share of the contribution to the California Public Employee Retirement System. Employees also agreed to a freeze in cost-of-living and equity raises and a second-tier pension plan for workers hired in the future.
In exchange, the city agreed to end three years of unpaid furloughs while putting money into “flex leave” that Churchill said would “take the sticker shock” out of the PERS concessions. The seven department heads were also given 40 days of paid leave time.
But Churchill said the more important point was that the agreements could lead to bigger savings for fiscal year 2015-16 — the same year the city will lose an estimated $6.5 million in general fund revenue because of the expiration of the Measure E sales tax increase, passed by voters in 2010.
If employees of the six bargaining groups addressed Tuesday continue paying their share of PERS but the flex leave is dropped, as Churchill’s report foresees, Tracy stands to save $1.7 million in 2015-16. If all city employees agree to a similar plan, Churchill estimates $3.4 million in savings for 2015-16.
Churchill called Tuesday’s council decision a concrete step toward erasing the city’s chronic general fund deficit, which is estimated at $2.2 million in fiscal year 2012-13 and could reach $8 million in 2015-16 if the city took no further action, according to Finance Director Zane Johnston.
Churchill cautioned that while the contracts were a vital part of the city’s eight-step plan to balance the budget, the city would keep pursuing “other alternatives to our financial strategy.”
Elliott, who voted against Tuesday’s agreements, suggested the contracts approved by the rest of the council did not go far enough. He implied that the city could have saved far more money if the concessions been adopted while furloughs remained in place.
“I just think it’s a missed opportunity here to get us closer to a balanced budget,” said Elliott, a retired U.S. Army colonel.
Three of the four members of the council who approved the contracts are public safety officers or public safety retirees. Michael Maciel retired from the Tracy Police Department, Steve Abercrombie retired from the Hayward Police Department, and Bob Rickman works for the California Highway Patrol.
Mayor Brent Ives receives a pension from University of California for his 37 years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
Maciel said the contracts dealt with the core issues of pension reform.
“We’re not done with our work in this area, but this is a major step,” he said.
Representatives from the Tracy Firefighters Association, Midmanagers Bargaining Group and Confidential Midmanagers Bargaining Group said they appreciated the process and the city’s even treatment of all bargaining units.
TFFA President Dan Havicus, a Tracy Fire Department captain, said the agreements struck “a happy medium” between the city’s financial needs and firefighters’ livelihoods.
“We do believe it is a fair contract,” Havicus said.
Ives said city and union representatives found a balance that suited both sides and worked together instead of attacking each other.
“I’ve been impressed by the fact that we all collectively understand the severity of the situation,” Ives said. “Because of that, we tend to be a little more collaborative in our approach to labor agreements.”
wtf? really? Must be nice to be a fat cat. There is one way to save some money; cut that down to a more reasonable 21 days.
When he says we're not done in this area, does he mean he's going to give 9% of his pension back like he just made fire do?
Why do you think the Tracy Police Officer's Association refused and refuse to support him in his campaign for election and re-election to City Council. His attitude is that he doesn't need anyone.
If you read the last 6 comments you will understand why I think Bob Elliot should resign from the city council ASP. The reasons are clear the TEA party is in control of Bob Elliots campaign, with that in mind Elliots stand as a council member is a conflict of interest.
What are you talking about?
If the Tea Party switched to the electoral college system it would tally to about 4 or 5 people.
Did Stockton's union ever "agree to terms"?
Maybe Jon Mendelson can write a follow up article and give us the details about how other cities compare.
Not enough info here. In fact, most of the town already got all this information at the Latte Shop.
We need more to compare and contrast for example.
We do not have reserves to dip in to any more, if the city continues to pay more and more in personnel costs, as they are year over year, the city will have to try to extend Measure E or find additional revenue. Or, we can become Stockton.
Didn't you just say no comparison?
Oh never mind.
I just noticed that the Tracy Press wrote another piece about Mountain House increasing taxes by 4%. And another about legalizing marijuana stance.
How do you compare and contrast what we are seeing?
Tracy Press,
Are we talking apples to apples, or oranges, here among various cities, or is that outside the scope of journalistic analysis?
Does the TracyPress have a vision to balance the budget with sales revenue from doobie sales or did we miss something?
Where are our priorities? Elliot wants to take even more from his employees. How about you sell that money pit, the grand theatre, to a private company who could probably make money with it?
Even though the money that comes out of the employees pay goes in to California Public Employee Retirement System, meaning that the money which is being "taken" is going to be paid back in retirement
Must be the new math, or something.
A closer look is warranted at the costs, because we have no detail on the new costs incurred with this agreement, specifically the savings lost by ending unpaid furloughs the money that was put in to "flex leave", and the 40 days of paid leave time.
Also a good question to get an answer to is if the employees can simply elect to cash in flex leave and days of paid leave, which would certainly alleviate quite a bit for the employees.
Probably an indication is that the Firefighters union President says "it is a fair contract".
1. Public (payroll from the taxpayer) employee unions should not be able to collective bargin on wages and benifits...period.
2. City managers who negociate with the unions need to TRUELY represent the taxpayers ... why do we have the Majority of the folks from the public sector running the city???
3. The employee needs to be given the choice of union membership and be able to opt out of membership and dues paying ... when given the choice in Wisconson, the public employee unions have lost 60% of their membership!!! This is stunning.
We need to demand this from our elected officials .. they are not looking our for our best interests.
I will predict we will run into the same problem next year ... Elliot was 100% correct.
So, yeah, what jimF01 and Bob Elliot said. Mr. Elliot just earned my vote for county supe. In these dreadfully tough times, the police and fire got a relatively sweet deal.