South Lake Tahoe employees weighing down city’s budget
By Kathryn Reed
While South Lake Tahoe employees cry poor, city documents show their wages keep going up. Furlough days that were implemented did not reduce salaries. They reduced take home pay because fewer hours were being worked. But retirement funds were not affected by furlough days.
In actuality, city employees have been getting raises during the recession, while the private sector in large part has seen the opposite happen. In their defense, most of the contracts were agreed to before the recession. But it does show how little foresight there was on the part of staff and council members who agreed to the deals.
The one raise that stands out is just before Dave Jinkens left his post as city manager last year a side letter with the Administrative-Confidential group extended the contract through fiscal year 2011-12 with a 4 percent raise in exchange for a third furlough day.
According to MOUs and documents provided by the city, from 2007-10 Administrative-Confidential, General-Public Works, and the Police Employees groups received 18.5 percent salary increases. Police Officer and Supervisors group received a 26 percent raise in that time period. Fire received a 15 percent raise.
None of these figures is compounded, so it’s actually a higher amount.
The fire group chose not to accept its agreed upon 3 percent raise for 2010.
Here is a salary schedule of city employees by position.
Some workers will get a raise in the next fiscal year based on step-in-grade increases. These come on the anniversary of the hire date.
A full house is expected for the City Council meeting at 7 tonight at Lake Tahoe Airport because of the proposed changes in staffing and programs. Budgets are often considered the most significant decision a council makes – with the vote indicating how the group prioritizes staffing, programs and infrastructure.
While each council member has been apprised of what will be before them and have individually met with city staff, this is the first public discussion of the document and the first real opportunity for the public to weigh-in on the matter.
But this is the eleventh-hour because the budget takes effect in 16 days. Per state law, it must be balanced.
Because negotiations with employee groups are ongoing, adoption of the budget is not even expected tonight, according to City Manager Tony O’Rourke. It will likely require a special meeting to finalize it, but that date has not been set.
Nuts and bolts
To help close the $5.2 million budget gap, employees were asked to pay their share of their retirement and more for health care.
Only the fire association has made the concessions, though as a reward they are slated to get a raise of 2 percent for at least this coming fiscal year. However, because the group has not signed the deal yet, council members could voice their opinion on the matter tonight and potentially negate the deal.
Instead of one nice tidy document called a budget, what the South Lake Tahoe City Council will dissect tonight is a bunch of “proposed departmental summaries.” That’s the city’s lingo for it.
These proposals were put on the city’s website late Tuesday. However, the details behind the proposals are in five binders in the finance department. Christine Vuletich, who is in charge of that department, will have them with her tonight. An actual budget for anyone to look at won’t be available until the end of the year. Some years it has been well after the first quarter has ended.
The proposed budget calls for $94,695,245 in expenses. Of that, $28,157,124 is for the capital improvement program and nearly $11 million is for the ongoing debt. The general fund accounts for $28,607,349 of the total expenditures for fiscal year 2011-12, which begins Oct. 1.
Salaries and benefits are paid from the general fund.
The city has seven associations it works with. Their agreements and amendments, aka side letters, are on the city’s website. Only the General and Public Works contract is up at the end of the month. All other contracts expire Sept. 30, 2012.
However, the General and Public Works did not have its first meeting with all employees until Sept. 12. This, despite, the council in March approving the five-year fiscal plan that called for the salary-benefit concessions or layoffs.
A strike by the Admin-Confidential and Public Works and General employee groups is not possible based on a memorandum of understanding that says, “It is agreed and understood that there will be no strike, work stoppage, slow-down, picketing, or refusal or failure to fully and faithfully perform job functions and responsibilities or other interference with the operations of the City by the Association or by its officers, agents, or members during the term of this agreement, including the recognition of picket lines or additional compliance with the request of other labor organizations to engage in such activity.”
MOUs representing fire and police do not have such language because they are prohibited by law to strike.
Balancing the budget
In a 27-page memo to the council, O’Rourke outlines the fiscal health of the city and the measures he wants to take to make sure the city keeps functioning.
In part, they include:
• Voluntary separation program offered to employees of General and Public Works Union.
• Elimination of 26 positions, reduction in hours for four employees, and five positions vacated.
• Reorganization of city services. (Read more about this on Lake Tahoe News after the meeting.)
• Furloughs will be eliminated except for the Administrative-Confidential group. It saves the city money to keep that group on furlough days until the contract expires in a year.
• All non-represented and management staff paying their full 8 percent PERS contribution.
• Using $500,000 of the estimated $1.8 million health plan reserves. (Employee and retiree health care plans are budged at $5.2 million for the next fiscal year – which is 18 percent of the general fund.)
• Adding $278,000 to the budget through parking meters on Ski Run Boulevard and beach areas in addition to the ones already installed near the Stateline area transit center.
• Borrow $675,000 from general fund operating reserve to pay the proposed Redevelopment Agency continuation payment of $1.8 million.
Example of a city expenditure
Lost in a budget of this magnitude can be the expenses not even thought of by the public. Like the $23 per page the city pays to have minutes taken by the city clerk be transcribed by an outside agency.
Considering a slow professional typist can type 50 words per minute and there are an average of 500 words per page it means the person is making $23 every 10 minutes.
“It is not a matter of wpm and how fast a person can type. The industry standard is per page, which for summary minutes is cheaper than charging for hourly. This is a specialized and technical service,” City Clerk Suzie Alessi told Lake Tahoe News.
The city pays $10,000 a year for the service. The savings comes from not paying benefits to a city employee, Alessi said.
Still, it begs the question with all these layoffs, can’t one of those employees type for less than $138 an hour?
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that the City of South Lake Tahoe is guilty of such criminal mismanagement.
Oh wait, the El Dorado Grand Jury already came to the same conclusion in it’s previous investigation of the City Council.
Insanity is reelecting the same ethically challenged morons and expecting a different result. This town is over $200 million in the red and operating on a budget that is a tangled web of fraud, deceit and millions of dollars of unfunded liabilities.
It’s a shameful scandal that everyone pretends doesn’t exist.
WOW
WOW again.
I decided I’m gonna do a GBK and move out of the state. I’m not payin for this. The royalty can figure out how to pay for their own mess.
FYI. The G stands for giardia.
There have got to be more ways of increasing revenue to the city than just adding parking meters.
Is anybody actually paying for parking at these metered spots?
Or was this the result of rehiring the same consultant who promised profits at the city parking garage?
Yes Steve, they use them. $1 for 20 minutes on the street around Marriott Timber Lodge. I walk by there often and see them used (think more would use them if they knew they were there) and have used myself. Can use coin or debit cards.
The part that takes away from the income though is the person that drives around in the city Community Service truck that tickets those without paying….unless they find enough people to ticket!
Seems that the union contracts are a big part of the problem. The city is unable to be flexible and automatic pay raises even included.
How about the fact that the city manager makes over $15,000 a month? Why don’t we look at that? How much % of the budget is that?
Just remember, all issues may not be as they are “portrayed”. Especially these issues are portrayed by one side only.
Just remember, all issues may not be as they are portrayed. Especially issues that are portrayed by one side only. (This is a repeat – without the not-enough-coffee yet, grammar errors)
As a former Deputy City Clerk in SLT, it was the duty of that position to take minutes. Even overtime does not account for this bloated dollar amount to do minutes. Absurd.
What your article does not say is what this city is doing to its retirees. There is a huge story there folks. Taking away benefits such as medical for people who have already retired is horrible. These folks cannot earn more money as they are in their latter years, retiring on what ws promised them then. Medical can eat up all of their retirement and then some. This is the true issue. This City does not care about those who have retired. There is not even a voice on that committee for the retirees. This City Council should be ashamed. And to think it was once a great place to work. What the heck happened?
Numbers are numbers
The link to the salary numbers is great info.
Put that with the pension bene and you got the sweet deal. Indeed the sweetest deal.
Yet government produces nothing in the best case. Unfortunately, In SLT gov has done a good job at producing losses.
I notice that there is no mention about the cost of running the airport and any income generated by the airport. That has been a big outlay of money for the city and yet it is not mentioned or even considered as a financial problem. The airport has been a free bee for all those that can afford to use it and yet what income to the city has been generated. Id like to see those numbers and then decide how to change that problem. Maybe parking meters for the jets would generate a little income.
May we assume that with the addition of health benefits and contributions to the pension fund an additional 20% should be added to get to the total compensation package?
What about vacation time? How much is provided for by contract?
Is there a source to find the total compensation number anywhere?
To the City of South Lake Tahoe and the South Tahoe Public Utility District Stop spending our money. Your finances need to be open and transparent. Public sector employees are paid far more and receive far better benefits than the Private sector, Who I might add are the ones that pick up the tab for all of this and our community can’t afford It.
It’s time to put a freeze on all wages until some fiscal responsibility can be brought to these budgets as our community can’t afford the way you spend our money.
Good effort at trying to summarize the vast budget issues. It’s very complicated, and much of the problem is based on existing contracts signed well before the newer-elected council members took their oath of office. One cannot just get rid of the contracts – there are laws about that sort of thing.
So, the Council is now faced with the dilemma of either re-negotiating contracts or laying off staff. And they’ll try to get what they can from each bargaining unit while maintaining consistency. Good luck with that – it’s a tough job.
It’s easy for the public to criticize the employees and their benefit programs. The City needs to be competitive with private industry to hire qualified employees it needs. Salaries are usually less than private, but government typically tries to ease the gap by increasing benefits (still typically less than private) and trying to ensure a sense of job security.
The State of Nevada had a similar issue in the mid-90’s. Employee salaries and benefits were frozen for a number of years. The marketplace ruled, and employees left in droves for greener pastures. The State suffered so much that private companies lobbied the state to increase employee salaries to maintain market competitiveness beacause private enterprise was suffering. Governor Guinn eventually leveled the playing field. Yes, this happened in Nevada.
The City has a tough road ahead. Inadequate budget, and the need to reduce salaries and benefits and eventually lose qualified people, or maintain competetive salaries now and still lose staff. Not an easy choice.
Just imagine the exorbitant costs to the taxpayers if the fire dept., police, supervisor and General Public Works fell into the hands of the for-profit private sector. Public employees receive good benefit packages which help level the playing field regarding overall income. The pay average lags behind if comparing to similar positions in the private sector. I remember the “good old days” when the private sector berated the notorious low pay in public sector work. The low pay in teaching, for example, used to be the laughing stalk in the private sector. Now, many of those cynics who were critical, about faced and are now crying and whining like little bitty babies. I think the public sector did plan well for this economic downturn by contracting future increases when they did, something the private sector discourages and in many cases, lobbies against.
I suppose the City could try to increase budget revenues by equally and consistently charging the Transient Occupancy Tax on ALL motels. Right now, those places that charge by the month (possibly by the week?) are exempt. Time to level the playing field. If a place is a motel, pay the TOT. If a facility is an apartment, upgrade the motel rooms to a legal apartment and rent units like an apartment would.
ET is right. Much of our expenses were created in previous quarters. However we have one of the best places in the West for tourists to visit. We should be creating new ideas to increase our city revenue stream. HWY 50 still goes through this town. With the advent of the internet, local gov’t should also be more transparent with the bidding out jobs – to better qualified contractors at more competitive prices to save our city dollars in expenses and these ridiculous lawsuits.
I can’t believe that the City is paying the City Mgr. $15,166.65 a Month [$181,198.78 a year]plus benefits, and the City Attorney $13,481.65.[$161,177.74 a year]plus benefits, Sounds like they could save a lot of money there. I feel sorry for them, it must be hard to survive in this economy with such a poor salary,
It is only fair that the City Council take the retiree’s Health care away from them so that we can afford to keep them from going on welfare.
Maybe we should spend more time on important subjects like Signs.
Sure, with pointing out that these contracts were negotiated before the Recession hit. But even before the Recession our City was always crying broke and regularly pushing through tax and fee increases saying how urgent they were just to maintain services. It’s clear now the City urgently needed the money to spend and commit to things like they were drunken sailors!
When the economy was strong no one felt the need to scrutinize what was being committed to so it all got slipped in. And if a raise was committed to, then it can’t be unilaterally terminated by the City. But then staff needs to accept the consequences of the alternative, Layoffs!
And it used to be the case that govt. employees made less than the private sector (with a good benefit package to compensate). But the City Employees have blown past the private sector in our town in salary alone!
To those that say good for them, keep in mind we clearly could’ve used more money for our roads and our high tax burden is part of the reason our private sector economy is even worse off than the State’s or Nation’s! Good Reporting LTN!
A couple things to keep in mind as you read everyone’s comments; first where and who gave all the information? It isn’t the employees bleeding the city. Tom Davis goes back and forth with the tide for votes.
PLEASE take the time to look at a council meeting from November 17 2009 Consent Item 9. The Fire dept didn’t see a need to open their contract and help nor did the police, but they did make some concessions. General and public works misc and Admin and Confidental DID. I realize that was then and this is now but Fire is being rewarded for helping out by getting a raise to offset their pension benefit that they are “losing”. How is that helping the cities budget?
Hal Cole said it should be a shared burden equally. It is at 1 hour 48 minutes in the meeting.
Did you know the Cm, the Attorney and the Finance manager just recieved raises? did they tell you that or did they forget? They did but that’s not important right now. But we will layoff people because they are working real hard for you!
Who will be liable if a seasonal, inexperienced plow driver thinks my car is a speed bump or chews my car up with a snowblower?
Who is going to sign off on plans without an Engineering dept?, a consultant from Colorado? good luck!
Right ON Lisa! It’s nice that LTN has such a good grasp of the city’s budget, and I am sure the CM and Finance Dir. love being able to push their talking points through a news outlet. I cant imagine how hard it is to live on $15k a month, how do you spend it all?
City employees may have good salaries when compared to most here in tahoe, but there’s several gigs like that – the hospital, LTCC, upper mgmt at a resort…those are the ones that pay best. but the city people are also those who choose to live here, long term, and BE a part of this town. The CM will not stick around any longer than it takes to dismantle our city services, so that the vail vultures can come and feast on the remains….then he’ll be gone.
LisaD you have a few names right, but you left out another person the CM favors who received a new position title and salary increase in March when the last layoffs happen. Who came from 2 dying departments Redevelopment and Housing. Nancy Kerry has a lot of input of what is decided with the CM.
Why let go of more employees just to give the CM and his favorites another raise?
The problem here is the cuts come from the bottom. I don’t see the guy cutting the grass at the golf course, nor the lady behind the counter at the swimming pool, nor the guy plowing snow as the real problem or abusers of the budget. Look at who recived pay increases in the last year. It wasn’t the guy working at the campground or those expensive people that worked at the ice rink. I sugguest those who care or make off the hip judgments be at the airport tonight.
Kelley, the people that land pay a landing fee, equivalent to a parking meter fee, and believe you me it’s a lot more than a quarter for a stupid 15minutes. The airport is a HUGE revenue generator, you just have to have the proper people running it.
What? Maybe you can clear some things up. If the airport is such a hugh revenue generator, why does the city SPEND $600,000 a year running it? Also, those landing fees, any fines for too much noise(these fines are never levied), and even gas purchases go uncollected. The airport is a joke and a total black hole, and only benefits Harrahs, which also pays nothing to use the airport.
well stevie, you’re obviously misinformed. that’s all I can say. The noise hasn’t been enforced for about 5 months now so it’s moot, because they never collected for violations, that would be a violation of the ANCA and grant assurances. But, it’s all public information for anyone that wants to talk to the “Director”.
And, Harrah’s DOES pay every time they land their N88HE or any number of their aircraft. they pay handsomely. You assume that nothing is paid but that’s called ignorance. As for the gas, those folks that skip out on paying are those very folks that try and screw you out of a friggin parking spot at the parking garage. It’s not Harrah’s. They try and come in at night when there’s nobody home, because there’s no tower monitoring aircraft as they did before, and leaving in the dead of night, violating the noise curfew, and it’s next to impossible to locate an aircrtaft that doesn’t use their radio because they know nobody gives a rats ARSE. It’s okay, not your fault. The real issue with this article is the dang Cm and the way he’s handling the City.