Tag Archives: city employee unions

Doesn’t Agree With Officers’ Statements – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Loretta Frye

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Mike

Doesn’t Agree With Officers’ Statements

As a resident of this community for many years, I am having a difficult time understanding the statements emanating from the ES Police Officers, or the wife of one of the officers, regarding contract negotiations. She accused the Council of being focused on “money, money, money” and suggested the group is “hell bent on bringing down the police department.” However, neither she nor any of the officers have mentioned the unfunded pension liability of $106 million owed to PERS, and that to eliminate it would cost each household in the City of El Segundo $44,000 dollars. Or that the officers last contract required them to pay 3% of the pension costs, that other officers previously to her husbands hiring had paid in 9%.

Other cities are experiencing the same problem with unfunded pension liability, (example Torrance owes $300 million), and five cities within the state have declared bankruptcy, because they were unable to make any pension payments to PERS, and this affects everyone within the retirement system.

No one speaks about the healthcare benefits, which the city pays from the time of his hire, until the day he leaves this world. It is not known if these funds are also unfunded.

The City Council is not trying to destroy the police department or put the public safety at risk, and I feel that such statements are inflammatory, and the attack on Council member Fellhauer or any other is uncalled for.

– Loretta Frye

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Posted in California, Economy and Economics, El Segundo, El Segundo Herald Letters, El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Firefighter Union Corruption, Fraud Waste and Abuse, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, Letters to the Editor, Police Union Corruption, Political Corruption, Politics, Tax Policy and Issues, Union Corruption | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Doesn’t Agree With Officers’ Statements – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Loretta Frye

Stockton Syndrome Found – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Douglas Heitkamp

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Mike

El Segundo like many other cities in California appears to have some of the symptoms of an affliction now common throughout California. It has been observed in Vallejo, San Jose, San Diego, San Bernardino County and Stockton. I will refer to this malady as the “Stockton Syndrome”. Some of its symptoms include the lack of a balanced budget, loss of revenue from sales and real-estate taxes, investment income and electric utility tax. Other symptoms include unexpected personnel costs. Annual budges that must also cope with ever increasing yearly growth in salaries, pension and medical costs is common. Moody’s has taken notice of this in their recent announcement to review the bond ratings of all California cities. … Continue reading →

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The City Manager and Finance Director should NOT be negotiating employee contracts or agreements for salaries, benefits, or pensions

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Mike

Subject: Updated Written public communications for May 1, 2012, 5:00 P.M. City Council meeting
From: Mike Robbins
To: All Council And Clerks; Cathy Domann; Mona Shilling;
Cc: Mike Robbins;
Date: Friday, April 27, 2012 10:48 PM

April 27, 2012

Re: Updated Written Public Communications – The City Manager and Finance Director should NOT be negotiating employee contracts or agreements for salaries, benefits, or pensions.

To: El Segundo City Council, City Clerk, Deputy City Clerk, City Attorney, City Manager, and Finance Director.

From: Michael D. Robbins, long time El Segundo resident.

Here is my updated written public communications for the May 1, 2012, 5:00 P.M. El Segundo City Council meeting.

Please distribute it instead of my previous email to the entire City Council and the City Attorney, City Manager, and Finance Director, and post it instead of my previous email on the official City web site at ElSegundo.org on the City Council Agendas web page, http://www.elsegundo.org/depts/elected/agendas.asp, as is customary.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Michael D. Robbins
(Email address omitted.)

PublicSafetyProject.org
http://PublicSafetyProject.org/

YouTube.com/user/PublicSafetyProject
http://www.YouTube.com/user/PublicSafetyProject

The May 1, 2012 El Segundo City Council meeting, 5:00 P.M. session, has the following #1 under Special Orders of Business:

“1. Consideration and Possible Action to appoint Greg Carpenter, City Manager and Deborah Cullen, Finance Director to represent the City of El Segundo as labor negotiators with the Supervisory and Professional Employees Association (SPEA).”

The City Manager and Finance Director should NOT be negotiating employee contracts or agreements for salaries, benefits, or pensions, for the following SIX reasons:

1) There is an inherent and unavoidable conflict of interest, because their salaries, benefits, and pensions are based directly or indirectly on those of the employees with whom they are negotiating. City employee bargaining groups negotiate their salaries, benefits, and pensions, at least in part, based on the salaries, benefits, and pensions of the other bargaining groups. And the city manager, department heads, and all other managers are given pay raises based on the pay raises of employees below them to avoid “salary compaction”.

2) They are not negotiation experts. The city employee unions have professional labor union lawyers, negotiators, and negotiation resources to support their labor negotiations with the City, and historically, El Segundo city employees have received greatly excessive salary, benefits, and pension increases even during a recession. While this has been especially true for the firefighter and police unions, it is also true to a lesser extent for other city employee unions (“associations”).

3) The city manager and finance director must work with the employees with whom they are negotiating every day during the negotiations and after the negotiations are completed. If they drive a hard bargain for the taxpayers, there will be more employee resentment against them and less cooperation from the employees. Because of that potential resentment and lack of cooperation, there will be a disincentive for them to drive a hard bargain and negotiate in the best interests of the taxpayers.

4) The city manager and finance director are members of the city staff. They spend most of their time in City Hall in contact with other city staff members and little or no contact with the taxpayers. They have developed day-to-day working relationships and friendships with the city staff members but not with the taxpayers. Therefore, they tend to identify and sympathize more with city staff than with the taxpayers. … Continue reading →

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