Just when it looked like all hope was lost for the city and the police union to come to an agreement in negotiations over pay cuts and pension reform, a tentative deal was reached Thursday night.
The two parties declared an impasse Wednesday night and no meetings were scheduled, but a late phone call Thursday paved the way for a settlement to be reached. While more than 100 police officer positions are still expected to be eliminated due to the $115 million budget shortfall, the agreement between the city and the Police Officers Association could save 156 cops from being laid off come July.
The deal includes a 10 percent cut in pay and benefits for at least one year (an arbitrator will decide if it should last for two years), police giving up control of airport security, converting some positions to civilian jobs, making changes to sick leave and forming an opt-in pension program. That last facet will likely decide whether or not the deal can go from tentative to firm.
The 1,220 members of the POA will reportedly vote online in a week-long election to say yea or nay to the agreement, which will require federal approval of the new opt-in pension plan.
There are some cuts in administrative budgets that could help.
Conferencing needs to be on computer, and also emailing should increase instead of paper memos.
There are some jurisdictions where email abuse is high. Look at College of San Mateo, where an employee conducted a local campaign on his library computer. Chuck needs to make policy decisions that fire cupcakes who spend their day in low production because of personal time on the company payroll.
This is only a contract that buys time for officers who will be laid off or will leave to another agency by next year. These are the most motivated, physically capable, and un-biased police we have in the city. The last officer to get a pink slip was hired in 2004. They will all be gone and all this city will have left is apathetic police who will be here to collect a paycheck. Its already happening and is just getting worse. The officers feel as though the city and its citizens have abandoined them. The loyalty is gone and eventually their drive to DO THE RIGHT THING will fade as well. These men and women are leaving and are going to cities that value you them as this one used to. Mayor Reed’s agenda may balance budgets, however the social impacts will be far worse in the near future. This is not why I moved here.
Let’s audit chucks office and staffers… Anyone doubt they all fund raise 80% of the day. Heck audit all of council let’s see how much waste is at the top we can’t have people who spend to much using up all the tax dollars.
Like CJ said, this proposal is meant to buy one more year for the second tier (156) cops. In that time, many will leave Sjpd for other agencies that have a financially competent and fiscally responsibl mayor and city council. Those agencies will reap the rewards in terms of saved training costs and having an experienced, young, proactive and motivated officer on their streets. Sjpd will be left with an older breed that will not quell gang or other violence. Unfortunately, thats a fact.
And don’t count on the proposal being ratified by Sjpoa. 100+ cops losing their jobs is not a contract to be happy about or vote for, especially knowing that the 156 are all but gone next fiscal year (assuming the 80 mil $ forecasted deficit is even accurate). And we all know Chucky will put his pension reform, aka “illegal measures” on the ballot in November, as he did this past year with V and W and the exact cycle will continue.
Any hoooo… Where did my V and W signs go. I seemed to have misplaced them. Oops. Nevermind.. I forgot they were stolen from private property. If i were a cop, i would seek employment at a fiscally responsible municipality. Hey, but at least we will have the Oakland A’s, who have the lowest drawing fan base in the MLB. That will not change with a new location and park. Count on that.
Til next time- Citizen I
I too would be surprised if our organization ratified the contract. Despite assertions that agreeing to this contract will save jobs, there are no guarantees written into it that prevent staffing from falling below a given number. In other words, we have no idea what our wage concession will buy us. And, unfortunately, Mayor Reed, most of the rest of the council and especially Debra Figone have absolutely bankrupted their stock of whatever confidence or trust we might once have had in them. And, our cynicism and distrust is well-earned. Consider: almost immediately after agreeing to wage and benefit concessions last year, Mayor Reed announced Measures V and W. This year, City Hall has been campaigning for reform of wages and complaining that the pension systems is breaking the city. So, the POA offered a contract which offered concessions and comprommise – particularly with respect to pensions. The city rejected it all and then declared impasse.
Sadly, the POA bargaining team came back with a contract which only partially covers the various negotiating points typically covered in a contract – the rest to be negotiated in side letters.
Frankly, most of us see this as a means of dangling the carrot of those Tier 2 layoffs in front of us, as a means of exchanging compromise for something more akin to…extortion – essentially telling us that if we do not give the city exactly what they want, with every side letter, with every negotiating point instead of approaching issues from divergent positions and trying to meet in the middle finding genuine compromise.
CAN YOU NAME ONE THING THE POA HAS WON FOR THE MEMBERSHIP?
Sadly, I cannot. Although the members of the POA are absolutely chock full of interesting and novel ideas for how to reform expenditures, streamline processes and reduce costs, none have gained any traction – either at the POA hall or at City Hall. The reality is that there are ways to resolve every single issue that has been brought up with respect to pay, benefits and costs which would minimize the adverse impact on officers.
Unfortunately, we suffer the perfect storm of a city with an absolutely toxic business environment (the real cause of the structural deficit), hapless, helpless, politically inept, executives on the POA board; a City Council which is largely, by turns, no less inept than the POA executives; grasping, vain, self-important, overly ambitious (Reed, Constant, Liccardo, Nguyen); dogmatic (Reed, Pyle), disingenuous (Reed, Constant, Liccardo) or just plain irrelevant (as Chu, Campos, and Kalra often seem to be). Finally, there is Debra de Mattei Figone, a woman who, by various accounts, is disingenuous when she’s not being outright deceptive, vicious, vindictive, controlling and ambitious in a way that would give Hitler pause. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say her personal motto is “Damn the employees! Full steam ahead!” It is my opinion and that of others whom I respect that much of the current so-called crisis has largely been engineered by Figone and there are various theories as to the reason. However, her deep connections to the construction industry might give some insight.
Bottom line is this: I believe that, for now, public safety is hosed and, with it the future safety of the city is in serious question. This perfect storm has, in the course of just one year, made of San Jose one of the least desirable employers for potential police officers or laterals. San Jose has become a city that is not only toxic to its business community but toxic to its employees as well – especially those in public safety. You cannot vilify, excoriate, and lie about your employees and THEN, take away huge amounts of pay and benefits, make yourself a non-competitive employer and expect a line out the door of QUALIFIED CANDIDATES for public safety. It is going to be exponentially more difficult to hire replacements for retirees due to both the public nature of this scandal, debacle ( whatever you want to call it) and the absolute scarcity of qualified candidates. In fact, I have seen a growing trend of officers seeking employment elsewhere who were never at risk of being laid off. It seems a little late for an “I told you so”, but there it is.
And, in case it wasn’t abundantly obvious already: Reed and Figone have absolutely NO interest in negotiation or compromise, only coercion.
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/06_06_11_pension_reform_unions_budget_mayor_chuck_reed/
Good God CJ, “The officers feel as though the city and its citizens have abandoned them”
So CJ, your alternative? Raise taxes on the residents, less than 10% of whom make far less than the police officers?
I’m sure the city would keep them all, if overall compensation were reduced even further.
At this very moment, it costs over $180,000 in compensation for each officer, and that doesn’t include overtime pay.
Tell me CJ, go into the typical neighborhood and ask folks what their average total compensation is each year. Salary+benefits+pension. You will find most folks are way way below $100,000 per year.
So enough of this “officers feel as though the city and its citizens have abandoned them”
Salaries went through the roof over the past 10 years. Pensions got even larger than that.
IF you reduced salaries about 15% and pensions about 25%, you make current compensation (adjusted for inflation) about where it was in 1999 (in 2011 dollars)
How would you like to leave your home everyday and not know if you were going to make it back? Sure, go into the typical neighborhood and find that they do not make as much as police officers do. How many of them are trained to carry and shoot a weapon at split time notice or to know when to shoot and when not to shoot. How many of them may have to take someone’s life at any given moment or have to scuffle with people on a daily basis? How many of them get spit on, bled on, cursed out, on a daily basis? How many of them are ready to give up their lives, on a daily basis, to protect the citizens of the city? YOU AREN’T THINKING. There is NO comparison with the salary of the officers and the salaries of the neighborhood. NO COMPARISON. When the “neighborhood” is willing to give up their lives…then we can talk. Are YOU willing to give up YOUR life? And no, I am NOT a police officer. I just have common sense. Stop being so jealous and try to support rather than tear down. I’m just fed up with these idiots comparing apples to oranges.
Are you sure you just commented on the blog posting you think you did? The SJPD stopped issuing paper memos months ago. As far as cost cutting we are almost to the point where we buy our own gas and bullets.
Deb Figone,,,,way to blind side the police department again by agreeing to a federal grant for the fire department and rehiring all the laid off fire fighters, the same day you make a half ass contract offer to the police department knowing over a hundred officers will be gone. I think you just torpedoed any chance of the officers ratifying the contract.
The federal grant for the firefighters started back last August and even earlier and has gone through all the necessary steps for Council reveiw and approval. The recent PD grant for up to 53 positions was just considered and the needed mathcing funds are just not there. The PD also currently has many other grants that use up genreal fund moneys already. The POA has known all along that the Council has asked for ongoing reductions, but they still kling to one time remedies, thus the current compromise. For the rank and file not to approve the agreement would be the wrong decision and they should accept any blame for the layoffs above 122.
Yes, the police officers should definitely approve a contract that is basically a bunch of “side letters” to be dealt with at a later date. Brilliant.
Only if they want to avoid the 156 layoffs…..They had pleanty of time to negotiate and apparently this is the best teh POA can do, knowing full well the Council was asking or ongoing reductions, not the one time offered by the POA.
Guess what? Those side letters will be showing up as a measure V & W. The city will Never have to go back to the table. We will also be losing the remaining officers unless we take another pay cut.
Blah blah blah,…you city staffers all sound like used car salesmen working for the devil. The above amounts to more crap excuses from a horrific city administration, which Reed the Terrible, has played a role in for 13 or so years.
Here is one NO VOTE for you. Look in the mirror at your crack addict spending policies and you will find whom is to blame for the historic layoffs of police officers in this city. Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it.
To Offcier X,
Not very good detective work. I am not a City staffer, just a San Jose tax payer. You can avoid the facts and continue your rants or face the facts and vote to save 156 of your fellow officers. The Fire Department made the wrong decision last year, I hope your other officers do not make the mistake with their vote you are making. You really should look for another line of wrok.
Not a city staffer? OK, well, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck,…you may know the rest. Like we tell moronic wannabes,…take off the red/blk hat, pull up your pants, and maybe you won’t have to worry about being confused for a real gangster. With that said, please use a spell check will ya.
BTW, I am not here to “save” my fellow officers, though I do love that especially pathetic ploy. I also am not here to correct decades of poor spending priorities and bail out Reed and Figone. Like them, you will suffer from THEIR incompetence. Thanks for the career guidance but I am here to stay ;D Enjoy the cool aid this summer.
Voting for the POA contract simply delays the layoff of an additional 156 officers for a few months. There is no language in the contract promising that the city will not lay off additional persons beyond the current 122 scheduled layoffs. Watch what happens after the contracts are signed come November or at the end of this fiscal year. What will you say when the city states that they are still in need of layoffs to balance the budget? A yes vote by POA members just buys them a few months. A no vote gives the city the excuse to layoff those 156 right away. It is really just a matter of saving a few jobs for a few months.
Not a pathetic ploy to save the 156 positions, just think it would be safer for you and us citizens, but I don’t think you care. You can continue to try to put all the blame on the politiicans, but the POA and Fire Union had Mayor Gonzales in thier back pockets, to the point you got a 5% anti-terrorism pay on top of your 3 year 18% pay raise without having to open the contract back in the early 2000’s. The blame goes both ways to the politiicans and the union leadership. I believe the current group of eleceted officials are making good decisions, they are very difficult and not easy ones, but they will make San Jose a better place in the end. As a taxpayer, I would support a tax for public safety, but officers like you with the me first attitude make that difficult. Come to think of it, San jose will also be a better place when you reitre.
“I believe the current group of eleceted officials are making good decisions,…”
THIS SAYS IT ALL.
Support taxes at your own volition. It makes no difference. This city will give it to MACSA. BTW,…99% of officers share my opinion so looks like you’ll need to come to grips with that. You have ignored public safety staffing for years, welcome to reality. BTW,…when you get a busy signal calling 911, keep trying.
Don’t take this so personally. Isn’t that what we’ve always been told.
The POA should have been on this subject themselves. They failed the membership. What did 50.00 get us. NOTHING!
The poa members are going to vote this down! No where in the contract that guarantees no layoffs for tier 2 officers! The city says it will save it but won’t guarantee it! And we all know how trustworthy the city is! They will end up laying off tier 2 in November when pension negotiations fail! Poa members will fight this all the way to arbitration and force arbitration to take away rather than folding to the take aways! The members feel that the poa sold them out! This is going to get ugly real quickly for the city and chuck and Debra are going to be the reason why this city will fall apart! I totally support all you poa members and hope you all vote no on this horrible settlement by the city and your president! They all sold you out and this is the time to stand together and say enough is enough!
The great Pres and V.P. have spoken. We have sold our own out. We have not one anything under these guys. I had to listen in brieing about how the POA has called D.C. spoken to all the congress people. HAWG WASH. You don’t even have to call D.C. They have offices in the Valley. VOTE NO!
I will put money on the fact the officers who make up the POA will not ratify this contract and instead shove it up Reed’s behind on principle alone.
Just a prediction of course. Who knows.
The membership will approve it. They are sheep. I find it amusing that members of the board have told their friends “This contract will destroy the P.D.” Yet the won’t go to briefing and say that. Baa Baa
Don’t cry for the unions Argentina.
After countless years of unions running roughshod over this state, this city, and it’s citizens – the pendulum has finally started to swing. And all it took was thermonuclear fiscal insolvency to make it happen.
And who could have ever imagined a city council acting independently of public employee unions.
Stay the course. Decertify public employee unions before we end up like Greece.
“Decertify”? You know, the screen names change but the mantra continues despite the chances of it happening being exactly zero.
“the pendulum has finally started to swing.”
And it’s going to swing right into your pocket once the lawsuits began. Read Ash Kalra’s blog.
Unions ain’t going nowhere.
Union benefits and pensions consuming ever larger amounts of shrinking municipal and state budgets.
Who gets hurt the most? The most needy and most vulnerable. Even rank and file liberals are starting to wake up and ask questions.
Calling in Mike Honda and other union apparatchiks to try and strongarm city council? Desperation is in the air.
City council stay the course and San Jose will be the first big city in Cali to throw off the yoke of union oppression.
The good people of San Jose have had enough.
Quote yourself and read this in 10 years so you can see that nothing will have changed. Mark my words.
I don’t understand why the City Council doesn’t vote to move money from “Special Projects” into the the General fund to stop this deficit? Maybe you are right, Reed/Figone have “special Friends” or McEnry/Swenson really do run this City. I dare you Reed to stand up and show your heart!
So, from the looks of things, San Jose is on track to lose 278 officers to layoffs and another hundred or so to retirements. Not under discussion is the fact that officers not under threat of layoffs have also begun seeking employment elsewhere simply because San Jose isn’t competitive and it certainly isn’t a healthy work environment. (Yeah, I have friends at the PD.) In short, San Jose is likely to lose hundreds of officers in the next few years with no sign of any plans for offsetting that attrition.
Furthermore, if past performance is any indicator of future trends, San Jose’s leadership will continue to demand cuts to pay and benefits to offset mismanagement and outright waste of funds and to ensure that funds remain available for pet projects such as a baseball stadium, low-income, high-density housing and boondoggles such as Hayes Mansion the Mexican Heritage Plaza and the WPCP.
All the while, NOT ONE SINGLE COUNCIL MEMBER has proposed real meaningful reforms to San Jose’s business model, which is the real sources of all the problems. Mayor Reed has said it himself: San Jose’s revenue per capita is lower than the vast majority of its neighbors. The reality is that you could have every city employee work for free and it wouldnt’ make a difference. Why? Because it wouldn’t fix the problem of revenue and it wouldn’t ensure that San Jose’s revenue was spent responsibly. All it would do is make available more money for political paybacks, self-aggrandizing pet projects such as the stadium, and more resources to cover up the kind of corruption and ineptitude as has been documented in the WPCP blog.
Until San Jose’s citizens vote into offices less dishonest politicians, get more involved to ensure that monies are spent responsibly and advocate for making of San Jose a business environment that actually ATTRACTS and retains new business, nothing is going to change except for the quality and availability of essential services.
Finally, I realize it might be job suicide, but I wondered if Chris Moore might be so kind as to follow Chief Batts lead and publish a comprehensive list of services the department will no longer provide as a result of reduced staffing. It might be nice for San Jose to be informed as to what to expect from their police department as it diminishes in manpower.
Reed and Figone have already decided that they can run the city with 900 officers. Therefore, they want to reduce head count to 900 in order to see immediate cost savings in current salaries. As long as the staffing remains at 900, there are fewer retirement payouts to worry about as well. The only way they will reach the 900 figure is to lay off. Sure, many officers are leaving now, and will continue to leave for greener pastures. However, the exodus is not going to be fast enough so layoffs will continue until that 900 figure is reached.
Reed and Figone know that they can’t get to the 900 figure if they make layoff concessions. They will never agree to put a no layoff clause in writing anymore. They did this one time last year but it will probably not happen again. The city leadership does not want to remove ongoing layoffs as an option. In fact, they will lay off 100 or more officers even with the newly negotiated contract with the POA. Then in November, or even sooner, but certainly later, they will announce that despite all the union concessions, cost saving methods, and service cuts the city is still in financial crisis. The city will then start to implement Tier 2 layoffs at PD and FD.
From a purely fiscal perspective these tactics may seem reasonable to the average struggling citizen. There is a positive result to the city plan. The overall size of government is reduced. This is a good thing and as a conservative, I like it. Second, there is huge immediate cost savings, which is also good. But what about the down sides? Of course Reed and Figone have talked very little, except in generalities, about the negatives. They have said that services will be reduced but what exactly does that mean? Stay tuned for part 2.
In my previous post I said that the city cuts have a downside. What exactly are those negatives?
1. 900-1000 police officers for a city of one million people. There are some here that are willing to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that staffing and a rising crime rate have no correlation. The facts are that several units at the PD have been, and will continue to be cut. The Violent Crime Enforcement Unit was hugely successful at keeping gang violence in check. Now that job falls to the METRO unit who has other tasks to fulfill and can only do it part time. The Bureau of Investigations is being cut heavily and detectives are being sent back to the patrol division. This is only going to get worse as those BOI units are reduced again with each layoff. It has already been discussed at the PD that crimes against people will be investigated but that property crime cases will essentially be set aside. This means that if you are burglarized, have had your car stolen, been a victim of identity theft, been vandalized, or any number of crimes that do not include direct physical threats or violence, you better have food insurance. Units such as the Financial Crime Unit and other property crime investigations are a thing of the past.
2. The patrol division will most likely maintain existing staffing levels as investigative units and other “luxury” units are sent back to patrol. Units like the school liaison unit, horse mounted unit, community services unit, etc. will be significantly reduced or eliminated. Other units like the mayor’s body guard and the City Attorney’s Office investigators should be eliminated but we shall see. Even with patrol being the priority there are still far too few officers for a city of one million people. Calls are already pending for extended periods of time and low priority events will wait for hours or just be cancelled altogether. Citizens might as well get used to calling the police and either be referred to the PD website to make their report or be told nobody will be coming. As shown above, even if an officer takes a report unless you are the victim of a robbery, rape, assault, or other violent crime that report will be filed and never seen again.
3. Hiring and recruiting will be a thing of the past. SJPD will rarely have any openings and so the best and brightest will seek out other agencies that have openings, pay better, have better benefits, and who appreciate their officers. Eventually through attrition the PD will hire new officers to replace those that take the overall staffing below 900 or so. Currently SJPD runs their own academy. The PD broke off from the other college run academies as they felt they could do a better job, and they did. Surrounding agencies many times chose to send their recruits to the SJPD run academy due to the high standards and quality of training that SJPD provided. With only a handful of officers being hired down the road, SJPD will go back to sending their officers to whichever academy happens to be open at the time thereby providing the officers with lower quality training. Given the training budget is also now down to zero, existing officers will only receive bare bones training each year, again reducing the skill levels needed to maintain a high quality professional organization.
There is also much talk about government grants here. Let me explain how they work. First, federal and state agencies create grants for a variety of problems such as traffic enforcement, violent crime, technology improvements, and general grants. Every agency in the state can compete for these grants at the federal and state level. However, when those grant submissions are reviewed, the supplying agency always looks to get their best bang for the buck. This means small agencies can rarely compete with larger agencies when it comes to many grants. Sometimes if the dollar figure is smaller they may have a shot. When it comes to programs and technology, the granting agency wants to give the money to the agency that will deploy it as broadly as possible. This means that the larger agencies like SJPD, SFPD, LAPD, etc. usually get the money.
Many times the money is given to the larger agencies with the caveat that they deploy a program and then share it with the smaller agencies. The larger agency hosts the program and the outlying agencies can utilize it. Or, the larger agency establishes a program that the smaller agencies can then duplicate without the startup costs. Not all grants are staffing grants and in fact most do not provide for direct staffing other than for a specific program. Those grants that are for staffing to require matching funds or if not, then when the money runs out the agency is on the hook for paying those hirees beyond the grant.
SJPD has a history of receiving much of the bay area grant money. This is due to San Jose being the third largest city in Ca. and the 10th largest city in the US. SJPD was also the largest agency being over 1,400 sworn and several hundred non-sworn. The next largest agency is the SCCO Sheriff’s Office with close to 600 sworn and hundreds of non-sworn. If SJPD is cut to 900 and the Sheriff’s Department continues to grow with contract cities, potentially taking over the airport, and other expansions, the Sheriff’s Department may surpass the SJPD as the largest agency. In terms of grant money, this means that the Sheriff’s Department may become the preferred recipient for future grant moneys to the tune of millions of dollars. The Sheriff’s Department will be viewed as the premier law enforcement agency in Santa Clara County. SJPD will fall to second and have to beg Laurie Smith to be included.
Lastly on grants, and this applies to the current situation where Figone did not apply for the full amount, any agency can apply for a grant and then make changes later. It is not uncommon for an agency, SJPD included, to apply for staffing grants and take advantage of up front money from the state and federal governments. As someone else said, why not do this as it is really our tax dollars being returned to us. If SJPD hires say 50 people on a government grant, and that grant lasts for 2 years of salary, the city is then responsible for paying those salaries later when the grant runs out.
But it is also very common for the city to not hire during the course of the grant out of their own pocket. Using a government grant for staffing can presume that the city would hire those officers anyway. If the city has no intention of hiring any officers for five years, yes taking the full grant is foolish as the city incurs the cost of those officers when the grant is terminated. It is therefore very telling that Figone chose not to take the full grant. She is essentially saying that she would have to lay off those officers when the grant ends. Or in other words, she has to reach her 900 officer goal and the grant would throw a monkey wrench in those plans. I think she applied for 10 only as a gesture so as not to make it look too obvious.
Why is federal approval required for a local decision re pensions?
The feds will approve a staffing grant but that grant usually just pays salaries for a specified amount of time. The excuse Figone gives is that the city would have to pay the salaries beyond the life of the grant, including pensions and benefits. If San Jose were in a hiring mode, turning down the grant is silly as it buys a few years of salaries at not cost for people they would hire anyway. If the city is looking to lay off, then taking the grant is foolish as keeping bodies when you want them gone is counterproductive.
The reason is that the feds have to make a decision as to whether or not participation in an opt-in 2nd Tier pension plan remains tax deductible. If it does not, then obvioulsy it is extremely disadvantageous to volunteer to participate. Apparently, this requires a ruling from the IRS.
In this section I want to share my opinion on the comments made about officer morale and motivation. A byproduct of layoffs, pay cuts, and pension reductions is most certainly a reduction in morale and motivation. How can any citizen think it would be otherwise? I find it difficult to believe that all those private sector employees who were laid off from their companies left with warm fuzzy feelings towards that company. Or, those that stayed behind with reduced compensation felt the urge to double their work efforts and were just giddy with warmth and happiness towards their business.
Anybody who dodges the layoff bullet generally just feels grateful to have a job in public or private service. If the company expresses strongly that the remaining employee is there because they value their service and talent, then it softens the blow slightly. If the company makes it clear that they really wish they could lay them off too but are stuck with them due to having to at least have somebody do the work, how does that employee feel?
I see a lot of vicious remarks about how cops and firefighters are over compensated. These contracts, when negotiated, where considered just bringing up public safety employees to the same standards that private sector people were enjoying. In fact, even with the gains made by unions, the private sector boom times where still much farther ahead than public service. Nobody talked about unsustainable pensions, excessive salaries, sick leave buyouts, etc. Now those private sector people who lost those perks or who were laid off are responding with an unbelievable amount of vitriol and spite. Add to this the clear tactic of the City of San Jose who has made it clear that they view all union members as an unfortunate burden and a necessary evil and how do you expect the city employees to feel?
Public employees also have spouses and family members in the private sector. In many cases those private sector spouses were laid off or had their salaries slashed as well. If the spouse is laid off, then it falls on the public sector employee to provide retirement, medical and dental coverage, and pay the bills no different than with a household with two private sector employees. How about a little compassion for other people who are a hair away from being in the same boat as you are? Where was your strong feelings about equalizing the working conditions when you were wiping your asses with $100 bills?
Lastly, who do we have to blame for all this financial mess? Clearly the unions simply fought for the best benefits they could get for their employees. This is their job. It isn’t the unions job to come up with ways to make money, save money, fund programs, create efficiencies, manage personnel, oversee accounts, etc. A union exists for one purpose only, to represent the interests of their members at the bargaining table and to insure that the employer does not do anything to harm the employee. The unions were successful in negotiating what at the time were reasonable benefits. Why are they the scapegoats now for bad financial management on the part of the city? Chuck Reed and so many others concurred with all of the contracts negotiated during the boom times. Now we have selective amnesia when the finger of blame needs to be pointed.
Demonizing the police and fire members isn’t going to endear them to the public. I would say that they will still respond to calls for service. They will still exert their very best efforts when asked, and they will adhere to the tasks required of them by their job descriptions. However, just like an employee undervalued in the private sector made to feel as if they are just lucky to be employed, you will see a difference in attitude. Cops and firefighters are humans just like you. They suffer from low morale and are harmed by the piss poor attitudes of the people that write their checks and the clients they serve.
Now, some will respond that if this is the case then maybe we should just get rid of the current crop and bring new people in that won’t be that way. Anybody with a modicum of brain power can see through that charade. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to train an officer. And, they have to pass stringent tests including psychological evaluations. Has it ever occurred to any of you that there is a psychological profile that is used to weed out the vast majority of applicants? That profile would preclude somebody desperate enough to work for peanuts, willing to suffer continuous excessive abuse, and dumb enough to believe they cannot do any better. In fact, good qualified police officers are not easy to come by and in high demand. Cops smart enough to be hired by agencies with high standards will ultimately not settle for the types of pay, treatment, and working conditions that San Jose is headed towards.
Lastly, what exactly is the kind of police officer you want working in San Jose? How often do we read about a shooting taking place where somebody demands an open review of the incident because they want to evaluate the event? In decades past a shooting review simply evaluated the actual incident where the officer pulled the trigger. The criteria was that if the officer felt their lives, or other lives, were in danger, then it was a good shoot. Now we see the investigation focus on the officers training, the decisions that put them in a position to shoot, the officers physical health, mental awareness, and on and on. The level of scrutiny that officers go through now from minor decisions to major incidents has increased exponentially over the years. The bar is continually being raised by the public over behavior, performance, and accountability.
How many of you watch the CSI series? The most complex of crimes are being solved in 30 minutes including multiple homicides. Fantastic technological feats are accomplished using equipment that doesn’t even exist yet or is years away from practical deployment. I can’t count how many times I’ve talked to a victim who believes that the PD can do the things they do on TV. The expectations of the citizenry are advancing as fast as technology, and that is pretty damn fast.
With a better educated and tech savvy public come much higher expectations from police officers. Chief Rob Davis, and some of his predecessors, recognized this and tried to constantly upgrade the law enforcement profession from a blue collar to a white collar job. SJPD requires a minimum of 2 years of college with a BS preferred. Chief Davis tried to get everyone up to a BS and pushed his command staff, which is Lt. and above, to get a masters degree. Most officers do have a BS and many have gone on to get law degrees, masters degrees, and even higher. The same was done with training. Officers are consistently pushed to advance their training and become experts in a variety of specialties.
SJPD also enjoyed a reputation of having multiple career paths due to its size and broad specialization. Although SJPD had good pay and benefits, they were traditionally only in the middle of the pack when it came to Santa Clara County. Nevertheless, potential candidates would seek out SJPD because of the reputation, career opportunities within including many units and promotional possibilities, and because the city seemed to support their officers.
Now keep in mind the downside of cutting pay and benefits when trying to recruit good candidates. Especially since there are agencies who have not cut their pay as much. Add to this the lack of career paths as BOI is cut to the bone and Special Operations is halved. Promotional opportunities are now gone as demotions will be the order of the day. Heap onto all of this a city that now excoriates its officers as greedy gravy train riding leeches and a citizenry that clearly does not value top notch officers anymore.
How do you think this effects prospective candidates for hiring? Does anybody really think that the best and brightest will flock to San Jose anymore? Sure, there will be lines out the door of job applicants, there always has been. The difference is that few of them will pass the testing and even fewer will be of the caliber of years past. SJPD will recede back to the blue collar status of decades past and the quality of work will suffer irreparably. Existing officers also recognize that they are not only undervalued, but are viewed as a necessary evil and will perform accordingly. It’s just human nature.
I suppose many of you will simply shrug your shoulders and view this as you would when some company that makes widgets closes its doors. The problem is, you are talking about the company that sends someone to your home when you call for help, who pulls you or a loved one over in the wee hours of the morning, who investigates a crime committed against you, and who stands between you and societal anarchy. You will get what you pay for.
Well written 1-5. Thank you and god bless you your family along with the men and women in blue. I would also point out our Brave Firefighters as well.
There is a tentative side letter agreement with the POA that Tier 2 layoffs will be bumped to the following fiscal year, which is 2012/2013. The language for that letter is still pending. This was done last year when 67 officers were threatened with layoffs. The POA agreed to a larger contribution towards retirement and other concessions. The city then agreed to defer those layoffs until this fiscal year. Of course the 67 went up to 122. And, the city reserves the right to lay off 22 officers if they decide to give the airport up to security guards or the S.O. It looks as if the city is holding out a carrot to the POA membership to ratify this contract. Is this a good thing? It sure saves those 156 potential layoffs for one more year and that is a very good thing. If we lose the 122 Tier 1 officers though we are still in a world of hurt.
The cultlike nature of the public employee unions may account for the their members’ habit of constructing the most fantastic and inflated notions of their own self worth. An organization devoted to encouraging it’s members to gripe, grumble, concentrate on the deficiencies of management, and look for ways to claim victim status is bound to have a dehumanizing effect on those members. Public employees who comment here seem to have really lost perspective. The only world they know is the one that revolves around their little fiefdom.
You all want your federal grant money. The crippling federal deficit doesn’t even exist in your world, does it?
Most average citizens NEVER “wiped their asses with $100 bills”.
A great organization doesn’t need to attract the ‘best and brightest’. It creates them.
Unionization of employees breeds poor management primarily concerned with avoiding grievances and lawsuits. That’s about all San Jose does anymore thanks to unionization. Cover it’s ass. Were this city a private company having to compete in the marketplace, the employees’ selfish attitudes would have driven their company out of business many years ago and ALL those workers would have lost their jobs.
We’d be glad to invite you union people back into the real world. It’s sometimes a bit scary out here. Nothing’s guaranteed. Nobody holds your hand throughout your life. But you’d learn to adapt and you’d discover that there’s great personal reward in standing on your own two feet.
Ah yes, if only YOU were King JG. Sucking your bitter beer, and grinding your axe against unions, you would “recruit” whomever and magically (as you wave your wand) the best and brightest would be wearing SJPD uniforms. They then would work for $18/hr, with no paid overtime, and do so gratefully.
Thankfully the vision of the world, through your looking glass, will never come to be. Meantime, type away, as we handle the fantasy world of murderers, sex offenders, gangsters, and general purpose thugs outside your door. Remember to keep your door locked and your eyes closed as you stand proudly “on your own two feet”. It’s scary out there.
Has it ever occurred to you that the unions are full of people that might have worked in the private sector? Perhaps even recently. Or that their spouses, sons and daughters, parents, neighbors, and friends work in the private sector? I know you want to paint a picture of unions being isolated from reality but it just doesn’t fly. As for creating the best and brightest, you might want to read any number of books written by successful business people. While a good organization always seeks to improve their employees, as did SJPD when they had a training budget, they also have to start with good raw materials.
It should be no surprise that the great companies attract great candidates. This is a private sector driven philosophy, not a union one. The best employees compete for the best jobs pure and simple. Companies that provide a great work environment and good pay can be pickier than a company that has poor pay and lousy conditions. That same idea carries over into the public sector despite your wishing it was not so. Your condescension and better than thou attitude is disgusting for anybody in public service. You have revealed your true superiority complex apparently believing that all private sector employees are so much smarter and more talented than those that choose public service. I hate to break the news to you but many public sector employees take great pride in their work, their work ethic, and their service. Well, they used to anyway….
The first chapter in that ‘how to run a successful business’ book would be devoted to warning of the pitfalls of relying on a unionized workforce- if it was worth the paper on which it was printed.
Chapter 1 would be titled; ‘DON’T DO IT!’
And yes, I totally understand that many public employees have very personal connections to private sector employment. That doesn’t alter my argument. There have been many companies that attracted the ‘best and brightest’ by offering unusually high pay and benefits. And you’re right! It DID attract them. You leave a pile of money lying around and there’s one thing you can be sure of- people who want that money will show up. But the companies that stubbornly keep up this lavish generosity usually find that the competition either eventually runs them out of business or forces them to change their ways.
Like most other Government employees these days, City workers never seem to appreciate or even acknowledge the natural advantage that working for a monopoly affords them. The City of San Jose HAS no competition. It CAN’T go out of business. It can lavishly compensate it’s employees forever. All it has to do is keep collecting taxes. It’s immune to market forces and can exist perpetually in an unproductive, dysfunctional state that simply could not persist in what I often refer to as ‘the real world’.
Public employees already have this natural advantage over their private counterparts. It’s absurd to allow them to pile on by adding unionization on top of it. Even labor stalwarts FDR and George Meaney recognized the folly of allowing unionization of public employees.
I know ‘decertification’ will never happen. Just describing the current situation as I see it. No hard feelings.
The moment you tried to make FDR some kind of postive role model, your argument was lost. FDR was not who people think he was and despite doing some things right, all presidents do even Jimmy Carter, he was horribly flawed.
John, periodically, I agree with you, but this post is flawed in several ways. The primary way that I’d like to address is your assertion that San Jose ‘HAS no competition’ and that ‘It’s immune to market forces…’
We are seeing lately that the exact opposite is true here in the Police Department (http://protectsanjose.com/content/san-joses-vanishing-police-department-update-0). I direct you to this website because it’s the only place where this information is availiable. If it were up to the Mayor or Debra Figone, this information wouldn’t see the light of day; they certainly aren’t addressing the issue of attrition losses to other police departments. Sure, the city has no competition when it comes to offering services, but they certainly must compete with both the private sector and other cities in order to attract talent. It is this competitive environment that drives the wages and compensation to the levels that they are, not an innate desire to ‘lavishly compensate’ the line level work force.
We are seeing this play out right now, this reluctance. Never having competed on a truly equal footing with a huge number of other municipalities in the area, SJPD was able to attract great police recruits with compensation that came pretty close and a work environment that was fairly healthy and robust opportunities for specialized assignements. Now, as Mayor Reed and others are trying to roll back compensation levels not by years, but by decades, we are seeing many other agencies come to San Jose to court our highly-trained, highly-skilled, most junior officers. And, to what end? Special interests continue to get funded by grants paid out of the general fund. City Hall continues to transfer funds from the General Fund to the ‘untouchable’ Special Fund. The end, the goal, is not fiscal responsibility – a pillar of Mayor Reed’s campaign platform, never fulfilled – but pandering to special interests and the relentless pursuit of a single goal desired by a minority in San Jose: construction of a baseball stadium and bringing the A’s to San Jose
And, having established that the leadership of San Jose has no intention, no desire to be competitive and that said leadership has no compunction against poisoning the work environment, those junior officers are leaving. This was the logical outcome of Mayor Reed’s (and others) rhetoric and choices, an outcome I predicted last year and which we are seeing unfold less than 12 months later.
I predicted another outcome as well: that crime would rise. With our 26th homicide under our belt and violent crime of all sorts increasing, this second prediction is also coming true.
Man it’s hard to get a point across! You’ve completely misconstrued my meaning. Am I too vague? Too obtuse? What the devil’s going on in this country that people can’t understand plain English?
Let me try again.
Even FDR, whose domestic policies launched us on a downward trajectory and whose support for unionization in the PRIVATE sector served to prolong the depression- yes THAT FDR- even HE was not so stupid that he didn’t understand how disastrous it would be to permit unionizion of PUBLIC employees.
If we could go to Hyde Park, dig him up, revive him and describe to him the sorry state of our country he’d say, “What the…? You’ve got public employee unions? Well OF COURSE the country’s going down the tubes. What did you THINK would happen?”
It is happening in many departments.We have lost so many people in our department. People we never thought would be leaving are leaving. It’s getting scary.
In another post John expressed his belief that the more seasoned senior officers would be able to work longer and handle critical incidents so much better than the younger officers because of their wisdom and patience. Well, setting aside the fact that it doesn’t always work out that way, this is going to be problematic since they are all leaving. Yep, along with the younger officers the veteran officers are leaving in droves too.
Any department member who has enough time on and has reached a qualifying age is retiring as quickly as they can get out. This means those with 25 years or more who have reached 50 years of age. John, those 25 plus year veterans that have worked numerous assignments, received considerable training, and have “been there, done that” are fleeing SJPD like a house on fire, which it is. There was a time when officers would read the internal newsletter that listed the routine retirements. Normally the vast majority of retirees were leaving with 28 – 30 years of service. It was unusual to see somebody with only 25 years going and everyone would wonder what happened. Now the entire list of retirees every few months is right at 25 years or a month or two over, but that’s it.
Then you have the young officers with a few years on who are going to other agencies who are courting them and enticing them over with better pay, no threats of layoffs, and the promise that they will be treated better. These officers are being welcomed warmly and in many cases are moving right into good assignments based upon their great training and experience at San Jose.
Below that you have the brand new officers who have yet to get their feet really wet. Some of those officers are just getting out of police work altogether as they have realized that their community really doesn’t value their service. I’ve talked to a few who are seeking jobs in the private sector using the degrees that they obtained in college. Since they only have a police academy and a stint in the FTO training under their belts, they are not as invested as the 2-5 year officer. But if they do want to remain a cop, there are agencies as OfficerD said lining up to woo them over.
What does this leave? Well, many of the more senior members left are crossing the days off their calendars hoping to jump off the sinking ship as soon as they are eligible. There is a large contingent of department members who are just 1-2 years from being able to leave and they are just hanging on until they can bail out and find a job in the private sector or also go to another agency. Then the bulk of the remaining members are just stuck. Trapped in San Jose with too many years to leave and not enough to retire. Stuck with whatever Reed and his propaganda machine are able to con the citizenry into supporting. I’m sure their attitudes will be just as positive as can be.
You know, if public safety people were truly being over compensated in San Jose, I am sure it would be the same elsewhere in other public safety agencies. SJPD members would recognize that every agency is in the same boat and it would be wiser to just knuckle under and be a team player. But the reality is that while there are other agencies suffering, San Jose is clearly the worst place to work, with the possible exception of Vallejo, for PD and FD. Since there really are other viable alternatives, San Jose will continue to bleed red and blue until the citizens reap the rewards for their support of Reed and Figone.
I can come back to my cushy job with my enormous salary and great benefits? I’m already on the way. When we start coming back to the private sector, just think of all the jobs we will be taking from others. I have a science background, too. I just may come and take YOUR job. By the way, the thousands and thousands of dollars I paid into social security goes to fund YOUR retirement. Don’t forget it!
Not too worried about you taking away my job. I encourage you to leave the dark side and try it though and sincerely wish you the best of success. If you do happen to succeed that’s OK. I’ll just create another job for myself. The world’s brimming with opportunity!
If Garza likes it, Reed and Figone have signed off. That means the POA is certain to be shafted. My NO VOTE waits for the poll to open as do those of many other officers. I’ll take my chance with an arbitrator. When this goes down in flames, as it very well might, Reed and Figone (aka Fire and Ice) will only have themselves to blame.
Great contract…?
•10% cut in pay – that most likely will be “ongoing”
•No “no layoff” stipulation. There was a “no layoff” stipulation in the last contract, why not this one?
•No minimum staffing stipulation (unlike the fire department)
•No provision against the City creating a ballot measure to strip away acquired/vested retirement benefits
•Even if the contract is ratified, 100 plus officers will still be laid off
Can you sell an air conditioner to an Eskimo? The City isnt going to hire anyone for years. They already know a bunch of officers will retire. It’s another end around. Results the same. “LOSS” How many have been replaced since the last contract? How many are already gone. It’s a shell game They take our money and our people.
It’s Figone / Reed POWER POLITICS, get used to it
Last year Fire Department union was the political target. They got a Layoff Lesson and learned who are city government bosses so FD union was first to agree this year tp 10% and got No Layoffs as their reward for good behavior
Police union last year had no layoffs but because they were not grateful, talked back to Figone and Reed They needed a Layoff Lesson to show who are their Bosses so Police union became this year’s political budget target
1) Figone RUNS city government, so better do as you are told with a smile on your face, don’t talk back or you will be punished as Fire and Police unions are learning Layoff Lesson
2) Reed SETS political agenda and NEEDS to HAND OUT millions political payback tax money to his friends and supporters (Baseball Stadium , Downtown Convention rebuild, Housing developers, city sewer plant and airport contractors, grants and contracts to friends)
3) Figone / Reed showed unions they are THE bosses with political power and city employees and South Bay Labor doesn’t have political power any more
4) Figone / Reed showed that no one can help city employees even formerly untouchable public safety – not residents, neighborhoods, South Bay Labor, or the few remaining union Council members.
5) Figone showed last week that her city government doesn’t even have to give Council members answer. Pete Constant do you like how residents have been treated Reed knows when to say nothing
For those of you who’ve been watching the news, the reality is clear. Reed cares more about a stadium than genuine fiscal responsibility. Figone is in charge of the city. It is her city. So much so that she feels no need to consult with the City Council. Even if they wanted to fire her, would they? Somehow, I’m not so sure, despite her arrogance, high-handedness, self-importance, conceit, deceit. Makes you wonder what she has in her hip pocket to keep the city council in line.
Jon,
The officers who offend you so are not there as part of their patrol duties; they are a distinct force deployed to the Entertainment Zone by the command ranks. The cops are working during their off-hours, paid by the hour to be there; hired zookeepers, if you will. The size of the force, the particular deployment of the officers, the traffic control strategies: all part of a pre-planned effort to deal with a problem potential based on previous incidents. On nights when, thankfully, the deployment proves too large, the police department is subjected to criticism from people like you; on nights when the deployment proves inadequate, the police department is criticized by everyone. It’s just the way it is.
Trust me, the cops are not there to hurt your feelings.
While agree it would be nice if each cop had a Mr. Roger’s-like, neighborly expression of his face, human nature doesn’t work that way, and besides, the folks frequenting the downtown bars ruined any chance of a friendly atmosphere long ago with their jackass, destructive, anti-police behavior. You reap what you sow.
However, if you are really offended by the officers’ demeanor and unable to avert your eyes from their nasty glare, might I suggest you try the bars in Santana Row, where the cops are fewer and far friendlier. Of, if you’d rather not see any cops at all, I can recommend a number of fun spots in Oakland, where the odds are you won’t encounter the disturbing sight of a cop’s face…
not even in answer to your prayers.
Or go across the estuary to Alameda and go for a swim in the bay. No need to worry about police or fire union members bothering you there either…
not even if you’re drowning.
So if a significant number of cops get cut, hopefully that will result in less of them glaring at anyone who is out in downtown after midnight on a Friday or Saturday! What’s with the ridiculously large show of force, batons at the ready and police cars blocking every other intersection? Seriously? Nothing better to do?
It’s obnoxious and counter-productive. Ok, angry old guys who don’t live downtown… chime in and tell me how wrong I am.
John Galt,
Cheap shot. Their status as union membership (assumed) had no more to do with their following stupid orders than did their race, creed, or gender.
BS Monitor,
Cheap shot? Maybe. But how in the world can we account for their following these stupid orders? I think it’s important that we try to understand the sort of workplace climate that would allow these guys to rationalize the betrayal of their most fundamental duty. To reflexively absolve the standaroundandwatchers of responsibility and automatically pin the blame on ‘management’ is just as cheap a shot.
And just because this happened in Alameda don’t kid yourself that it couldn’t happen here in San Jose- especially if those with the power to change things cavalierly dismiss such a clear wakeup call.
John Galt,
Cheap shot. Their union membership (assumed) has no more to do with their obeying that stupid order than did their race, creed, or gender.
You must be having a bad day.
“Cheap shot.”
He can’t help it.