City Mgm't Memo on restoring certain Long Beach fire services (Nov. 5, 2013) by lbreporter

The memo comes less than two weeks after city management recommended Council approval of 15% raises in new contracts for four city employee unions -- including the union representing city managers and "non-represented" management level employees. The raises, which weren't included in City Hall's FY14 budget, are supported by Mayor Bob Foster and amount to a 9% increase paid directly to the employees plus, for the first time, 6% paid by the employees toward their pensions (an arrangement similar to that agreed to by other city employee groups.)

Asked for comment on management's memo, Councilman Gary DeLong told LBREPORT.com:

It is interesting to note that the report from the City Manager states it would be necessary to either utilize the "surplus" revenue, or reduce services and staffing in other departments to restore the needed fire services. However, for some reason, when the City Manager proposed providing 15% raises to four labor groups at the cost of $1.8 million annually to the General Fund, it wasn't necessary to use the surplus or reduce staffing elsewhere.

Management's position might not have come to light were it not for a 5-4 Council vote on Oct. 22 to withhold action on the management raises until management reported to the Council on restoring fire servies cut in previous budget cycles. Five Councilmembers insisted on seeing the management report on restoring the cut fire services before voting on the management raises: Schipske (made motion), DeLong (seconded motion), Lowenthal, O'Donnell and Johnson. Four Councilmembers -- Garcia, Andrews, Austin and Neal -- voted no (would have allowed vote on the raises without the report on restoring fire services.) Among those four was Vice Mayor Robert Garcia, chosen by Mayor Bob Foster to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee in 2010. For the past two budget years, Garcia has declined to hold hearings of his Public Safety Committee on the public safety impacts of proposed Management/Mayor budgets that included cuts to police and fire services.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, at the same Oct. 22 Council meeting, city management's agendizing memo indicated that in addition to 15% raises for represented (unionized) city managers, the raises would be also given to "unrepresented management employees." LBREPORT.com believes this verbiage means the raises would apply to management level personnel in a number of city departmental offices; we presume these include the Chiefs of Staff in the offices of those Councilmembers who employ them (Schipske's office currently doesn't) and the Chief of Staff to Mayor Bob Foster.

On Oct. 31, LBREPORT.com emailed and telephoned (left message for) Deborah Mills, Director of Human Resources, seeking to learn how many city offices had unrepresented management employees and would receive the 15% raises. As of predawn Friday Nov. 1, our telephone call and follow-up email produced no response.

As with all city employee raises, an increase in the base amount paid will increase the ultimate taxpayer cost for the employees' pensions, a sum also not quantified in management's memo but pursued publicly at the Oct. 22 Council meeting by Councilman DeLong.

The raises now being discussed were offered to the four employee groups by a Council majority (vote tally not yet known) in a July 2013 closed session...but the raises can't take effect until a public Council vote (which was scheduled for Oct. 22 but held over on the 5-4 vote until Nov. 5.)

At the same Oct. 22 Council meeting (with nearly no public testimony in support), Councilmembers voted 8-1 (Schipske dissenting) to authorize city management to prepare a Request for Proposals to choose a private consortium to tear down LB's current City Hall and build and operate a new Civic Center without receiving bids from firms to retrofit City Hall or seeing a seismic report which listed retrofitting as an option.

On Oct. 30, five Councilmembers (Gary DeLong, Gerrie Schipske, Suja Lowenthal, James Johnson and Al Austin) scheduled a special (not regularly scheduled) closed Council meeting to discuss the raises for the union-represented management employees and job performance for City Manager Pat West [whom an agendizing memo indicated was offered the same 15% raise.] At the conclusion of the closed session, City Attorney Charles Parkin said that no Brown Act reportable action [publicly reportable voted action] had taken place.

Developing. Further to follow. LBREPORT.com will carry the Nov. 5 Council session LIVE on our front page starting at 5:00 p.m.