Shires writes: “Most public employees automatically receive a three to five percent “step” increase each year. The raises we hear discussed in the limited public releases about these negotiations are increases on top of these basic increases — the so called COLA or cost of living adjustment.

“For example, in Vallejo, a city which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, some unions were scheduled for 21 percent COLA increases over three years — on top of their regular step increases of 3-5 percent.

“These kinds of increases are unheard of in the private sector (try asking your boss for a 12 percent guaranteed raise for each of the next three years), but have become ubiquitous in California?s state and local governments.

“And this is just the salary portion of the conversation. Add on top of it full medical benefits for the rest of their lives, extensive overtime and an amazingly generous retirement system and you have a public finance system that is destined for bankruptcy — a destination rapidly approaching for the state and many local communities.

“While the result is shocking, the real failure is the secretive process that lead to it. The total lack of public information about these negotiation processes prevents the public from holding their elected officials accountable. Add in the fact that many of these very officials are elected due to major investments by these very employee unions (a topic for a later day), and you have a recipe for fiscal disaster. And taxpayers across the state are about to taste the fruits of that recipe.”

KICKER

SFGATE: Californians pessimistic about budget fix

The BOS has been using salary only to compare public employee compensation with other governmental entities. Not only should the BOS have been using the full compensation package including salary and benefits, but they should also currently be comparing compensation with similar activities in the private sector as well. The call for comparing full compensation is not new, in fact, CoCoTax called for using the full compensation package in February of 2005.

What kind of time warp do the Supervisors live in, anyways?

This recommendation comes after several important labor negotiations. Hello? And why on earth would County government limit its salary comparisons only to other inflated public agency salaries and benefits instead of also looking at private sector compensation to produce better efficiency?

Sadly, we notice Supervisors, including Mary Piepho, are currently enamored with the overused buzz word “best practices.” Yet any MBA text-book management analysis would describe Contra Costa’s fiscal incompetence as mismanagement or fraud. The recommendation moans that it’s just so hard to track comparable salaries across public agencies because records are not readily available. Maybe because they too are incompetent and need better oversight and management instead of bending over for SEIU?

The BOS crows that this recent recommendation shows how Contra Costa is “leading the way among public agencies for calculating compensation costs.” This isn’t leading, this is half-measure and CYA.

For peace officers, firefighters, public safety, and other public employees hired after July 1, 2009, this measure: reduces pension and retirement health care benefits; increases minimum retirement age; restricts early retirement; increases minimum age and years of employment needed to qualify for retirement requires public employers to make annual payments to fund future benefit costs; and allows public employers to adjust retirement contribution rates in future labor agreements. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and employees hired on or after July 1, 2009, offset to an unknown extent by increases in costs for other forms of public employee compensation. Major short-term increase in annual governmental payments to prefund retiree health benefits, more than offset in the long run by annual reductions in these costs. (Initiative 07-0024.) (Full Text)