By Nels Johnson
The Marin Independent Journal
NOVATO, Calif. — The broad outline of a pay raise program that county officials have in mind for Civic Center workers emerged this week as negotiators announced an agreement with Probation Department employees calling for a 3 percent raise each year for the next three years.
The pact reduces the county’s contribution to the employee share of pension costs by 0.79 percent each year, increases health care benefits for employees with at least one dependent, and cuts vacation accrual benefits for new hires.
The county, which will save about $53,000 a year by pulling back on a past agreement to pick up employee pension costs, spends those savings and more on benefits including “market equity” median salary adjustments. The pact ends up costing taxpayers an average of about $341,000 more a year for pay and benefits for the group.
The agreement, which will be considered July 14 by county supervisors, covers 82 employees who are members of the Teamsters Local 856 or the Probation Managers Association.
Roger Crawford, the county’s deputy personnel director, said the pact was hammered out following a “hard round of bargaining” and lauded probation employees for working with the county “to find mutually agreeable solutions.”
Asked if other employee groups can figure on a consistent, similar wage and benefit package, Assistant County Administrator Angela Nicholson, now serving as interim personnel director, said, “We look for a fair contract for every group.”
The county issued a statement trumpeting the probation agreements and saying officials remain “in active good faith bargaining” with the Marin Association of Public Employees, Marin County Management Employees Association, Sheriff’s Staff Officers Association, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators, and Teamsters, Local 856, Deputy District Attorneys.
The Marin Association of Public Employees, which staged a noisy pay raise rally last week at the Civic Center as more than 100 workers marched in the hallways for a “fair contract” a day before the county fair opened, reported that talks with the county have been fruitless. Both sides, the union website says, have agreed to try mediation.
“After five months of bargaining we have not agreed to several items, including such key issues as wages, health care, pension pick-up, arbitration, discipline, vacation,” the website reported. “The county’s last offer falls short on many fronts.”
Nicholson, calling the MAPE situation “pre-impasse mediation,” said the county has offered a fair contract.
Some rank and file employees privately complain about the county “fairness” factor, noting that county supervisors gave themselves what amounted to an 11.3 percent pay raise last year to $108,784 annually.
The county board has tied its pay to that of Superior Court judges, but froze increases for several years before “catching up” with the 11.3 percent boost. It is now in line for automatic increases depending on what judges get, plus a cost of living hike. Officials were uncertain Tuesday what raise the county board will get this fiscal year.
A resolution approved by the county board in 2013 indicates supervisors’ pay will be automatically “reset” each July 1 under a policy in which board members get 60 percent of a Superior Court judge’s pay — plus a cost of living increase pegged to the consumer price index.
The automatic raise program in effect enables Marin County supervisors to avoid annual public discussion of the pay raises they have authorized for themselves.