Employee Compensation And Benefits Report Available

IT'S ABOUT TIME! 
The City of Costa Mesa 2015 Compensation and Benefits Report was finally released late last week and it makes for some interesting reading.  You can read the PDF version HERE.

RANKED BY COST TO THE CITY
This list is ranked in order of total cost to the City.  That means total pay plus the portion of the pension cost the city pays.  It is NOT ranked in order of the actual pay each individual took home.

PUBLIC SAFETY LEADS THE WAY
It will come as no surprise to know that of the 766 people listed - active, terminated/retired - many of those receiving the most pay are in public safety, the police and fire services.

MANY FIREFIGHTERS NEAR THE TOP
Of the first 100 on the list, nearly 40% are in the fire service - again, that's no surprise.  If you look down the list using the "overtime pay and hours" segment as your focus you'll understand why fire service folks are ranked so high.  In addition to working 56 hour weeks, most also work ungodly overtime hours.  As you scroll down that list you'll see hundreds of overtime hours listed.

DENIGRATED IN THE PAST
In years past certain bloviating elected officials would refer to the "$350,000 firefighter" as some kind of scarlet letter of greed.  In fact, the men and women who work for the Costa Mesa Fire Department would MUCH prefer to NOT work so many overtime hours because they represent hours away from their families that they will never get back.

POLICE ALSO NEAR THE TOP
It's important to note that the Police Department staff also represents a large number of those near the top of the list.  Chief Rob Sharpnack is #1 this year, for example. 

STILL NO CONTRACTS
It's also important to note that both the police and fire groups are nearing two years without a contract.  The police contract will be discussed by the City Council at the meeting on Tuesday, but negotiations with the fire organization is stalled.

TAKE YOUR TIME...
Take some time to scroll down the list.  You'll find the information very interesting.

2013 Employee Compensation Report

ALSO WHILE I WAS AWAY...
Another story that "broke" while I was away this past weekend and unarmed technologically to do anything about it was the publication of the 2013 Employee Compensation Report, HERE.  If you wish to compare it to the 2012 report, you'll find that one HERE.

TAKE YOUR TIME
Now, before you go off half-cocked, take a couple minutes to actually read the very first page of the report - the one that defines the information that will follow.  Each of the eighteen (18) columns are defined to help us understand just what we're seeing.  Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but if you hurry through the process you'll find yourself presuming too much.

CAUTION URGED
For example, if you look at the second column, Job Title/Name, you'll see who that line is all about.  But, if you immediately glance over to the far right column, Total Compensation (total Pay+ER Pension Cost) you may mistake that number for the actual pay the individual received for the year.  It is NOT.  That last column represents what it cost the city to have that person on the payroll for the year, including Base Pay, Overtime, Specialty Pay, Certification Pay, Other Pay, Leave Payouts, Health Benefits and the Employers Cost of the Pension.

A LITTLE ANALYSIS
I'll leave it to you to do your own analysis of the 695 line entries for Active, Terminated and Retired persons on the list.  However, I did do some calculations of the FIRST TWO PAGES - 52 persons - just to whet your appetites.

JUST THE FIRST TWO PAGES
Those two pages, as I said, contain entries for 52 persons, of which thirty (30) are in the Fire Department; twenty (20) are in the Police Department and two (2) are "other" - CEO Tom Hatch and Director of Public Services Ernesto Munoz.  The list is ranked, top to bottom, based on the number in the far right column.

SAME PLAYERS - SAME BIG NUMBERS
These two pages are very similar to the same two pages last year.  Many of the same names are near the top pay-wise.  Fire Battalion Chief Bill Kershaw is at the top of the heap again, due in great part to the 983 overtime hours he worked.  Same with Battalion Chief Kevin Diamond, who worked 989 overtime hours.  Third on the list is Police Chief Tom Gazsi.  Hatch is fifth and Munoz is 30th, on the second page.

FIRE OVERTIME
Let's talk about the impact of the staffing dilemma both Police and Fire find themselves in today.  In the case of the Fire Department, because the re-deployment plan by former Interim Chief Tom Arnold has not yet been implemented, the existing staff has been working horrendous overtime hours.  Every one of the 30 Firefighters on the first two pages, including the command staff, worked overtime.  They averaged 1190 hours per man for a cost of $2,022,998.66 on those pages alone!  Just scroll down the page with your eyes on that column alone and it will rock you back.

CMPD OVERTIME
In the case of the Police Department, fourteen (14) of the twenty members of that department on those two pages worked overtime.  They averaged more than 500 hours per man at a cost of $509,456.31 for those officers!  Again, just scroll down ALL the pages watching that column and you'll get a sense of just how much time these men and women are spending away from their families to serve our community.  And, certainly in the case of the Police Department, this has been unnecessary - created by the vindictive, short-sighted leadership by the current City Council majority.

COUNCIL IS THERE, TOO
Speaking of which, the City Council shows up on the list, too - way, way, way down near the end on pages 18 and 19.  Sandra Genis is on line 447; Wendy Leece is on line 448; Gary Monahan is on line 449; Steve Mensinger is on line 452 and Mayor Jim Righeimer is on page 19, line 480.

THEIR OWN REPORT
In addition, the City Council has it's own special report, HERE, titled "Council Member And Mayor Compensation and Benefits".  That report is a little easier to comprehend.  And, it explains something that's been bugging me ever since the very last Charter Committee meeting.  I wrote about that meeting HERE, and mentioned the peculiar event that occurred when member Andrew Smith proposed removing from their draft Charter the $2,100 per month stipend for each council member  that had been hashed out over several meetings and many staff hours providing information.  He said it was because he feared that the voters would perceive the council members were getting a raise - their salary is $904.40 per month today - and that might "drive a stake in the heart" of the Charter.  That stipend was supposed to be consistent among all council members, and they would be expected to pay any additional benefits that might be available to them from that stipend.

"PAY TO PLAY"?
Well, take a look at that chart.  It seems that the "Monthly Total" compensation and benefits for the council members ranges from $2,790 for Righeimer and Mensinger, to $2,981 for Leece and Monahan and $3,003 for Genis.  If each council member were paid that $2,100 stipend, and wanted to maintain their same benefit level, they'd have to PAY for the privilege of being on the council!  It would cost the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem $690 per month; Leece and Monahan $881 per month and Genis $903 per month!  While Smith may have been correct in his assessment, I now wonder if perhaps his friends on the council - he used to work with Mensinger - figured out the math and.... well, you know.

LISTEN FOR THE YAPPING DOGS
Now that the 2013 Compensation and Benefits Report is available for public consumption, I suspect we may have certain sycophants of the council majority begin their yapping about how overpaid the City Staff is, particularly the public safety folks, that put their lives on the line every single day to protect us.  They'll begin that old "Unfunded Pension Liability" chant again, knowing full well that Righeimer has stated MANY times that he has no intention of sending any additional money to Sacramento to pay it down.  Unless we ride it out, depending on CalPERS to pick up the slack with their investments, the only other solution is Municipal Bankruptcy - just like "our" $495 per hour lawyers, Jones Day, guided Detroit through recently.

THE BLAME IS THEIRS
It's campaign season, so let the rhetoric begin.  However, when it starts this year, though, the policies of the current council majority must bear the burden of responsibility for this situation.  It was THEIR decisions that have caused so many police officers to bail out, with more on the way.  It was THEIR policies that delayed for more than a year the recruitment plans to replace known pending departures.  It was THEIR ignorance about real policing that caused them to arbitrarily establish a staffing level at least 10% too low to begin with, and exacerbated (not "exasperated", Steve) the situation with their stubborn vindictiveness.  It was THEIR eagerness to incur legal entanglements - the hasty, ill-advised layoffs three years ago;  the Steven White fiasco and the lawsuit brought against the men and women of the CMPD, for example - that have created such a toxic workplace at City Hall.  It is THEIR flagrant disregard of established procedures and policies that perpetuate the "us versus them" mentality when dealing with employee groups.  They've imposed an adversarial relationship that was never seen in our city before.

HERE WE GO!
It's time for a change.  Let the games begin...

Costa Mesa Employee Compensation Report

 NUMBERS NOW AVAILABLE
As I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, the 2012 Costa Mesa City Employee Compensation Report is now available for viewing on the city web site, HERE.  And, if you want to compare it to the 2011 report you can view that one HERE.



MISLEADING USE OF "FACTS"
Some will recall that certain members of the City Council went berserk when this listing was first produced last year.  They and many of their sycophants - in an election year - misrepresented the numbers to pillory "greedy union employees", always failing to mention that the reason many of the persons they criticized were members of public safety organizations and the council at that time refused to permit the leaders of the Police and Fire organizations to staff at reasonable levels.  That refusal led to mandatory overtime in those organizations to provide adequate staffing for our safety, which pushed individuals up the compensation list.  Many times now-mayor Jim Righeimer referred to a "firefighter earning $350,000" - a lie of the first magnitude.  He was referring to Fire Battalion Chief Bill Kershaw, who was at the top of the 2011 list because he worked more than 4000 hours during that year.  And, that "$350,000" number included almost $70,000 in pension costs - not dollars he put into his pocket.  And, Righeimer conveniently rounded the numbers up - Kershaw's number, including the pension costs, was actually $346,167.60.  Kershaw is #2 on this year's list, at $296,733.97 but you can be sure it will come out as "$300,000" as critics flap their jaws on this issue.

FORGOTTEN REIMBURSEMENT
Another fact conveniently neglected was that much of the overtime that shows up in the public safety staff numbers overtime attributed to instances where firefighters were sent to wildfire locations as part of our mutual aid agreements and we are reimbursed for that cost.  Similarly, when members of the police department work overtime to provide contracted support for the Orange County Fair those costs are also reimbursed to the city.

NEW FIRE STRUCTURE WILL SAVE MONEY
The much-delayed Fire Department restructuring plan proposed by Interim Fire Chief Tom Arnold, based on the presentations made months ago, will save a lot of dollars.  We hope that plan, one we're told is being fine-tuned for presentation at yet another study session, will finally be approved and implemented.

FOLKS AT THE TOP
As you scroll down the list you'll find Police Chief Tom Gazsi at the top - a bargain by anybodys estimation.  You'll also see outgoing Interim Director of Economic and Development Services and Deputy CEO Peter Naghavi, who's numbers include almost $50,000 cash out for unused leave and vacation in anticipation of his departure this year.  He was supposed to depart at the end of the year, but agreed to stay to help select his replacement and aid in the transition.

LOOK AT "OVERTIME HOURS"
Here's an interesting exercise for you.  This year the report includes an "Overtime Hours" column.  As you scroll down the list you'll find fourteen (14) of the first 22 persons listed show more than 1,000 overtime hours.  Continue to scroll and you'll see that nearly half of the top 41 persons listed - 20 - show overtime hours greater than 1,000 hours.  Those hours represent time spent on the job that most would prefer to spend with their families.  The overtime is necessary to keep us safe.

NON-SWORN STAFF
CEO Tom Hatch, during his comments last Tuesday at the council meeting, addressed the reduced staffing levels by observing we have more non-sworn staff today than we did previously.  Well, most of those positions were ones that had been canceled during the budget crunch, then re-filled recently.  Those folks, as wonderful and dedicated as they are, cannot go out and snatch up criminals like the shotgun bandit earlier this week. They can't go out and work effectively with the multiple gangs in our city.  They can't jump into a patrol car or onto a motorcycle to snag DUI offenders.  They won't be out patrolling the illicit massage parlors mentioned at the last council meeting or working the "problem motels" in our city.

POLICE STAFFING
The Police Department had, just a few years ago, 164 sworn positions.  Today the authorized strength is 131, which includes 5 "grant officers", the funding for which was from federal grants for only 5 years.  The last City Council - the core of which is still in control - ignored their own consultants and former Interim Chief Steve Staveley, both of whom said the bare minimum staffing level should be 136 - 140 would be better - and slashed the budget to its current level.  And, of course, they disbanded the A.B.L.E. helicopter program - the model for municipal airborne law enforcement organizations throughout the country.  Are we safer today?  Of course not!  The year end crime statistics, HERE, clearly demonstrate that fact.

OUR "JIFFY LUBE GUY"
So, as you scroll down the Employee Compensation List and questions arise, just take a deep breath and think about what those numbers really represent.  Before you force your blood pressure off the charts because Billy Folsom - #315 on the list - earned $82,000 last year before he retired, understand that you're looking at 30 years of service and a man who could keep every vehicle in the fleet running.  This is the man referred to derisively by Righeimer and his sycophants as a "Jiffy Lube Guy."  Of course, that derision has nothing to do with the fact that Folsom was an articulate outspoken critic of the council's outsourcing scheme (he says, tongue in cheek).

COUNCIL MEMBERS
In case you're interested, you can find the City Council members listed way, way down the list.  Wendy Leece is #461, with a total comp. number of $32,386.28.  Gary Monahan is just below her at #462 with the same dollars.  Steve Mensinger is at #464 with at total comp. of $31,590.63 and departed Eric Bever is at 466 and $31,106.78.  Mayor Jim Righeimer is at #530 with a total comp. number of $1,322.07.

COIN - TRANSPARENCY OR A CLUB?
The City is about to launch negotiations with the General Employees - the members of the Costa Mesa City Employees Association (CMCEA) - immediately.  Their contract expires in a week.  We'll find out very soon just how Mayor Pro Tem Mensinger's COIN ordinance, HERE,  is going to work and whether it will facilitate openness and timely negotiations or become an anchor and a club used to flog employee organizations into submission.  I'm hoping for the former.

HAVE FUN
Have a great weekend as you peruse the Compensation report.  I'll look forward to your observations.

New, More Detailed, Employee Compensation Report

HATCH ANNOUNCES NEW REPORT
Today, in a Press Release from Interim Communication Director Bill Lobdell, City CEO Tom Hatch introduced the new, improved municipal employee compensation report, which is described in the title of the press release as "one of the most detailed municipal employee compensation reports in the U.S." You can read the report HERE. It will also be linked on the City website for your future reference.

PRESS RELEASE TEXT
The press release reads as follow:

In keeping with its pledge of transparency, the City of Costa Mesa today published one of the most extensive municipal employee compensation reports in the United States.

The 27 page report details the total compensation of 752 full-and part-time City employees - including Costa Mesa's five council members. the employee's pay and benefits are broken down into 14 categories, including base pay, overtime pay, specialty pay, certification pay, leave payouts, health benefits, and City pension contributions.

The document also provides definitions for each category of pay and pension contribution, bringing additional transparency to the report.

The City undertook the revisions after receiving input from residents and staff on how to improve the original report, which was published on the city's website in 2010.

"I'm pleased that Costa Mesa has become a leader in providing detailed, easy-to-understand public information to the community," said City Chief Executive Officer Tom Hatch. "This employee compensation report can serve as a model for other cities to follow. It's not the easiest trail to blaze given the sensitivity over individual salaries and benefits, but it was the right thing to do for the public."

WHY?
I guess I'm OK with the City providing this information, but as an old Human Resources professional, it bothers me that the confidentiality of employee compensation has been so dramatically violated. I fear that, instead of answering questions a few members of the public might have had, the dissemination of this amount of detail will only generate more questions and criticisms, most of which will be "I don't make that kind of money, why should they?" Envy and greed will almost certainly dominate the comment threads that this information generates. We'll see.

PANDERING TO THE PARTY
One thing is certain, the publication of this information (again), and the detail provided, will continue to play into the hands of those in our city who feel the employees are greedy and that their compensation and benefits are the root of all evil in this town. Those people - Jim Righeimer, Steve Mensinger and their sycophant, Colin McCarthy and his Costa Mesa Taxpayer's Association - will continue to use these numbers - or, rather, segments of these exhibits - to fan the flames of discontent. One byproduct of that action will be the praise of Scott Baugh, John Moorlach and the rest of the OC GOP hierarchy who are trying to use our city as a petri dish for pension reform.