It’s still too early to tell how much furloughs at City Hall
will increase overtime pay, but some council members and employees
worry the extra compensation may balloon and erase the savings the
council and unions spent three grueling months negotiating.
It’s still too early to tell how much furloughs at City Hall will increase overtime pay, but some council members and employees worry the extra compensation may balloon and erase the savings the council and unions spent three grueling months negotiating.
Last Thursday, Gilroy’s engineers, secretaries, managers and other non-emergency personnel took the first of 26 furloughs this year. While City Hall appeared to sleep, across the street, behind the locked doors of the police station, two employees belonging to the same municipal union answered 911 calls.
There were 12 dispatchers a year ago, but layoffs and medical issues brought that down to nine earlier this year. Two more will soon leave due to medical issues and a resignation, according to Senior Dispatcher Jim Stevens and Capt. Kurt Svardal. This under-staffed operation already accounts for 250 to 300 hours of overtime a month, Stevens said. Adding furloughs will only exacerbate the problem, Svardal said.
To combat this issue, the union agreements include language that prohibits furlough days from causing overtime pay. But Councilman Craig Gartman, who voted against all four union agreements, said, “You can write anything on paper.” Stevens agreed and criticized the council Monday night for the burden he and his colleagues have already begun to endure.
Stevens brought up the new swimming pool and gym the city is helping to finance at the new high school as an example of a possible source of problems.
“When somebody drowns, I hope they’ll be somebody there to answer 911,” Stevens said.
Last Thursday, two dispatchers, the minimum staffing level, were juggling calls and other radio traffic while keeping eyes on the city’s security cameras, alarms and jail system – without help from anybody else in the seemingly dormant building, Stevens said.
“Unlike City Hall, the 911 center just can’t close,” Steven said. “I believe the city is putting its police and fire personnel and its citizens in jeopardy to save a few dollars.”
The deals with the city’s non-represented employees and its municipal, managerial, police and fire unions will save $3.1 million this fiscal year, bringing the general fund deficit down to $1.6 million. But it remains unclear how much overtime costs may cut into those savings and add to the city’s $37 million in budgeted expenditures.
“This may not play out how we wanted, but we were assured that furloughs could be worked out without incurring overtime costs,” Council Member Cat Tucker said Thursday.
The dispatchers inclusion in the city’s largest, non-emergency union complicates matters because they are so closely tied to police and fire operations, she added.
“If overtime goes up, we will look at it, and if we have to go into the reserves to hire someone, then we will – definitely for police,” Tucker said. “I intend to support hiring more police officers.”
Despite the concerns, Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips pointed to the language in union agreements that Gartman criticized. She said the words ensure a firefighter or police officer’s furlough day does not require another employee to cover that shift and receive overtime. In addition, police have a capped number of vacation days they can accrue, so furloughs will not simply replace vacations, Police Chief Denise Turner said last week. Firefighters also have their vacation capped, Fire Chief Dale Foster said.
In all, Gilroy Police Officers’ Association’s 59 members will take home nearly $17,000 less on average this year and Fire Local 2805’s 33 members will earn about $15,000 less on average this year.
“The idea of the furlough is not to incur costs. (Overtime) defeats the purpose, so we’re trying to figure out different ways to implement this in our 24-7 operations,” Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips said Thursday. She added that union agreements also have overtime safeguards when it comes to personal days, which have also been reduced in the union agreements.
Monday night, the council formally approved agreements with Gilroy Fire Local 2805 in a 6-1 vote, and with the Gilroy Police Officers’ Association in a 5-2 vote. Gartman voted no both times, and Councilman Perry Woodward joined him on the police vote. That same day, the 911 center shifted dispatchers from overlapping 10-hour shifts four days a week to five eight-hour shifts. With 12 employees, the old way ensured smooth transitions, but with only nine bodies now, Svardal said the “cushion” is gone – meaning if one person calls in sick or takes a vacation, the under-staffed 911 center already has to turn to overtime.
“These agreement are going to come back and bite us. We need to make sure we’re not putting workers in a situation where they’re overworked and causing them to make mistakes,” Gartman said Thursday.
Gartman specifically mentioned the closure of Sunrise Fire Station in north Gilroy, which will depend on firefighter staffing levels, overtime costs and furlough days that begin in November. For these reasons, it remains unclear how often the station will close, Foster said. His employees work 24 hour shifts and will begin taking furloughs in November. In years past, some firefighters have earned nearly $30,000 in overtime pay. The average overtime-eligible firefighter earned about $21,000 in overtime in 2007 due to shift coverage, mandatory training and covering for sick or vacationing colleagues, according to city figures.
In addition to overtime concerns, Councilman Gartman also knocked each union agreement for restoring merit-based raises that were due to 29 employees between March and June. This will cost the city nearly $26,000, but the union agreements – which will last two years for Gilroy’s non-emergency employees and one year for police and fire – abolished merit raises until the next round of talks.
By next summer, police and fire representatives said they hope to at least restore former salaries along with eligibility for raises, otherwise employees said they could be at the end of their rope.
“There was already a lot of stress and pressure,” Capt. Svardal said. “It’s a definitely already a problem.”
