Oliverio for Supervisor 2018

Independent - Transparent - Fiscally Responsible

Broad Support for Performance Evaluations

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After much discussion at the City Council meeting last week the Council voted in favor of having city staff study performance as a criteria when it comes to employee layoffs.

The review will determine if the City should include job performance when considering layoffs, or keep the current system in place, which is based solely on seniority. Due to budget shortfalls, the City has eliminated “vacant positions,” which were budgeted with the intention of hiring someone to fill them. Elimination of those positions generated savings, since the savings came from no longer budgeting for the positions.

As a result, the City is forced to do layoffs, based on seniority only. For example, you may have someone on the job for nine years who is under performing yet someone who has been on the job for six years and is a great worker.  The person who has been with the City for nine years will “bump” the better performing employee, in the same or different department.

In some situations the person going into the new position does not have the skill set to do the job.  This causes disruption to that department and disruption to the client (residents, business,etc). For example someone who has never stepped foot in the water pollution control plant now has a job at the plant, which requires a special skill. Skill sets and domain expertise are lost when people bump to other departments based only on seniority.

There are two points which I think get overlooked in this debate. One: My proposal does not eliminate seniority as a measurement but instead adds performance as a factor. Whether performance will be 10 percent or 20 percent of the total criteria remains to be seen. We may eventually also decide to include education and certification as well. We need some way other than months on the job to make a informed decision.

The other item being overlooked is that performance should be considered when getting a raise or a promotion—not just the current situation of layoffs. Today, salary step increases are rewarded only based on seniority.  Adding performance as a criteria should also be considered.
In addition, city staff will study the current evaluation process, which has not always been followed. Some say that evaluations do not matter since the current system is only based on seniority. I would personally be interested in a affordable software evaluation solution so that HR can track all evaluations in real time, and that there is a standard format with the option of allowing some customization of questions for specialty jobs.

I am surprised that this issue was not resolved in prior decades and that there is strong opposition from the leadership of public employee unions. Several city employees in different departments have mentioned to me that it is disappointing to work with someone who does not carry their weight.  This is about civil service rules and not about unions, however there will be a lengthy meet-and-confer discussion with the 11 unions. In comparison, the numerous building trade unions do not have seniority and bumping. Union trade members are hired and fired based on work performance.

Seniority is being raised also in Los Angeles, where the ACLU has won in court against the school district, by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former teachers union organizer. “We cannot continue to automatically guarantee lifetime employment to all teachers,” Mayor Villaraigosa said, “nor can we make decisions about assignments, transfers and layoffs solely on the basis of seniority. Tenure and seniority must be reformed or we will be left with only one option: eliminating it entirely.” If a former union organizer and now Democratic Mayor of California’s biggest city can support performance evaluations, plus 79 percent of San Jose residents, so to should the San Jose City Council.

Congratulations to Arizona-based Microchip Inc, a veteran semiconductor company. They recently located their Silicon Valley office to San Jose from Sunnyvale filling up 100,000 square feet in North San Jose.

Saturday, the Willow Glen Rams defeated the Burlingame Panthers for the division two boys varsity soccer championship. It was first championship soccer win for Willow Glen. Congratulations to Julio Morales who scored two of the three goals.

Ten seats remain unclaimed for tonight’s 6:30pm showing of “The Olmstead Legacy” at City Hall.  Please email me to hold a seat(s) atPierluigi.Oliverio@SanJoseCA.gov

http://www.theolmstedlegacy.com/

What Should the City Do With Sick Leave Payouts?

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Sick leave payouts are part of the City of San Jose budget deficit problem. These payouts do not discriminate; every employee including management accrues sick leave, and if employed with the City long enough, will be eligible for sick leave payout when they retiree. One exception is that councilmembers do not accrue sick leave.

The City of San Jose has paid over $28 million over the last two years for sick leave payouts. Upon retirement, the City pays out those sick leave hours at the current base pay plus other premium pay(s). Unfortunately, the Council/City failed to design a system that would track sick leave at the pay rate it was accrued. The City cannot go back and retroactively change the structure so that all employees sick leave is adjusted to the specific pay that their sick leave was accrued at.  In hindsight the sick leave structure should have been one that pays out sick leave on the rate it was actually earned with a maximum cap but this was not how the past Council set it up.

Two years ago, I called for capping sick leave pay outs to no more than $100,000 but there was little support to change the existing system. Any change to sick leave payouts then or now would require the City of San Jose to go through the Meet and Confer process with the unions. The Meet and Confer process can take as long as a year.

$28 million is a significant amount of money; more than the annual citywide library budget and quarter of our budget deficit. In my view, we need to change the benefits on sick leave just as we will on pensions for new employees. It should be eliminated for new employees so that it is like the private sector, a use it or lose it benefit for those that are actually sick.

So now what do we do with everyone that was promised to be paid on their accumulated sick leave hours?  There are different options, however, any change goes to the “Meet and Confer” process with the 11 Unions.

One option is to cap the amount of the payout to say no more than $100,000, or $80,000, pick your number. The other is to phase out sick leave over a number of years where the payout is reduced X percentage each year until the benefit is eliminated. Another option would be that the City pays out over time.

If the City must pay out another $14 million in sick leave this year that means we do not have $14 million to employ police or librarians to provide services to residents. Paying out another $14 million in sick leave would cause an undue burden to our residents. So instead of paying out $14 million in one lump sum I would suggest we pay it out over 10 years or roll it into the employees’ pensions. This would leave us with money on hand to keep city employees employed. Then, in the next budget year we would know the amount of the sick leave payout from the prior year and make subsequent budget cuts in the next fiscal years. However, we will have the same fiscal liability every year unless we change the current system.

Government is known for making promises it cannot keep.  People and businesses downsize or use bankruptcy to reorganize their debt and obligations. If The City is avoiding the “B” word then we must figure out a way to keep San Jose afloat, since we will continue to have $50 million increases in the pension system each year that is paid directly by the taxpayer.

Clearly if a person is about to retire, then they are getting out at a lucrative time and probably do not care about concessions. However, if you are an employee with less seniority (since merit is not a factor today) you may be more inclined to accept concessions to keep income coming in as being laid off is a 100 percent pay cut.  Only time will tell but it will all hit the fan in the next few months.

Congratulations to the Association of Legal Professionals of The City of San Jose for being the first collective bargaining group to conduct their negotiations as public meetings. I attended and was enlightened to watch as a member of the public last Thursday.

Joint Venture Silicon Valley held their annual State of Silicon Valley 2011 last Friday at the San Jose Convention Center. Much of the time was spent on how cities and counties will have hard times the next five years due to rising pension costs and decreased revenues. The outlook was grim and the notion of never recovering and delivering services the same way was discussed. Therefore they advocated outsourcing and consolidating services among cities to cut out duplicate administrative positions.

Be My Budget Valentine

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The Budget Valentine will be visiting with the Council today at 1:30pm. The Council is having a public study session that will be streamed on the Internet and broadcast on Channel 26. This meeting will include discussion of what cuts will be required based on the budget shortfall.

The budget is assuming that each union agrees to 10 percent total compensation cut. Last year, 25 percent of the workforce took 10 percent total compensation cuts for one year. The current ask of 10 percent is not in addition to the cut from last year, but rather maintains the 10 percent cuts another year for those who took it.  The budget is also asking the remaining 75 percent of employees who did not take a 10 percent cut last year to please do their part and take the same cut the others have.

I have thought that a pay freeze for five years or more would be a way to cap spending, but increased pension payments and slow incremental property tax receipts do not allow for this option.

Service-delivery model changes will be discussed as a way to maintain services for residents since layoffs will be sizable. It will challenge the values of providing services to residents versus the current delivery model.

Even if the assumption that the entire workforce takes a 10 percent total compensation cut, the City will still have a huge deficit and therefore sizable reductions in service, thus layoffs. An alternative to the 10 percent total compensation pay cut would be additional layoffs. There is no easy way out and the impacts will be stark. We will also discuss options on the increasing taxpayer contributions to the pension funds and legal options on pension reform.

The last portion of the meeting is something I have asked for several times. This is where the Council must prioritize/rank ordinances. Ordinances originate from Councilmembers, City Departments and State/Federal regulation. Implementing ordinances in many instances will involve the city attorney, planning department, office of economic development, public works, department of transportation and so on. Each ordinance takes time and effort to implement thus what we call “workload.” I believe ordinances should be prioritized to what could bring in revenue to the City and then what may stimulate economic activity. Quality of life ordinances may have to be put on hold. Some of the choices are:

• Landscape Ordinance to reduce water consumption
• Habitat Conservation Plan
• Sign Code
• Electronic Signs
• Bail Bonds Zoning
• Distinctive Neighborhoods for preserving neighborhood character
• Green Building for home additions and alterations
• Lighting on Private Property
• Off-Sale Alcohol Process
• Fence Heights
• Tree Removal Process
• City Landmark Criteria
• Regulate Check Cashing
• Medical Cannabis
• Zoning for Housing around Transit
• Outdoor Events in public places
• Towed Car Regulation
• Condominium/Apartment Conversion
• Social Host-Liability for adults that allow minors to drink alcohol
• City-County Collaboration
• Smoking Outdoors
• Excessive Police Force
• Expansion of Parking Meters
• Taxicab Vehicle Regulation

Which ordinances are most important to you?

Finally, you may have heard that San Jose is eligible for a $15 million (over two years) Federal Grant from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to rehire firefighters who were laid off last year when an agreement could not be reached on concessions.  The grant sounds good; however, there is a significant string attached to your federal tax dollars.

If the grant is accepted then there would be zero layoffs in the fire department for the next two years. As I mentioned above, the deficit, even with 10 percent concession, is huge and accepting this grant would force the City to lay off, in an out-of-proportion scale, police officers, librarians, attorneys, planning staff, public works staff, community center staff, transportation staff,etc…

In addition the taxpayer contributions to the pensions will grow again next year which may cause even more layoffs outside of the fire department the secnd year of the grant. A concession from the Fire Union to not impact police for example would be much higher than 10 percent and would be in the 15 percent to 20 percent range. A concession of this size is highly unlikely, but never say never.

A FEMA grant with these stringent terms should be rejected Monday unless terms can be changed by the Feds. The Federal COPS grant Council accepted did not have these restrictions.

I highly recommend that you watch the budget study session today at 1:30pm and share your thoughts afterwards.

Watch the San Jose City Council study session on the 2011 budget here.
View the San Jose City Council Budget Study Session Agenda here.

2011 Community Budget Survey Results

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As you may remember, two weeks ago I shared that the City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 residents. These residents were asked survey questions from Jan. 13 to Jan .17. In comparison to my web survey, the City did a “scientific survey” which means they called men and women from all council districts, different age groups, ethnically diverse, homeowners and renters who are likely voters. The company responsible is instructed to get a group that mirrors San Jose.

Here are the results from the 2011 City of San Jose budget web survey.

As I have shared in previous blogs, the surveys that I conduct are not scientific. They can be taken by anyone, and passed on through e-mail, therefore allowing anyone who has access to a computer to take it. The only control is the the survey can only be completed once on a computer. So, for example, if you have one computer in your household and one person completed the survey on that computer, then the survey can not be taken again.

Sharing surveys, especially those that are about budgets and policy, is commonplace.  Each week I receive several emails offline by actual residents about my blog. Residents shared they like to see what questions are being asked on the phone survey and to consider the choices themselves.

I edited the survey so that it did not have so much “city speak” in it. I also deleted and added to the format. For example, I omitted a question that I found confusing regarding transferring $1.5 million from municipal water to the general fund. I also modified a word that read “non-profits” and I wrote “charity/non-profits” since I have found people are unclear when they only hear non-profit.

On questions about retirement age, the survey did not offer the current retirement age as an option so I added that. Plus I added the Social Security retirement age.  The library tax question did not share the existing parcel tax cost so I added that. On the question of reducing the number of firefighters assigned to “certain” stations—“certain” stations translates to the least calls for service so I swapped in word “slowest.” On ending overtime pay for fire battalion chiefs and police captains, I found most people don’t know what these ranks mean, so I swapped out the titles and put in the word “management” as they are managers. My goal was to make the survey east to understand for residents.

With all this said, can I or you or anyone else for that matter learn anything from the survey? Can we extrapolate anything from it? Well, that will be up to you to judge.  Here are some results from the scientific poll:

80 percent support giving raises based on performance rather than seniority.

79 percent support slowing the pace of City employee pay raises.

79 percent support making decision on layoffs based on employee performance
rather than seniority.

73 percent support eliminating the traditional pension plan and replacing it with a 401K.

73 percent support limiting the amount of union business that union leaders can conduct while on City time.

69 percent support lowering the maximum level of annual pension benefits employees can receive.

65 percent support ending the policy of paying employees for a portion of their unused sick leave.

67 percent feel it is acceptable to reduce days and hours of operation at community centers.

61 percent feel it is acceptable to reduce the number of days the libraries are open.

The Mayor held the 5th Annual Neighborhood Association and Youth Commission Priority Session this past Saturday. Great turnout but unfortunately not equal attendance from all parts of San Jose. This yearInnovation Games donated their services (free) which consisted of 25 collaborators to facilitate each table into discussing and making choices about the budget.

Participants were given play money and trade offs the Council will have to make.  To eliminate a program, 100 percent of the table participants had to agree. To continue funding a program participants had allocate their play money—however it required buy-in from other table participants. City department heads were in attendance to answer specific questions from participants. Nearly all of the comments I heard Saturday were favorable from participants. Congratulations to our Mayor for incorporating more public input on the budget.

2011 City of San Jose Community Budget Survey

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The City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 San Jose residents. Residents will be asked survey questions about the budget and city services from Jan 13 to Jan 17.

The results of the phone survey will be shared in February. Please note I received a draft of the survey and some of the questions have been edited.

Since only 1,000 people will get a call out of one million residents, I wanted to provide an opportunity for you to partake in the survey via the internet.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RG9LCPN

This survey closes Jan 30.
If you appreciate urban parks than consider attending the San Jose premiere of The Olmstead Legacy film. March 7 at City Hall. For more info click here:http://tinyurl.com/OlmstedLegacy

Civil Service Rules

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The City of San Jose has adopted Civil Service Rules that state what is and what is not allowed in regards to employment. The City Charter allows for changes to Civil Service Rules by a Council vote, and does not necessarily require a city-wide election.

SECTION 1103. Civil Service Rules; Manner of Adoption.

Civil Service Rules for the Classified Service shall be adopted, and may from time to time be repealed or amended, by ordinance of the Council. Upon adoption, Civil Service Rules shall have the force and effect of law.

The Council may adopt, repeal or amend any Civil Service Rule for the Classified Service, provided it first receives from the Civil Service Commission a report or recommendation with respect to the proposed new Rule, if a new Rule is proposed to be adopted, or with respect to the proposed repeal or amendment of an existing Rule if an existing Rule is proposed to be repealed or amended; provided, however, that if the Civil Service Commission refuses or fails to submit to the Council a report or recommendation on any proposed new Rule, or proposed repeal or amendment of any existing Rule, within ninety (90) days from and after the date the Council requests such a report or recommendation, the Council may adopt such new Rule or repeal or amend such existing Rule, without first receiving a report or recommendation thereon from the Civil Service Commission.

The years ahead for local government will be tough, as property tax revenues will continue to be low and the true costs of pensions are revealed.  If layoffs are inevitable, then let’s examine the current system of layoffs by seniority.

The current method means we lose some of the most productive people and create a large age gap if/when we are in the position to hire down the road. Instead, perhaps we should look to see if there is an alternative that might involve employee performance as well as seniority. Maybe only lay off employees who are evaluated as “needing improvement” before laying off productive employees with less seniority. Or if two employees have nearly equal seniority, leave some allowance for merit—such as education, training, evaluations and certifications—to be used in the final determination.

Also, we should explore allowing those that are closer to retirement the ability to choose on their own accord to retire early in a way that would still provide the savings to balance the budget. Employees with more seniority are paid more than those with less seniority, so a change may allow fewer layoffs of city employees that provide services to residents.

I believe the Civil Service Commission, chaired by Bill Brill, business representative for IBEW union Local 425, should review and give their recommendation to the City Council in 90 days per the City Charter.

Thanks to Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden who hosted a great volunteer event on Saturday. Many unpaid volunteers braved the cold to help keep the park looking great. Special thanks to Terry Reilly, Beverly Rose Hopper and Myles Tobin for the heavy lifting.

Click this link for a short video of Saturday’s volunteer event at the San Jose Rose Garden.