Despite concerns about the six-year duration of the deal, the Carson City Board of Supervisors on Thursday approved a new pay and benefits contract with its non-public safety employees.
Board members did so after legal counsel advised them that attempting to modify the negotiated settlement at the public meeting called to approve it would raise serious legal issues with state statutes and potentially force reopening negotiations in their entirety.
That said, the board adopted the agreement without significant changes.
But Supervisor Lori Bagwell made one last attempt after the vote to have a city letter attached to the agreement stating what concessions the unions had agreed to in the process.
To prevent problems with state law, that letter will say simply state concessions were made without detailing anything.
Supervisor Brad Bonkowski said trying to predict the city’s financial condition six years out was nothing more than a guess. He was joined by Bagwell who also expressed concern that if revenue projections fall a bit short, the city would have to dip into badly needed funds for capital construction and maintenance.
But Finance Director Nancy Paulson assured the board the city should be able to maintain all the capital programs it brought to the board earlier this year. She said the consolidated tax collections were estimated to rise 4 percent this year and, with figures in for 11 months of the fiscal year, were up 10.5 percent in Carson City.
The fiscal impact of the entire pay package is estimated at $18.7 million during the six year span of the contract.
Supervisor Jim Shirk backed her up saying city finance staff members are conservative in their estimates.
“I think you’ve underestimated since I’ve been here,” he said. “I think the employees sitting in this room, watching this show, who work for the city deserve these raises.”
City Manager Nick Marano agreed the further out projections go the less accurate they are. But he said the projected revenues are well within what he believes the city can handle and if Carson City falls on hard economic times again, he has good relations with the employee associations and the legal ability to reopen contract negotiations if necessary.
“In my professional assessment, this is a manageable increase,” he said.
Bagwell said one of her key concerns was the statute stating if local government continued to pay all of the retirement premiums for workers and they keep benefits such as being paid for time spent in negotiations, those workers should give some concessions. She asked what concessions the Carson City Employees Association had made in the contract.
Human Resources Director Melanie Bruketta said the big concession was giving up cost of living adjustments in the new contract.
“That’s a really large concession,” she said.
Supervisor Karen Abowd and Mayor Bob Crowell thanked the unions for adopting a merit pay system to replace the cost of living raises. Crowell said that made for huge problems for the city in the past.
Under terms of the agreement, the city projects salaries will rise about 3 percent a year plus the amounts included for merit increases. Workers meeting job expectations would get 3 percent more, those above expectations 4.5 percent and the few workers named as outstanding, up to 5.5 percent.
The plan eliminates COLAs but it shifts salary ranges in each job classification by 1.75 percent a year to keep current with inflation. Marano said the only workers affected by the 1.75 percent annual shift would be those newly hired at bottom scale and those topped out at the maximum pay for their range. If one of those topped out workers was rated as above expectations or outstanding, Bruketta said they still would get just the 1.75 percent.
The board also approved an item stating the city has the money to fund pay raises for all elected officials. Under state law, the Legislature sets the new, higher pay rates for all elected county officials. The only action county boards take is to affirm they have the money to pay the increases, which are then automatic.
Four members of the board said they would voluntarily opt out of the pay hikes. Shirk, however, said he believes they are all underpaid: “Personally, I will opt for the raise.”
Those raises, which also apply to sheriff’s, district attorneys, assessors and treasurers, amount to about 3 percent a year over the coming three years.