Today, Oakland Tribune Columnist Byron Williams wrote about Measure Y and how the whole debacle has compromised trust in government. Check it out here.
http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_15261113
Friday, June 11, 2010
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So the City is proposing laying off 200 regular Officers & the 63 M-Y Officers (when they lose the tax $), unless they propose this M-Y Modification (or "Measure Y redux" as Byron says) to let them keep the M-Y Officers.
ReplyDeleteOf course if it were the M-Y Officers or it's equivalent they wanted they could very easily just propose to lay off 137 regular Officers & the 63 M-Y Officers (200). They still have the flexibility to cut all they want from the GPF, no different with or without M-Y.
But that's not what they're after. They want to trim the budget but keep the property tax $, & move the cost for 63 Officers off the books.
I have another suggestion: Why don't they decrease salaries & keep all the Officers. Then everybody's happy. & if OPOA demands that other Unions contribute, it's perfect leverage.
Unless the City Counsel think there's other departments that are more important than OPD & OFD? (I'm not even talking about "core services").
Decreasing the salaries is never going to happen. I don't know who led the charge but Berkeley, SF, Hayward, and I think Richmond all pay their officers in the same ballpark. Hard to say exactly how this would play out but expect some OPD would leave the force either for other PDs or private security. Might get fewer applicants for openings. I would hope that the entrance exam would weed out the truly brain deads.
ReplyDeleteRalph - check out my previous posts on Oakland salaries. I had a chart posted that compared other local jurisdictions wtih Oakland. Oakland cops were paid more than any other jurisdiction in California. Nancy Nadel had a survey as well, which was attached to a City Council agenda a couple of months ago. Cite me a survey that says otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAs for salaries going down, of course it is possible to negotiate downward. Not easy, but possible. Keep in mind that most public employee unions have salary schedules that guarantee automatic raises every year. So even freezing the salary schedule and not permitting raises would be a step in the right direction.
I doubt too many police departments will be hiring anytime soon, so officers are very unlikely to leave OPD right around now. Private security pays lousy, most would consider it demeaning for a "real" officer to do this, so why would you think OPD officers would want to be security guards?
Marleen,
ReplyDeleteFirst, with regard to private security I was thinking more in the lines of heading/managing security and or advising for an enterprise, school or something not rent-a-cop. You are paid nicely with fewer hassles.
Second, speaking purely on salary the 2008 chart indicated that OPD salary was about $100 more/mo than surrounding jurisdictions. In the grand scheme of things, I am not overly concerned about that.
That being said, that chart is not all inclusive and is bit out of date. I conducted my search this morning by looking at individual PD salary pages. Hayward appears to be highest. As I am now having issues connecting, I am only including a link to their pay)
http://www.ci.hayward.ca.us/departments/humanresources/documents/flyers/police_ofc_8_by_11.pdf
For the most part few districts are hiring, OPOA keeps a list of those who are. But I think our best bet will to be hold wages flat for the foreseeable future.
Marleen, I think Ralph is referring to a conversation we had w "Mike" on ABO.
ReplyDeleteFor lateral transfers he surprised us that SF is now paying as much as Oakland. Oh, & they get a $5000 signing bonus too...
So SF is at it again, in the midst of a recession, already going back to a salary arms race, & [a different version of] mutually assured destruction.
I just tried to post a link to the SFPD job post but your blog isn't letting me do that...
A minor point but "Mike" did not surprise me, I had already checked out SFPD pay. What I don't know is all the timing between Gavin's promised raise of 20+ % and OPD increases.
ReplyDeleteAnyway here is your SFPD link: http://www.sfpdcareers.com/benefits.html
Berkeley PD: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=7112
Could not get Richmond
Northern CA as a whole outpaces the nation and the rest of CA in terms of PD pay.