Over the past few months as I have talked with citizens of Shasta County in my quest for County Assessor-Recorder, I have heard great concerns about County spending, with folks asking “what am I going to do about it?” My platform, as reflected at www.largent2010.com clearly explains my views. Today, though, in the Record Searchlight, the following appeared and is very much in line with what I am hearing, and think. This is worth reading and thinking about:
If righteous outrage could refill Shasta County’s depleted treasury, the sheriff’s deputies wouldn’t need to take a pay cut.
The union representing deputies, jail guards and other county officers has lambasted the Board of Supervisors and County Administrative Officer Larry Lees. It’s cried foul that other unions aren’t facing concessions as severe as the Deupty Sheriff’s Association. It’s taken out radio ads blasting – what else? – palm trees.
The anger is no surprise. The county is on track to declare contract talks a failure and unilaterally impose wage and benefit cuts that, depending on who’s counting, add up to between 9 percent and 18 percent of officers’ pay.
None of the indignation, however, deals with the heart of the issue: the collapse of local tax revenues. The supervisors have to cut spending and cut it severely.
Even after the county drafted a pessimistic budget for the current fiscal year – which forced deputy layoffs, the dismantling of Crystal Creek Boys Camp, the closure of one floor of the jail and a drastic reduction in the sheriff’s work-release program, just to name prominent cuts – the economy has exceeded even those grim expectations. Lees has said the county faces a further $7.5 million deficit over the next year and a half, and that’s not even counting the fallout from budget cuts by an equally strapped state.
One major culprit is falling sales taxes. They’re on track to drop 18 percent this year from last, and a total of nearly 30 percent since the 2006 peak. They’re a critical source of financing for the county’s public safety operations, and they’re drying up like a month-old Christmas tree.
To cope, the county is paving the way to impose pay cuts at its Jan. 12 meeting.
The biggest ticket is having employees pick up the 9 percent share of their wages that goes toward funding their pensions. Though officially known as the “member contribution,” the employees’ share has been picked up by the county for decades. Quite frankly, handing public employees part of the burden for the generous pensions they’ll eventually enjoy is a good idea, but for the average deputy it’s just a pay cut.
Separately, the county is imposing new retirement formulas so newly hired deputies and correctional officers couldn’t retire with a full pension until 55, instead of the current 50. Steve Allen, negotiator for the deputies union, complains that this change won’t save the county any money in the short run, and he’s right. It is, however, a step toward taming the long-term disaster of unaffordable pension promises, and there’s no time to start like today.
Imposing a contract, bypassing the usual negotiations, is a tough move – and one that could well have political fallout, with Supervisors Les Baugh and David Kehoe up for re-election this year. But the county does not have the luxury of endless negotiations, especially when unions facing cuts have every incentive to stall.
Let’s be clear: The deputies shouldn’t be asked to take pay cuts that their bosses, including the supervisors, aren’t willing to share. Other unions, when their contracts are up for renewal, should get the same deal.
And in the long run, the county’s leaders need to remember that, with law enforcement as with anything, you get what you pay for. Shasta County’s officers get mediocre pay by law enforcement standards. Deputies earn about 20 percent less than Redding police, before the looming cut, and the jail’s correctional officers even less. Sheriff Tom Bosenko ran for office in 2006 in part on a promise to staff up a department that had endured chronic trouble recruiting deputies. Pay increases since have helped. This move won’t.
But to survive the long run without a detour through U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the county will first have to make it through 2010. And if this unilateral pay cut is part of the means to do that, the supervisors really have no choice.
Part of my reason for becoming involved in local government is to make a differenc,and there will be many opportunities to do just this, as above, and I am ready.
