March 30, 2006

City Council approves lower raise for appointees

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

The San Jose City Council voted 9-2 at its March 21 meeting to raise the salaries of five appointees. The discussion lasted over an hour. The raises will cost the city slightly more than $53,000 per year.

Despite a $35.9 million deficit, and prior to looking for ways to cut the budget, the council approved a 5.25 percent raise that was lower than the 7 to 9 percent raise recommended by Mark Danaj, employee services director at an earlier session.

The two dissenting votes came from Councilmembers and mayoral candidates Chuck Reed and Dave Cortese.

Others opposed to the raises included the city’s unions. Union workers were opposed to the raises because they claimed the amount was larger than raises given to rank-and-file employees. They also said the raises were extreme in the case of the $35 million deficit.

The five appointees and their raises are Redevelopment Director Harry Mavrogenes, whose salary grew to $216, 731 from $205,920; City Attorney Rick Doyle, whose pay increased to $208,893 from $198,474; City Auditor Gerald Silva whose salary went to $177, 391 from $168,541; Police Auditor Barbara Attard, whose pay jumped to $152, 613 from $145,000; and City Clerk Lee Price who now earns $132,797 compared with $126,173 previously.

The cost of living increases were suggested to put the five appointees at par with their colleagues in other cities.

“Our Council Appointees had been passed over regularly while other employees received raises in the past. We need to reward all staff. In addition, we need to remain competitive with other cities’ around the U.S., “ said District 10 Councilmember Nancy Pyle.

The resolution was initially proposed last February by Mayor Ron Gonzales and Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez. At the time Chavez said she was seeking the increases after receiving updated salary survey information on each appointee position from the city’s Employee Services Department.

At that time, most of the council felt the suggested raises were too high. “I want to do right by all of our employees and that certainly includes all of our appointees but I think there’s got to be some boundaries,” District 6 City Councilmember Ken Yeager said at that time.

After last week’s vote he added he thought the initial staff recommendations were too high, “given the city’s current $35 million budget deficit and the sacrifices that we have asked the rest of the city’s workforce to make.

“That being said, the council appointees are the only members of the city’s workforce who have experienced pay reductions over the past five years resulting in salaries that are currently lower than they were in 2001. I supported the proposal for a 5.25 percent salary increase as a good compromise, balancing the city’s financial situation with the value we place on our employees as an organization.”

District 9 Councilmember Judy Chirco agreed. “We have to value all our employees from top to bottom and from bottom to top. These are some of our strongest employees,” she told the Times.

Three vote against $8 million cut to police and fire budgets
In a later proposal, Yeager joined Reed and Cortese in voting against an $8 million cut from police and fire service budgets. The cut does not include personnel. They were the lone but vocal dissenters. The three agreed that interim City Manager Les White was taking too much off the $400 million previously budgeted for police and fire. Reed said the 2 percent cut was too much for an area that already had been pared to the bone. “We’ve reached the point where everything counts,” he said.

Yeager was against the package because no one was certain what fire services would be cut. He has been adamant in the past to keep the hose wagon at the Willow Glen Fire Station because firemen and residents call it an important backup when more than one fire occurs at the same time.

With the approval of the mayor’s budget message, White now has to find a list of cuts or changes to the city’s $800 million general fund and to its $1.7 billion restricted funds. The changes are expected to be available in May.