Council Votes 7-0 (Mungo, Andrews Absent) To Give Largest City Employee Union 6% Raises Over Next Three Years; Gen'l Fund Taxpayer Cost = $3.8 Mil

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It's one of several city employee contracts now being negotiated; still to come: police and firefighters

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(Oct. 5, 2016) -- The City Council voted 7-0 (Mungo, Andrews absent) on Oct. 4 to approve 6% raises spanning the next three years for the largest city employee union (Int'l Ass'n of Machinists). The offer was made weeks ago (following agendized but publicly closed Council sessions) and recently accepted by rank and file members of the union.

In other words, LB Councilmembers knew -- when they voted on Sept. 13 for a FY17 budget that restores only 10 of 200 police officers eliminated since FY10 and leaves three fire stations without previously staffed fire engines -- that they had already offered City Hall's largest public employee union the publicly unbudgeted raises that will cost LB taxpayers a management-estimated roughly $3.8 million from the City's General Fund when fully implemented by FY19.

It's one of several city employee contracts now being negotiated...with new contracts still to come for LB's police and firefighter unions whose political action committees were the two largest contributors to Measure A, a Mayor/Council sought increase in LB's sales tax to 10% for any general fund spending a Council majority approves.

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The agendized item gave publicly-voted Council approval to City Hall's newly-negotiated contract with the IAM which represents roughly 2,700 non-public safety city employees.

The new MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) also includes a "Me Too" Provision, which provides that if the City gives a wage increase to non-IAM bargaining units (with the exception of LBPOA, LBFFA and LGA [police, fire, lifeguards]), such an increase will be given to IAM bargaining units as well.

Still being negotiated: contracts with LB's other city employee unions, including police and firefighters (respectively the two largest single contributors to the $700,000+ political campaign for the Measure A sales tax increase; City Hall wrote the measure in a way that lets a Council majority spend the sales tax increase revenue on any General Fund items they wish.)

The annual LB taxpayer cost for the new IAM contract from the General Fund (which pays for police, fire, parks, libraries and other services) amounts to roughly [our calculation] a little over $1.2 million in each year over the next three years. City management's agendizing memo says the new contact won't affect the Council's just-enacted FY17 budget [i.e. the FY17 cost was already built-in] as management plans to spend a reduction it obtained in employee health care costs to cover the FY17 IAM raises.

By way of context, restoring ten LB police officers would cost roughly $1.5 million per year; restoring Fire Engine 17 to LB's Stearns Park Fire Station 17 would cost about $2.2 million per year (both are management-stated sums.)

In September 2015, the City (with Council voted approval) gave IAM a one-time one-year 3% payment (not pensionable, not amending the underlying salary resolution.) IAM is the same union that benefited from the now-notorious management-recommended, Council-approved 2002 "pension spike" that continues to cost LB taxpayers sizable sums annually despite subsequently-enacted pension changes applicable to new employees.

Neither LB Mayor Robert Garcia nor any incumbent Councilmembers have publicly announced any plan(s) to restore roughly 95% of police officers and the fire engines that the City previously provided but no longer provides to its taxpayers. With Mayor/management recommendation, the City Council's FY17 budget allocates the "Measure A" sales tax increase in the coming 12 months mainly for to infrastructure items, including repairs/slurry-covering streets evaluated as most in need.