Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 • City adopts compensation system for new employees

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009, edition of the Lassen County Times.

Some future employees of the city of Susanville will have to make do with less compensation than their current counterparts, after some key decisions made by the Susanville City Council at its Sept. 2 meeting.

The council adopted a tiered system of compensation for employees in the city’s management unit and its administrative/confidential unit.

This essentially means that any time one of these employees leaves, their successor will receive less compensation than the person who was employed before the council’s decision on the tiered system.

“The current economic backslide that the entire country is experiencing has not spared Susanville,” said City Administrator Rob Hill in his initial report. “City revenues are coming up short of previous levels and the future is even more uncertain. Due to these conditions, the city has been forced to begin scaling back total compensation for future employees.

Hill’s report explained how salaries and benefits make up the majority of expenditures in the annual city budget. By “adopting a tiered system of compensation, a gradual reduction of these expenditures will be realized as these positions turn over.”

The report said the city would only save money as individual positions saw people leave and get replaced. If all positions in both bargaining units were eventually replaced, the city would receive an annual savings of $308,933.

SPOA negotiation
A similar tiered compensation program was approved by the city at its April 1 meeting, affecting all of the city’s employees at the time. The Susanville Police Officers Association was the only bargaining unit that publicly voiced its opposition to the tiered compensation system, saying that the reduction of benefits for all incoming employees would severely hinder recruitment practices for the local police department.

Throughout the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the city has been able to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with all of the bargaining units representing its employees, except for the SPOA. As a result of the impasse between the city and the SPOA, the city council approved and authorized at its Aug. 19 meeting to impose a last, best and final offer to the SPOA.

Under the consent agenda at the Aug. 19 meeting, Hill’s report said “Following a long period of good faith negotiations, including mediation, it has become apparent that negotiations with the SPOA have reached a standstill. Under government code section 3505.4, the city is not required to proceed to interest arbitration and may implement its last best and final offer.”

The city tendered the final offer to the SPOA on July 2, but according to Hill’s report hadn’t received a response from the association by the council’s Aug. 19 meeting.

Under state government code 3505.4, “The unilateral implementation of a public agency’s last, best and final offer shall not deprive a recognized employee organization of the right each year to meet and confer on matters within the scope of representation, whether or not those matters are included in the unilateral implementation, prior to the adoption by the public agency of its annual budget or as otherwise required by law.”

This means the SPOA and the city can still enter into negotiations for future contracts, without penalty from either side.