Additionally, we have just lost a dispatch person due to the low wage and lack of contract.
I plan to attend tomorrow's council meeting and speak to some of these issues.
Below is an assessment from my source as it stands right now:
Unfortunately, I don't have positive news to share.
In
our opinion, the City’s apparent strategy was to push all groups past
contract expiration in an effort to force a rushed contract decision.
As previously stated, we had little to no substantive negotiations
since the summer, after being ambushed with a proposed three-year
contract term despite being told the City wanted a one-year term and
intended to raise public safety compensation to the seventy fifth
percentile.
San
Bruno Police Department compensation is now falling even further behind
following recent contract ratifications in Menlo Park, Daly City, South
San Francisco, Burlingame, and other surrounding agencies. We had one
full day of negotiations with the City on January 8. While I cannot go
into extensive detail, after nearly eight hours the City presented what
effectively amounted to a final offer to the police bargaining unit. We
clearly articulated our concerns regarding retention, the current state
of public safety, the competitive local job market, and the significant
wave of upcoming personnel vacancies. The proposed “raise”
merely keeps our officers just below the market median, which is where
we already are. In short, the Association Board is unsure this contract
will pass the membership and believes it will directly result in
additional officers leaving the department. As these vacancies
increase, our police department will only have just enough personnel to
provide minimal staffing for patrol services and emergency response. As
of this week, one officer is leaving to San Francisco, another is
leaving to an East Bay agency, and background investigators from
additional police departments have been making visits to our
administration. Our dispatchers, who are already running under minimum
staffing as we have per-diems exclusively filling dayshift are
suffering, as they've been perpetually understaffed. There are rumors
of several of them preparing to leave for other local agencies.
Morale between both police and fire departments is at an all-time low. Both
departments are extremely frustrated, as this treatment is inconsistent
with how the City has treated public safety employees over the past ten
years. The City continues to claim it cannot afford additional salary
increases while simultaneously holding Measure G funds, spending money
on executive suite remodeling, numerous new development projects like
the new car dealership, Tanforan project, additional housing is going
up, and approving a questionable adjustment to the City Manager’s
severance package. Under this adjustment, if the City Manager is
terminated, he receives a substantial one-time payment. This aligns
with the negative experiences reported from prior jurisdictions where
he has worked. The City Manager makes in the top 1% of his class, while
every line-level employee in the city appears to be making either at or
below median compensation. The police and fire departments are
incredibly concerned, as the population of the city is growing at an
unprecedented rate due to these new apartment complexes and housing
developments going up, while we are losing personnel. We have less
officers working than we had in the 1980s. More population = police and
fire personnel = less availability for response to emergencies. Our
police shifts are routinely running at a minimum now - which is one
supervisor and three officers. For a city of 40+ thousand (on
paper).
The
City Manager has been systematically replacing department heads with
external appointments with higher salaries, despite the presence of
qualified internal candidates with substantial institutional knowledge.
Several months ago, during an open meeting with department managers,
the City Manager stated, “The City’s money is my money, and I decide
how it is spent.” At the same time, department heads were told there
was ample funding available for equipment replacement and improvements,
while meaningful raises for line-level employees were dismissed. Compounding
this issue, the City Manager and the Finance Director, who previously
worked together in other jurisdictions, increased the City’s budget
reserve from fifteen percent, which is generally considered an industry
standard, to twenty-five percent. This
is a pattern the City Manager has followed elsewhere: entering a
jurisdiction, raising reserves to twenty-five percent, replacing
department directors with outside hires, suppressing staffing levels,
and keeping salary increases to an absolute minimum. The predictable
result is the loss of experienced line-level employees and a
degradation in service delivery. The City Manager’s track
record demonstrates a focus on reserve accumulation at the expense of
workforce stability and service quality. His primary outcome at the
conclusion of his tenure appears to be increased reserves achieved by
keeping wages below market, rather than maintaining the quality of
services provided to residents. Additionally, it appears the city is
filtering numerous projects, inquiries and information gathering
through a third-party consulting firm instead of relying on department
heads and internal manager recommendations.
We need MORE police and fire personnel and need
them to be somewhat competitively compensated, not the opposite.
This city manager said in the following story that services could be
“enhanced” (San Bruno’s budget balanced but future finances worrisome).
While we understand there are some longterm concerns with funding, the
immediate priority of ensuring the safety of lives, property, and
emergency services needs to be addressed. We cannot have a safe,
bussling community while stretching public safety to a breaking point
directly as a result of bad city management.
Riechel
Reports - City
of San Bruno CA Events and of Interest to San Bruno Residents