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A recent Civil Grand Jury report that slams local cities for overcompensating their employees was largely met with agreement by Mountain View city management in a response unanimously approved Tuesday by the City Council.
The report found that Santa Clara County cities awarded generous retirement pensions, health benefits and regular pay raises to their unionized employees during Silicon Valley’s economic boom years, perks which they are now contractually obligated to make. Now, those cities must make severe cuts in services to pay those employees.
The gist of City Manager Kevin Duggan’s written response to the report was that the city agrees that personnel costs are too high in many respects, and that Mountain View was among the first cities to take cost cutting measures, including a two-tier system where certain new hires have reduced retirement and health care benefits.
“We should go ahead and toot our own horn a bit,” said council member Margaret Abe-Koga. “I think we have a lot of best practices here in Mountain View that we can share with others.”
Council member Laura Macias agreed. “Here’s a chance to do some bragging, since we have controlled costs a lot,” she said.
Council member John Inks was the most critical, saying that Mountain View has done “a pretty good job” keeping employee costs down, but contended that the city’s employee compensation costs were still “well above average” compared to other cities in the county.
Duggan responded to a list of recommendations and assertions in the report.
Here are some highlights:
■ The city agrees that cities should retain the ability to “adjust or withhold” pay raises “based on current economic data. Increases in compensation need to be more directly tied to a variety of factors, including the ability to pay,” Duggan writes.
■ The city disagrees with the grand jury’s finding that pay raises are often arbitrary, because “step” increases are given as an employee gains experience and skill.
■ The city agrees that health insurance cost increases exceed the city’s revenue growth and that city employees do not contribute enough to their health care costs.
■ The city agrees that partly because of stock market losses and an aging workforce, healthcare and retiree pension costs are the “most problematic and unsustainable” costs the city is facing.
■ The city is analyzing recommendations to increase its retirement age and to create a second-tier retirement pension benefit for new hires.
■ The city is implementing a recommendation for increased outsourcing, with private contractors being used for janitorial services, park maintenance and patrol, “professional services” and possibly golf course operations.
I just don’t understand it: the city can either pay the inflated pensions or it can let employees go. The end conclusion is that without a reduction in pensions, the city ends up with very few employees to do the required work and in the worst case, we pay taxes only to fund pensions. So the question is, why wouldn’t the unions or employees as a whole if they are not unionized, simply give up some pay or pension benefits in exchange for job security? I did this when I worked at HP in the 90’s, and it made sense, as well as feeling good that all of us employees shared in the pain of a bad economy.
Let’s face it, it hasn’t been that long since salaries and pensions were bumped up, so very few people’s retirement planning should be impacted by a readjustment. There will be some who will be very upset, but why should they be protected from economic downturns when the rest of us – including current employees of the city – are not?
I pressed “submit” before I was finished:
Why do Abe-Koga and Macias thing that patting themselves on the back is appropriate in this instance? They should be finding ways to solve this problem, not congratulating themselves on the fact that it isn’t as bad as it could be. It is bad. Very bad. And they’re the ones to fix it. As I’ve pointed out before, they seem more interested in their own reputations than fixing the city’s problems.
Maybe we’re not paying them enough …. just kidding!
So let’s compare: For the last three years, I’ve worked for a local startup. We have never gotten raises and in fact cut our salaries 20% during the recession. We don’t have a pension and can be terminated for no cause at any time. We pay $5000/year for health insurance that has high deductibles and premiums. And yet we generate tax revenue and jobs — we are a net hirer for the community over these tough economic times.
Meanwhile, City workers get annual raises, pensions retirement benefits and healthy medical insurance benefits?
That’s messed up.
“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” – Margaret Thatcher
John Inks got it right. ” Mountain View has done ‘a pretty good job’ keeping employee costs down, but contended that the city’s employee compensation costs were still ‘well above average’ compared to other cities in the county.”
This is an old story. I sent letters to all the City council back in the early 90’s about how we were giving out raises and pension and other perks beyond common sense. There is only one person now on the council who was on that council then. They all said that they had to give out the generous pensions and perks otherwise the city workers would go some where else. Even then they knew that the generousity was beyond what we could afford. But the present council now sees nothing wrong with spending millions for a hiking trail something that would be “Nice to have” but is not “Must have” or “Should have”. Years from now the taxpayers will be saying “What we they thinking, spending all those millions.” Sound familiar?
Seer: The reason that most people in most situations won’t vote to cut their compensation in exchange for greater job security is that most people think they’ll make the cut. “I can get a 10% pay cut or they can lay off 10% of people.” The large majority of people think they won’t be in the 10% laid off. Of course, 90% of them will be right.
Do people do things like this for the benefit of the collective or for their own individual benefit?
City workers don’t have any chance of making big bucks whereas those working for start ups have a chance of having their stock in the company be worth something perhaps big. That being said the city is paying too much for the workers so cut backs are required and now is the time.
What many fail to see is that the top executive and union and human resource people in the city and even the school district all used their positions and knowledge of the retirement system in the past decade to influence and game the system to their advantage and then retire. All of the below found their way into positions of power and knowledge with direct influence over shaping retirement packages. All ended up the highest paid retired city and school district employees to date. It just seems wrong that people who will directly benefit from public service retirement packages are the ones defining the benefits and calling the shots and putting taxpayers on the line for their back room deals. It’s like an inside bank job. It just wreaks of conflict of interest and corruption.
BARSI, BRUCE, Police Dept, $159,310.44
FARRAR, KATHLEEN, Human Resources Director, $179,618.04
MARTELLO, MICHAEL City Attorney, $150,370.32
ARCHIBEQUE, MODRITE Asst. Supe MVWSD $132,973.20
YICK, ELEANOR Supe MVWSD $129,743.28
All had a direct roll in creating their custom made top dollar retirement packages. How many of you can say you had such a role in determining your retirement? Check out the following links
http://database.californiapensionreform.com/database.asp?vtsearchname=&vtsearchemploy=mountain+view&vtquery=1&vttable=calpers
http://database.californiapensionreform.com/database.asp?vtsearchname=&vtsearchemploy=mountain+view+whisman&vtquery=1&vttable=calstrs
http://www.insidebayarea.com/public-employee-salaries-results?appSession=282539795081019&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=1&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=
Oh but just wait until there’s a wave of Fire Dept retirements. That’s what’s got the City running scared. The liabilities for those packages are going to require all sorts of new taxes we can’t afford. That’s right, pat yourselves on the back.
Vermeer Scott S Police $314,207
Duggan Kevin C City Manager $294,341
Alameda Richard P Fire $267,528
Wester Michael D Fire $257,738
Bond Zachary E Fire Captain Fire $235,621
Muela David A Csd Dir $233,429
Bosel Max J Police $232,952
Levin Nadine P Asst City Mngr $232,261
Vandenberg Ted A Fire $230,106
Hamlin Michael T Police $227,964
Custodio Dennish Fire $227,608
Demers Corey A Fire $223,077
Lopez Manuel A Police $222,511
Carper Greg E Fire $220,607
Hawkes Steven W Fire $219,456
ColeJeffrey J Fire $218,623
Del Carlo Clifford Fire $217,862
Trammell Wade H Fire $216,449
Zarubin Steve Fire $216,040
Owen John M Fire $213,726
Hoefling James E Fire $211,948
Biakanja Jim S Fire $210,627
Sohn Matthew K Fire $210,300
Walls Jr William G Fire $205,139
Norvell Damon P Fire $205,005
Futch Kevin T Fire $200,896
BTW, the first five are annual retirement salaries for life. The rest are current top salaries that will calculate into their final salary upon retirement. All are destined to be over $200,000 a year for life as early as age 50. Gotta love it. Sure beats a 401K.
Mob rule yet again. There are near 600 employees with the city and the vast majority of them make much, much, much less than that. And for those who say that they make the same as the private sector, let’s compare then, oh wait! we can’t because they don’t make their salaries public! Gezz– Get the facts people and enough of this ignorant mob thinking! We can all cherry pick our facts to justify our idiotic ideas, but let’s be fair people!
The private sector doesn’t ask taxpayers to foot the bill for retirement. $150,000 – $200,000 a year retirements is hardly a fair burden to place on taxpayers, many who make much less, or just scrape by in retirement living hand to mouth. With these types of retirement packages, there’s not much incentive for these people to save.
You gotta love it! Now, how about the salaries and perks of the El Camino Hosptial Administrative staff from the CEO downwrd. Annual bonus on top of benefits, cell phones, travel etc might warrant scrutiny in light of the hospital’s recent multi-million dollar loss listed in teh Voice as exceeding 10 million. Are the excessive salries going to continue.
Again, ignorance is bliss. Employers don’t pay all of the employees retirement. Please, oh please, for fairness sake, get the facts! Employees pay into their retirement also. And again, you use the highest earners to justify your fuzzy logic. That’s like me using the top 10% of American earners as an average for all American earners; it just doesn’t work like that.
Also, the salaries of the firefighters above also contains their overtime. Firefighters work overtime because the fire department is understaffed, hence there is savings from the vacant firefighter positions that is used to pay for overtime, thus it is balanced out; and naturally, this paper never reports that!
That’s an awful lot of firefighters and police making more than $200,000 salaries. Overtime is computed into their highest salary for retirement, as early as age 50? It’s naive to think that there is not a lot of gaming of the system here.
From the LA Times: “state Controller John Chiang announced he would require all California cities to clearly and publicly report salary information for elected officials and employees. The information would be posted on his office’s website beginning in November, he said.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bell-chiang-20100804,0,4810469.story
Looks like the rats are starting to get smoked out. Typical, right before a ship sinks.
If you don’t like what’s happening with YOUR tax dollars, vote the council members out of office who approve of these LAVISH pensions. Get involved with the next city council election. Find potential candidates who’ll address this issue. Complaining about it is a waste of time. And don’t be naive, the unions have a “warchest” to fight those who want to change the current system.
Overtime is not figured into a firefighter’s salary for retirement. Many of the salaries you see listed above include overtime and payouts for un-used vacation. None of that will be included when calculating their retirements. Please lend some credibility to your arguments by getting your facts straight.
Ronald Reagan broke PATCO, the air traffic controllers’ union. If he could do that, this city and all others can void these extravagant pension arrangements anytime.
Firefighters shouldn’t be collecting overtime for sleeping in their bunks. Deduct those rack hours, as well as their shopping trips to Safeway from their wages–I’m sure then you’d see these big tough men howl like babies. BTW, they are all men. Not one woman listed above. Obviously the old boy club is well at work in the Fire Dept.
Fire fighters do not get overtime because they’re understaffed. They get overtime because all you idiots let them wave the 9-11 banner anytime paycuts are discusses. You idiots let them and police get away with “Well, if you cut our budget, we won’t respond when you’re being murdered”. You idiots let them get away with “mandatory overtime” and say nothing, but criticize the rest of the city employee for getting raises and bonuses, NEITHER of which has been true for two years.
If you have no idea what you’re talking about, don’t open your mouth and prove it. If you actually care about the pay, find out why in Mountain View, 80% of the top paid positions are in public safety. Ask what the real reason is for their overrtime being so high. Wake up. They’re not your friends just because they make pancake breakfasts or Magruff the crime dog.
And what exactly are these “lavish” retirement funds that you idiots speak of? Do any of you actually know what the retirement plan is? Do you know that the employees contribute a significant portion of their retirement funding which only increases by putting in years of service.
Why is it you people love all the free services and perks of living in Mountain View but want all the staff who provide them to you to be paid dirt and die in the streets after retirement. Moutain View salaries have been publicly available for 3 years and the officials have never hidden any numbers. Find any private company who pays less for equiveleant jobs and provides the same level of service. You can’t.
You don’t want to pay them anything, than stop using the services. Stop sucking at the public teat yourselves. Stop letting people from other cities come here and use our services for free. Stop electing “spend spend spend as long as it gets me a few votes” council members like those mentioned. Show up at a concil meeting and learn the truth, don’t listen to slanted pulp from a “writer” who obviosuly has an agenda. What a misleading title….. What about the fact that Mountain View is one of the only cities in the Bay Area with a balanced budget? That all employee groups have forgone raises and any other increases for two years.
Oh wait. All except public safety. They took no pay cuts. They took no staff reductions. No concessions. Try and make them? “Well, when you’re being assaulted we won’t come for 72 hours”
Educate yourself on the real problems, don’t just read some talking head who only get’s half the story right.
AND THE RETIREMENT PAYMENTS COME FROM CALPERS, NOT TAX PAYERS!!!!! It is the return on investment for all the money paid in over the years. It’s not like the city cuts a check to employees every month like salary. CalPers is an investment group. Know where all that money came from? They invested heavily into futures for oil. BEFORE the price explosion. So to all you soccer moms who have to drive huge SUV’s to get your latte’s and get your nails done, thanks for keeping the price of gas outrageous.
You americans are so fat that you can’t see you’re own BS when it hits the floor. You’re all the problem, not these guys.
Tony makes many good points about the unequal treatment given to emergency personnel. Pay and benefits should be modeled after the military system. You get a base pay, and then a cost of living pay, which in this area is quite high. Cost of living pay is not taxed. However, when you retire, you only get your base pay factor into your retirement. It works out much more equitable if anyone bothered to look it up. You never hear the military complain like the prima donas of the fire and police department. Of course, they way they think, they would all rate themselves at the rank of 4-star generals, which is around the $200,000 mark anyway.
And Antoine, CALPERS is going broke and the taxpayers will have to make up for the losses. Your logic is skewed.
Re: le dude
Um, i think your logic is skewed. CalPERS has a current portfolio of $211.4 Billion. Yes, that’s BILLION!! Get the facts! I just hope that people like you don’t vote; now that would be scary!
And even that’s not enough money to cover all the pension promises made.
Get back to work at your job at City Hall.
From the Bakersfield.com and a taste of things to come in this town where public employees retire and claim a disability on the way out so it’s all tax free for life. Just another slap in the face to taxpayers. Anyone know how many MV employees have played this trick?
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/columnist/henry/x2120045985/LOIS-HENRY-Fire-chief-to-seek-disability-retirement
Last Updated Tuesday, Aug 03 2010 06:10 PM
Soooo, it looks like Bakersfield City Fire Chief Ron Fraze, who just recently announced plans to retire in October, will be seeking a disability pension for injuries suffered on the job.
That would make his pension — approximately 75 percent of his last highest salary — tax-free for life.
He has a bad disc in his neck, Fraze told me.
“It’s a job related injury from many, many years ago that’s been an ongoing aggravation for me,” he said. “I need to make sure it’s covered in the future if it acts up again.”
He didn’t want to give any more specifics about the injury, such as when or how it happened.
“I know you’re going to make it look like I’m gaming the system. But I’m not,” he insisted. He’s still sorting out his retirement paperwork and hasn’t yet officially applied for the disability pension.
He worked for 25 years, he said, and is leaving at age 53, not 50 as others have done to take advantage of the controversial 3 at 50 retirement benefit.
“That irritates the heck out of me,” he said. “People are so focused on the pension issue. A lot of people work really hard for the city and their work is just blown off.”
Not that pension reform isn’t an important issue, he quickly added. In fact, he personally thinks pensions “should be brought back into a more reasonable realm.”
it would be nice if “a base pay, and then a cost of living pay” was received buy many City of Mountain View employees went without cost of living or chose to split cost of living over two budget years.
There’s a really simple solution to this incredible feather-bedding at taxpayer expense–declare town bankruptcy. That simple maneuver invalidates all contracts and lets the town start from a zero-based budget–paying people what they’re worth as far as “the people” (i.e., the taxpayers) are concerned. In today’s unemployment climate, offering modest and reasonable salaries will draw applicants from all over the state, with the result that the budget will be rationalized and saved. (Expect blood in the streets…)
the guarantees in life….when will we ever get it….there aren’t any..seems we have created 2 classes of people….those with the guarantees..gov employees..and those without….private sector…and that is not right and certainly not sustainable…when the private sector’s retirement funds lose value…we have to deal with it..gov employees get guaranteed tax free retirement for life…come on…do you realize the private sector paid for their social security benefits and are double taxed on it….outrageous…and the gov sector gets theirs tax free…nonsense…the government blew all the money in the social security funds….it should not have been touched….but here we are….there is not enough money to pay for all the gov pensions….you gov employees need to face up to that ….it is a fact….you should have seen it coming…so here we are….you need to make huge concessions to your outrageously priced pension benefits….just like the private sector….and spare us the ..we won’t teach our children…we won’t put out the fire….we won’t respond to those needing police protection….or tom holzel’s simple solution will become a reality….
A firefighter who retires at age 53 with final earnings of $200,000 is in line to receive a pension of $150,000 a year for life. Assume he / she is married with a spouse a couple of year younger. The cost of buying an annuity that pays $150,000 a year for life (without inflation protection), with survivor benefits, is around $2,500,000.
If the firefighter worked 25 years – it would mean that for each year he worked, the city increased its pension funding obligation by $100,000.
Ask yourself if you now have 4 million saved up for retirement at age 53 because that is what it will cost us if a such a firefighter lives to be 75. If you are already older than 53, and you don’t have that 4 million saved up, than you lose. Of course, if that same firefighter were to retire on a disability, he wouldn’t pay any taxes on it.
To ann, a resident of another community, you said: gov employees get guaranteed tax free retirement for life.
Not sure why you think this. Only those who disability retire get tax free retirement- the rest pay taxes. And as mentioned above, all MV employees pay a portion (10% or more) towards their retirement. The public needs to address the cities like Palo Alto that still pay the employee’s portion plus the employer’s portion towards retirement.
Hogs at the trough. Cut ’em off NOW.
I like how City management is critical of the salaries that they agreed to pay, make no mention of their own. In fact, they refused to disclose them for a recent story that CBS 5 did. Kevin Duggan and the rest of the city’s management: why won’t you announce your pay and why won’t you take a pay cut?
But if they want to save some money, I know of at least 5 positions they could eliminate: Code Enforcement Officers.
City Code/Ordinance says that any vehicle left standing on the street more than 72 hours is considered abandoned. Yet their Officers usually don’t cite for it. Instead they leave a note on the windshield, instructing the owner to telephone them. And when they do, the officers say how to avoid the citation by simply driving the vehicle a few hundred feet.
They also refuse to cite for violating the barking dog ordinance, telling the dog owners how to circumvent it too.
Their salary range is $5206 to $6985 per month plus benefits. So not only are they drawing HUGE salaries, but they are not generating revenue as they should. They aren’t enforcement officers; they are how-to-bypass-the-law officers. They aren’t doing their job, so why not eliminate their positions? Think of all the money the City would save.
You can look up their salaries here:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/public-employee-salaries
Duggan, Kevin C City Manager $294,341 in 2009
His retirement package will cost the city roughly 5 million dollars.
Hot off the Press:
Top managers in Mountain View, Santa Clara earn top dollar compared to peers in larger San Jose
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15688525?nclick_check=1
Mountain View Councilwoman Margaret Abe-Koga recently said the city should “toot our own horn” about efforts to cap vacation and sick-leave cashouts. Still, the city of 75,000 had some of the county’s highest average compensation for employees: Median total compensation for police and firefighters is $190,591, and for other workers it’s $123,754.
And when it comes to its top employees, Mountain View doesn’t skimp. City Manager Kevin Duggan earned a salary of nearly $280,000 last year, eclipsing San Jose City Manager Debra Figone’s salary of almost $265,000.
Police Chief Scott Vermeer earned $287,161. By contrast, San Jose Chief Rob Davis was paid $230,177.
I think Seer may be on to something. Where I worked we did something very similar to what Hp did. When times are bad we must make decisions and choices that all might not agree on. If our city council can’t manage city affairs in the best interest of the majority they should step down from office and if city employees refuse to make choices that’s in the best interest of the majority they should be cut loose and sent packing………”Just Think About It”……………….(I think the golden goose is dieing, and there will be fewer golden eggs in the future.)
A couple of months back San Carlos, California city council voted to “Out Source” its police departments responsibility to Redwood City. Why couldn’t we outsource Mountain Views fire and police department responsibilities to Sunnyvale. In Sunnyvale they are public safety officers. Even if Mountain View had pay for the same number of officers two layers of management including their support staff could be eliminated. That has to be a cost reduction of about $1.5 to $2 million dollars annually. Another side benefit would be a negotiated fix cost………….”Just Think About It”………………..
A look back to 2010.