A judge this morning signed off on an agreement that prevents the city from reducing employee pay to offset rising pension costs until at least 2015.
The ruling by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas extends the agreement through July 1, 2015. Lucas upheld 12 of the 15 provisions approved by voters in 2012 through Measure B, but unions are appealing that ruling.
"Today's action extends the current agreement between the city and its bargaining units for another year, allowing more time for the legal process to come to resolution," Mayor Chuck Reed said in a statement. "It does not impact the more $20 million in annual savings the City is already receiving from the Measure B pension reforms. Those pension reform savings have allowed us to slowly begin restoring services to the public and slowly begin restoring pay to our employees.”
Though most of the measure was upheld, the court struck down key parts. It barred the city from demanding employees pay 16 percent more toward their pensions, arguing that it violated their vested rights, the conditions promised in their original labor contract.
Reed said the city got most of what it wanted and, though it can't reduce its pension contributions, it can knock down salaries to realize the savings of about $68 million a year.
The lawsuit was filed the day after Measure B won at the ballot with 70 percent of the votes and instigated multiple lawsuits.
Just this year, some councilmembers began talking about how the city should amend or revoke some of the changes brought about by Measure B. Don Rocha specifically asked the city to re-work its police disability pension rules, which the Police Officers Association (POA) blames for San Jose Police Department's retention problem.
“As the flaws in our pension reform effort become increasingly apparent, I hope that we will have the wisdom to acknowledge our own past mistakes,” said Rocha, one of the council majority who put Measure B before voters two years ago. “When I say we made mistakes, I don’t mean that the whole effort was a failure. … I do believe, though, that on some issues we landed in the wrong place.”
POA spokesman James Gonzales said today's ruling does nothing to address the problems that drive police recruits away from the city in the first place, however.
"This does nothing for new hires, for the second-tier officers coming in who don't have a vested pension and don't have a plan competitive with other agencies in the state," he told San Jose Inside.
He also called the city's delay in implementing portions of the measure an admission of its flaws.
"I think it’s a really big deal that the council is still going out every day and saying that we need to move forward with Measure B as it is, but then behind closed doors they signed an extension for a year," he said. "So on the one hand we’re grateful. But on the other, we're seeing this as a total admission that Measure B is flawed and has got to get fixed."
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that employee pay could now be reduced based on Judge Lucas' ruling. San Jose Inside regrets the error.
“Reed said the city got most of what it wanted and, though it can’t reduce its pension contributions, it can knock down salaries…”
And as Reed continues to knock down salaries more and more positions will go unfilled and those that are left will look elsewhere for jobs.
good riddance
Chuck puts another spin on Measure B, good luck in getting any qualified anybody for this city. Chuck, time to just crawl away. You have destroyed this city of a million with only under 800 police officer force. (not to mention fire and public employees) God bless us all if a major disaster happens again like the 89 quake.
And all the want to be mayors except for Cortese want to do the same.
Sorry, retired, but Chuck isn’t solely responsible. He was just one vote on the labor dominated city council during the Gonzales administration (Ron and Joe Guerra who lied to us about city hall and who brought us a huge increase in garbage rates) that approved unsustainable benefits that you guys who are only it for the paycheck took as a floor below which benefits could not go in hard times. Welcome to the real world, retired. Quit your bitching. Retired SJ employees still have it way better than most in the private sector.
Negative , The city is still on the hook for what they have earned . AND the city is losing millions of dollars in training fees and experience that simply can not be replaced .
Good luck with trying to get these public Safety jobs out sourced , it simply can not happen . You seem like you got a lot of anger towards public safety………..feel free to apply
>The city is still on the hook for what they’ve earned.
Right again Mr. Disgusted. You finally get it.
So we can expect you to support Mayor Reed’s statewide pension reform plan so in the future neither San Jose nor any other city in California will be held hostage by employee unions’ extortive demands.
Another spin Mayor Reed “Begin restoring services to the public and slowly begin restoring pay to our employees”. Yeah its not really called restoring if you can’t keep up with the rate of loss.
Go to “Transparent California” if you want the “Truth” about how outrageous public compensation is today.
Bemused,
You are wrong… The City of San Jose also does not want Social Security which is why Chuck Reed never proposed it. The reason is under Social Security the employer cannot take a “pension holiday” as they have done in the past. The employee is never allowed to take this pension holiday while the city has year after year after year. This is what has caused the un-funded liability. The employee has always paid his/her share.
Shelby, please describe the “little less” from vested employees you assert would’ve kept new hires off of the second tier. After hearing nothing but doomsday scenarios from the mayor ($650 million) and labor I’m surprised your “little less” option went unmentioned.
Of course, I understand that you may not want to answer if you’re just another partisan liar.