Tag Archives: PSSE

Eleven El Segundo Police Department Positions “Eliminated” were Actually 911 Dispatchers Transferred to the South Bay Regional Public Communications (SBRPC) Authority

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Mike

by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org

March 22, 2014

Mayor Bill Fisher Continues his Campaign of Deception as He Runs for Re-Election

El Segundo Mayor Bill Fisher wants voters to believe he reduced the City’s wildly excessive and unsustainable employee compensation costs by reducing City employee salaries by significant amounts. He also wants us to believe there were substantial numbers of City employee layoffs. These are not true.

The Schedule of Authorized Employees in the Fiscal Year 2011/12 City of El Segundo Adopted Budget (B11 – Employee Summary) deceptively reflects 11 Police Department positions as being eliminated.

11 Emergency Dispatchers who were transferred from the City of El Segundo to the South Bay Regional Public Communications (SBRPC) Authority to handle El Segundo 911 calls appear in the FY 2011/12 El Segundo City Budget as eliminated Police Department positions and implied layoffs.

In fact, those positions were transferred to another government agency. The positions were not police officers. They were 911 emergency dispatchers in the Police Services Support Employees (PSSE) union. They were transferred to the South Bay Regional Public Communications (SBRPC) Authority when the City shut down its 911 emergency dispatch center and went back to its previous practice of contracting with the SBRPC Authority for emergency dispatch services.

Thus, it is misleading to characterize these 11 Police Department employees as layoffs, because each one was still employed doing the same work for the City and ultimately paid by the City. The City still paid their salaries and benefits through the City’s payments to the SBRPC Authority. Each dispatcher was given $3,000 in transfer compensation and a guarantee that his or her base salary will increase or remain equivalent upon transfer to the SBRPC Authority. … Continue reading →

Posted in California, El Segundo, El Segundo Election Coverage, El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases, Elections, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, Politics | Tagged 911, Bill Fisher, city budget, City of El Segundo, dispatchers, El Segundo, El Segundo Police Department, Emergency Dispatch, ESPD, layoffs, mayor, Police Services Support Employees, PSSE, SBRPC Authority, South Bay Regional Public Communications Authority, transfers, union | Comments Off

2009-2010 City of El Segundo Separations due to Budgetary Reasons Mostly Early Retirements

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Mike

by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org

March 20, 2014

Mayor Bill Fisher Continues his Campaign of Deception as He Runs for Re-Election

Fisher supported wildly excessive pay raises of 11.25% to 32.3% over three years for the already overpaid firefighter and police unions and their managers. These raises were approved by the City Council on April 7, 2009 and December 2, 2008, long after the Great Recession began, and include retroactive raises effective 6 and 9 months before they were approved on April 7, 2009. These raises were in addition to the automatic 5% “Step” raises firefighters and police are given each year for the four or five years after they year they are assigned to a new job position.

See City of El Segundo Can Save $3.3 Million Per Year in Employee Pension Costs for more details and documentation on those raises.

City employees received huge permanent pay raises, but most of their “concessions” were temporary, with the net result being increased employee compensation and increased pension costs to the City. Concessions included things like temporary one-time “unpaid” furlough days, which are like unpaid vacation days, and temporary suspension of cash-outs of accumulated unused vacation and sick leave hours. The firefighters and police were paid “Special Compensation” for those “unpaid” furlough days, which averages 33.5% of their regular earnings.

The alleged “reductions in salary” were achieved by temporary unpaid furlough days, temporary suspension of cash-out of accumulated unused vacation and sick leave hours, temporary reduction in overtime hours in 2010, and early retirements – many of them with lucrative and expensive incentives. No employees had their hourly pay rates reduced.

There were 26 City employee separations in 2009 and 2010 for budgetary reasons, and only 5 of those were layoffs. The rest were early retirements.

The employee separation data is shown in the following table … Continue reading →