Council Votes 6-0 To Approve New Contract With Long Beach Police Union; Council Doesn't Seek Disclosure Of "Market Analysis" On Pay Or Discuss Mgm't Plan To Pay For FY17 Costs Using "Less Conservative Budgetary Actions...For Unfunded Retirement Liabilities," Leaves FY18 and FY19 Costs (Reaches $14.3 Mil) To "Annual Budget Processes"
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(February 8, 2017, 6:07 a.m.) -- As seen LIVE, the City Council voted 6-0 on Feb. 7 (Pearce, Andrews, Uranga present earlier but left Council meeting) to approve a new three year contract with the Long Beach Police Officers Association.
Mayor Robert Garcia left the item to nearly the end of the Council meeting; Council discussion began at 10:54 p.m. with a vote at 11:13 p.m.
No Councilmember(s) sought disclosure for taxpayers of a "market analysis" that, according to management, showed LBPD was among lowest paid departments locally. The "market analysis" was referenced in a Dec. 24 press release announcing that negotiators for the City and the police union had reached agreement, and during the Feb. 7 Council meeting, Dir of Human Resources, Alejandrina Basquez, indicated there were two "market analyses" (neither of which were made public prior to the Council vote.)
City management's agendizing memo indicates the new agreement will create a $6.2 million net fiscal impact to the General Fund in FY17, with $14.3 million to the General Fund at the end of the three-year agreement.
No Councilmember(s) questioned city management's plan [stated in its agendizing memo] to cover new contract's costs in FY17 in part by using "less conservative budgetary actions such as reducing charges for insurance and funding for unfunded retirement liabilities" and leave FY18 and FY19 costs to future "annual budget processes.
LB taxpayer advocate Larry Boland and retired LAPD Deputy Chief Steve Downing raised fiscal issues and received no Council responses.
Councilmembers said the new contract will aid in retaining and attracting officers.
[Scroll down for further.]
In addition to the memo's Fiscal Impact information above, Assistant City Finance Dir. Lea Eriksen tells LBREPORT.com that "Measure A revenues will not be used to fund the increases."
The LB Police Officers Association was the largest single contributor ($225,000 as of June 30, 2016) to the Measure A sales tax increase. Voters approved the measure roughly 60% to 40% citywide after being shown a ballot title and text that stated: "[all caps in original] "CITY OF LONG BEACH PUBLIC SAFETY, INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES MEASURE. To maintain 911 emergency response services; increase police, firefighter/paramedic staffing; repair potholes/streets; improve water supplies; and maintain general services..."
City management has elsewhere indicated that it expects Measure A will produce roughly $48 million per year in General Fund revenue for City Hall in its first six years (before by its terms it drops to half.) City Hall wrote Measure A as a general tax increase, whose revenue goes to LB's General Fund that a Council majority can spend for any General Fund purposes.
In its FY17 budget (adopted Sept. 2016), Councilmembers voted to restore 8 police officers out of roughly 200 officers that previous Councils had erased since FY10. The Council voted reductions in police officers for taxpayers wasn't publicly opposed by LBPOA's leadership, and its political action committee endorsed a number of Council incumbents (including Mayoral-candidate Garcia) who voted for the police reductions. Long Beach City Hall currently provides its taxpayers with a budgeted police level available for citywide deployment roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if it erased over 25% of LAPD's officers.
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As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, in December 2016 city management told the City Council's Public Safety Committee (Price, Austin, Supernaw) that it has no current plan to provide further police officers for the public beyond what the Council budgeted for FY17...but indicated management would provide the Council with some options in January 2017 [to our knowledge none described publicly to date.]
In his Jan. 13, 2017 State of the City message, Mayor Garcia offered no plan for providing additional police officers but indicated that as a newly named member of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency governing board, he will support a proposal to have LBPD officers handle policing on the Blue Line in Long Beach, which he said could result in up to 30 LBPD officers handling Blue Line tasks "paid for" by Metro. However the Mayor didn't indicate from where those up-to-30 officers would come.
On Jan. 15, 2017, LBREPORT.com learned and reported that Metro envisions using 14 LBPD officers. In response to our inquiry, LBPD management told LBREPORT.com that those officers for Metro-contracted would be drawn from other LB policing tasks and would be covered with "overtime." [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]
