BCEA goes it alone

On a day when most of the county’s administrators, department heads and elected officials saw their salaries jump by as much as 56 percent, members of the county’s largest union took the lectern at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meetings to protest what they say is a lack of fairness in the county’s bargaining approach.

County administrators again denied the claim and said that if union members want a raise, they should quit stalling and sign the contract they’ve been offered.

At least a dozen members of the Butte County Employees Association (BCEA), which represents 828 workers—41 percent of the county’s workforce—told the board that county workers deserve more than they are being offered. Many were especially bitter that the board itself would be receiving raises of more than $17,000 a year, bringing supervisors’ pay up to $48,000.

“You’re asking me to wait five years to make a living wage and I’m barely making it now,” BCEA member John Lathrop said. “You’re asking me to stay poor while you’re getting a 56 percent raise.”

Karen Koenig, who said she has been with the county auditor/controller’s office for six years, caused a stir when she claimed each board member is set to make as much as $6,000 a month upon retirement in addition to their recent raise, a statement the supervisors vigorously contested.

“I am looking at retirement and I can tell you what you are saying is entirely false,” argued Chico Supervisor Mary Anne Houx. Paradise Supervisor Kim Yamaguchi concurred, saying supervisors’ retirement packages are the same as any other worker enrolled in the Public Employees Retirement System—2 percent of salary, payable when a worker turns 55.

When asked later where she got her figures, Koenig said she couldn’t reveal her source.

The supes’ vote Tuesday puts the BCEA in the position of being the sole holdout in a negotiation process that produced fat raises for nearly every upper-tier employee. Sheriff Perry Reniff’s salary will jump more than $34,000 to $146,000. District Attorney Mike Ramsey will make an additional $35,000, bringing his salary to more than $157,000, while CAO Paul McInstosh will pocket an extra $12,000, pushing his salary above $165,000 a year.

BCEA employees were also offered a raise by the county, but union negotiators balked because they say it will be implemented unfairly. A major sticking point is the imposition of a seven-step job classification scheme, which the union says will punish newer hires by dragging out the time it will take for their raises to kick in.

The county is offering BCEA employees a raise that would immediately bring them up to 97 percent of the median wage paid to employees doing similar jobs in comparable California counties. The raise would be retroactive to last October. In two years, employees would be eligible to make the median wage, a length of time the union considers unacceptable, especially when elected and appointed officials are being brought up to their respective median wages immediately. Those median wages are based on a study illustrating what 12 other California counties pay.

Sue Lightell, who generates maps for the assessor’s office, has been with the county nine years and makes almost $32,000 a year before taxes and insurance costs are withheld. Even though Lightell is single and pays only $500 a month in rent, she said she is unable to make ends meet on the salary she earns at Butte County.

“I’ve got one of the better jobs in my office, and I’m not living high on the hog. [But] I can’t afford to turn my heater on at night. I get up and it’s 50 degrees in my house. I can’t afford to go to the dentist or take my cats to the vet. I got paid last Friday and I’m already overdrawn.”

Lightell said that if the union signed the contract it is being offered, her pay would jump $200 a month immediately, and would climb an additional $235 within a few months. Still, she said she hopes negotiators will hold out for something better.

“There’s a point to be made here,” she said. “They understand that we are pretty much stuck with whatever they’re going to give us. It’s not right, especially when [the supervisors] vote themselves a 56 percent raise.”

After the meeting, McIntosh said the fairness of the county’s approach was evidenced by the fact that the majority of county employees, represented by eight separate bargaining units, had agreed to much the same terms being offered the BCEA. The supervisors were given a 56-percent raise because they were previously being paid at a level that was 56 percent below the median in other counties, he said. In total, the raises will cost the county $7 million over the next three years.