Tuesday night the Council heard testimony from city employees and citizens about the proposed layoffs and potential service cuts in order to balance the budget for the fiscal year 2011-2012.
The unanimous vote came after compelling testimony about the value of the literacy program which will be severly cut due to the state budget cuts and elimiinated if the city council initiated staff proposed cuts for next fiscal year. Ellen Kolowich eloquently testifid that the literacy program is mostly for people, the majority of whom were born in the US, but did not learn English or how to read in school. She testified how English as a Second Language literacy program opens the doors to life for them by removing the barriers of not speaking English or reading. It was compelling.
Because many of the proposed staff cuts targeted publish safety, there was discussion looking to other deparments for additional layoffs to spare public safety. The city manager pointed out that last year, that is actually what happened - positions have not been filled and layoffs occurred in many of these deparments. There are not too many more places to look for employee salary savings.
Hence, the direction to staff by the unanimous vote by Council is to seek to negotiate with the bargaining units (unions) for salary and benefit savings to avoid the layoffs and service cuts. As a city fire employee stated, "we [the public employee] didn't cause this economic recession" and yet he lamented that the public makes negative statements about them as if they are responsible for the hard times.
Our greatest asset is the public employee because just as they represent seventy-five percent of the city's general fund, they also reprsent the bulk of the services the city provides - they are the people who keep the city safe, library serving the community, the parks maintained, clean water and ensure that building permits are issued based on state law. There are many tasks and challenges which makes public work varied and interesting and most of all rewarding.
We can achieve our budget goals without blaming public workers, challenging their right to collective bargaining or questioning their public service.
[See the following Benicia Herald article for additional details...]
$1.7M in hole, city looks to cut pay to save jobs
Council eyes 6.9 percent employee wage reduction to cover 75 percent of shortfall
By Donna Beth Weilenman, Staff Reporter
The Benicia Herald, May 4, 2011
Hoping to avoid further layoffs and departmental reorganization, Benicia City Council asked its staff Tuesday to look at further cuts in employees’ base pay to address the city’s likely $1.7 million budget shortfall.
The Council unanimously agreed to ask staff to reopen the city’s memoranda of understanding with its unions, opening the door to negotiations for a desired 6.9 percent reduction in base wages in hopes of eliminating $1.3 million of that deficit.
The panel decided on a 75-25 percent split, with employees bearing the larger brunt of the budget cuts. The Council would look to other expenditure cuts — from services to grants — to make up the rest of the reductions.
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