ValleyVote Update for 02-02-01 |
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Here are a few items on pay for LA's bosses and a few letters from the taxpayers about the salaries
The pending pay raises for Chief Bernard C. Parks, DWP head David Freeman, Harbor Department head Larry Keller and Chief Librarian Susan Kent are a slap in the face to the citizens of Los Angeles. It is especially so to the citizens of West Hills when the city will not install some requested center-line striping because the cost would be prohibitive (about $100 for installation and $80 for upkeep) and the loss of sworn officers to other city areas.
The proposed $50,000 windfall for Parks would pay for a lot of overtime that the LAPD continues to complain that it does not have enough money for. I ask you to block this move to give unwarranted raises to these or any other city employee.
Charles E. Gremer President West Hills Property Owners Association
Chief Bernard C. Parks is looking at a retroactive merit raise of 5 percent. Let's see: Violent crimes are up, gang crimes are up, police corruption still looming, CRASH unit disbanded, officer morale at an all-time low, number of officers patrolling is falling, 911 system in trouble, car thefts up, two out-of-control riots.
If these merit a raise for him, then they merit a concealed weapon permit for me. The former is certain to happen, the latter will never happen, at least not in California.
-- Peter Kiss Santa Clarita
By Alexa Haussler Staff Writer
Already among the nation's highest paid city officials, four Los Angeles department heads would get two 5 percent merit pay raises retroactive for up to 19 months under a plan approved by Mayor Richard Riordan and key council members.
The pay raises -- on top of 3 percent cost-of-living raises each year -- come less than a month after a city report found L.A. city executives are paid significantly more than their counterparts in other major U.S. cities. The report called for freezing their salaries.
Police Chief Bernard C. Parks would get nearly $30,000 in additional pay, raising him to $257,116 plus back pay of more than $20,000 under the plan -- a much higher salary than police chiefs in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Department of Water and Power head David Freeman, Chief Librarian Susan Kent and Harbor Chief Larry Keller also would get the 5 percent raises.
"This is clearly way above and beyond staying competitive," Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said Monday. "Apparently the mayor has adopted a policy where he's going to be paying the highest salaries in the nation and I'm not sure that's good for the economic health of the city and I don't think it's healthy for the perception of public service."
The retroactive merit raises will take effect Feb. 14 unless the City Council acts to block them. In addition, all department heads will get 3 percent cost-of-living increases automatically. Councilman Michael Feuer, a candidate for city attorney and a member of the committee that approved the raises, said some general managers hadn't received merit pay raises since summer 1999 because of scheduling problems. He declined comment on the raises as a personnel matter, defending the closed-door process as part of the charter-dictated procedure for evaluating department heads.
But Councilman Joel Wachs, a mayoral candidate, criticized the secrecy of the evaluation committee that included council President John Ferraro and members Ruth Galanter and Mark Ridley-Thomas and called for a public review of the proposed raises. "The public can and should play a meaningful role in evaluating the performance of our city's general managers," he wrote in a letter Monday to the city clerk. "There are serious problems in the Police Department. Morale is at an all-time low, we can't recruit new people, we are losing the ones we have, and we've got this huge Rampart thing hanging over our head. "To say that this is absolutely the best possible, I think, is to make a mockery of the system."
Ridley-Thomas attacked Wachs for making the issue public and said he should have raised concerns earlier in the process. "He's a little bit late in calling for this when in fact he had every opportunity to do this before now," Ridley-Thomas said. He said the raises were fully justified. "It was the collective wisdom of all involved that these persons performed in an excellent way and deserve acknowledgment," he said.
According to the confidential memo, the four department heads significantly exceeded goals and expectations. The Executive Employee Relations Committee met Jan. 18 and endorsed the pay hikes.
Deputy Mayor Ben Austin said Riordan endorses paying higher salaries to lure talented people from the public and private sectors. "In general, the mayor believes in recruiting the best people for the jobs and paying these people competitive rates," Austin said.
He said Freeman, who has been credited for helping pull the DWP out of a crippling debt, makes less than half of what his counterparts at private utilities make. "Freeman has worked with the mayor to make a number of very good decisions, which have saved the taxpayers and ratepayers of Los Angeles a tremendous amount of money," Austin said.
IN THE MONEY
Here are the four top Los Angeles city officials recommended for two 5 percent pay raises retroactive for up to 19 months and their new salaries:
Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, $257,116.
Department of Water and Power head David Freeman, $241,000.
Larry Keller, chief of the Harbor Department, $233,063.
Chief Librarian Susan Kent, $176,311.
In a little over a month, United Teachers Los Angeles threatens to strike -- over a proposed, one-year 14 percent raise in pay and benefits. [They actual got more - retroactive to 7-1-2000 and want another 10% starting 7-1-2000]
Only in L.A. would a public-employee union protest the kind of salary boost that's practically unheard of in the private sector. But in L.A., the public employee unions rule.
For the better part of two decades, they have pulled the strings of local government, creating a massive imbalance: L.A. has the highest-paid cops, sanitation workers, bureaucrats, etc. -- but some of the worst services in the country.
Reining in the unions must be a top priority for the city this year.
The year 2000 was a good year for public employees. Bus drivers, LAUSD classified employees, county workers and cops all enjoyed hefty bumps in their paychecks. Awash in revenue surpluses, government officials rolled over during contract negotiations.
But as the economy slows, those surplus funds will dry up. In this year's contract talks -- beginning with the LAUSD -- public officials have to be careful not to write checks they might not be able to cash.
And they need to start demanding concessions in exchange for pay hikes.
For 20 years, accountability has never been a precondition of a raise. We have crumbling sidewalks, failing schools and a disgraced Police Department to show for it.
The experiment in government-by-union has failed. It's time for elected officials to reassert their control.
The MTA strike is a prime example why public servants should not be unionized. The government cannot bring in temporary help so the citizens are stranded. Some cannot even go to work at all and will not even be able to pay for food. These hardships hold the people hostage and disallow meaningful negotiations.
Government workers should not be allowed to form a union since they provide a monopoly service to the people.
Francis Jansen Northridge
Alexa Haussler's revealing and well-researched story of high Los Angeles government wages ("L.A. pay outta sight," July 9) reminded me of an absurd charge that came out soon after the O.J. Simpson criminal trial ended in acquittal of the defendant.
A writer for the New Republic magazine said one of the reasons Simpson was found not guilty was because Proposition 13 cut taxes, which meant that there was less money to hire competent police officers and others involved with the criminal justice system. He wrote that these officials performed poorly, "as their salaries warrant."
We challenged that assertion and found that L.A. police were better paid than their New York and Chicago counterparts. Now Haussler and the Daily News confirm that Los Angeles is indeed generous with public salaries. Any problems with L.A. government are not the fault of inadequate compensation.
Joel Fox President emeritus Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association
By Alexa Haussler, Staff Writer
Even as they push for higher wages, Los Angeles city workers -- from the top brass down through the ranks -- draw bigger paychecks than municipal workers in other major U.S. cities, a Daily News survey found.
Los Angeles pays its City Council members, police chief, head librarian and new firefighters and police officers significantly better than their counterparts in New York City -- which has a larger population and a higher cost of living.
Municipal employees in Los Angeles also take home higher salaries than workers in Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia and San Diego. "It is well known through municipal circles in California that Los Angeles is the promised land, where the milk and the honey and the cash flows," said Jon Coupal, president of the statewide Howard Jarvis Taxpayer’s Association. "Public employee packages are way out of line in Los Angeles."
The cost and efficiency of Los Angeles government have taken on added currency as several unions negotiate for pay hikes this summer, and a study begins into whether the San Fernando Valley should secede from the city of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles police union on Saturday ratified a new contract that includes a 13 percent pay hike over three years, and other top officials are preparing for two pay raises in September and January totaling 12.5 percent. The scheduled raises even extend to members of the City Council, already the nation’s highest-paid.
"We’re not getting our money’s worth here in Los Angeles," said Richard Close, a leader of Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, the group pushing for a study of Valley secession. He said the figures point to inefficiency in city government. "The suspicion has always been that the city is run for the benefit of the employees, rather than for the benefit of residents and business owners. This confirms that suspicion."
Councilman Mike Feuer, chairman of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, called for the city to monitor pay levels and evaluate whether the public salaries are appropriate. "I think that it’s extremely important for the city to be prudent about what it pays city staff," Feuer said. "We obviously need to be paying a sufficient salary to attract good people, but we also don’t want to be in a position of wasting taxpayer dollars."
L.A. tops in wages
Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks earns $228,678 a year as the nation’s highest-paid top cop, dwarfing the New York City police commissioners’ $150,000 annual salary.
An entry-level LAPD police officer makes $41,175, while one in New York City makes $31,305.
Starting firefighters are paid $39,171 in Los Angeles, but only $30,872 in New York City.
The Los Angeles city clerk earns $159,753 -- more than his counterparts in New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia. The salary of the city’s head librarian -- $156,767 -- also tops each of those other cities.
Entry-level sanitation truck drivers in Los Angeles earn $38,169, more than $10,000 above New York City and more than other major cities.
Altogether, Los Angeles expects to spend $2.1 billion this year -- nearly half of its budget -- on payroll.
In addition to payroll, Los Angeles pays between $5,072 and $6,200 yearly per employee for health and dental coverage and other benefits. Paying for those benefits makes up about 10 percent of the city’s $4.3 billion budget, said Peter Hidalgo, a spokesman in the Mayor’s Office.
Cost of living a factor?
Julie Butcher, general manager for the largest union of city employees, called comparisons with other cities misleading because of the city’s cost of living, high housing prices and sprawling landscape.
"They are not buying milk in Chicago, they are buying milk in Los Angeles, and they are trying to buy homes in Los Angeles," she said. "Folks are only barely able to make their way into the middle class and what we view as the American dream."
Butcher said city workers, despite comparatively high salaries, struggle to support families in Los Angeles. "Where they are able to afford to buy a house, they end up driving 104 miles to get to work," she said. "We’re not looking to be greedy."
However, the cost of living is lower in Los Angeles than in many other large cities.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Web site Virtual Relocation.com, a dollar in Los Angeles would be worth only 80 cents in Chicago, 61 cents in San Francisco, and 37 cents in New York City.
Private industry effect
Some officials also said Los Angeles’ local government must pay higher salaries to be competitive as an employer.
In fact, salaries paid by private employers in Los Angeles are about 12 percent above the national average, said Juan Garcia, research analyst for the Employers Group, a Los Angeles-based human resources association.
However, private sector wages in New York city are even higher 15 percent more than the national average, Garcia said.
Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said governments need to offer higher wages to compete with the private sector. "You have a very, very strong job market right now, and if somebody is sharp, they have a lot of options in the private sector," he said. "You are dealing in a crowded market and Los Angeles is a complicated place to operate."
But Coupal disagreed, saying workers still will flock to city government for the benefits and security the jobs offer. "If that were true, then vacancies would be hard to fill," he said. "Even with this low unemployment, people recognize this as the cash cow that it is and apply in droves."
As a resident living within Los Angeles city limits and subjugated to Los Angeles taxes, I was outraged at reading the news of yet more pay raises for the City Council, totaling four in 18 months. That amounts to a 21 percent increase. What is going on here?
I find this immoral and unconscionable. Are the City Council members begging to be voted out of office or do they think we are all stupid? Laura Chick can't seem to get even two or three streets completely paved, years after promising West Valley homeowners she would. Who are her constituents anyway?
The only fair method of determining council salaries is in a performance review by the boss -- the taxpaying voters. We must pass a law providing that only the voters can grant pay raises, as well as reduce salaries to appropriate levels. This law would also provide that only the voters themselves can change the law.
-- Chuck Jackson, Canoga Park
Vinton M. Lampton's June 28 letter was superb. Lampton called for ridding our state government of the jerks who are more interested in protecting their government pensions than the people who pay their salaries. He did not go far enough, though. That group of bottom-feeders he mentioned, who could not make a living in the outside world, should also include every one of the Los Angeles City Council members who voted for a $4 million subsidy for the Democratic National Committee's convention in Los Angeles. [The convention actually cost the taxpayers 38.4 Million dollars per LA City report] That's our money. Remember? To quote Lampton: "Get rid of the bums, . . . all of them." The sooner that happens, the better.
Graydon Wayne Santa Clarita
Wow. Isn't it surprising that our illustrious governor is opposed to school vouchers, seeing as how the teachers union got him elected in the first place? When is the so-called government of the people going to give a damn about the people instead of protecting their government pensions?
Wake up, people. It is time to vote all of these jerks out into the streets. Take a look at them: There isn't one of these bottom feeders who could make a living like you and I do. Even with term limits they are still looking to feed at the public trough. Get rid of the bums . . . all of them.
Vinton M. Lampton Agua Dulce
AOL version 6.0 now AOL properly reads HTML mail . I would recommend it all AOL users to get the free update from AOL. It will make all your HTML mail work so you can see the formatting and highlights and use the jumps to see referenced documents.
But to fully see the update and use the jumps you need to go to the website http://www.ValleyVote.org/updates/index.html and read the update from there with all the information that AOL strips.
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