Rival Police Pay Measures Are Placed on June 3 Ballot

Moving to block a ballot initiative that calls for a massive police pay increase, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday decided to sponsor a rival ballot measure aimed at keeping such decisions in the hands of the council, and, for the first time, allowing multi-year contracts for city employees.

Without public debate, the council unanimously voted to place the police pay initiative--sponsored by San Diego Police Officers Assn.--on the June 3 state primary ballot. The measure calls for a one-time, across-the-board, 17% pay increase that will cost the city about $10 million. The initiative qualified for the ballot Jan. 10 after the city clerk’s office determined that the POA had gathered enough signatures in support.

But in a move designed to keep a tight grip on municipal purse strings, the council also voted to place on the same ballot its own measure that affirms a City Charter provision giving the council sole responsibility for setting salaries for police and other municipal employees.

While such a law is already on the books, the council-backed initiative contains a twist that would allow the city for the first time to negotiate multi-year contract with municipal employees.

The council’s action foreshadows a tough political and legal battle over the police pay initiative. It also underscores the concern of city officials that the measure would open a Pandora’s Box by encouraging other municipal employees to sidestep salary negotiations with city officials and appeal directly to voters for pay raises.

“There is a very fundamental right of legislative law here, and that is: Who is going to set the salaries for city employees?” acting Mayor Ed Struiksma told reporters after Tuesday’s council votes. “If voters set it (salaries) for police, then they can set it for the sanitation workers, pothole fixers and secretaries.”

Struiksma, who has come out against the pay initiative, also said the POA-backed measure is designed to indirectly attack the council’s power. Rather than directly try to take on the council’s salary power by changing the City Charter, a move that would be rebuffed overwhelmingly by San Diegans, the POA is trying to accomplish the same aim by asking for the one-time raise at the ballot box, he said.

“It’s a game of politics as far as the initiative goes,” said Struiksma. “They are organizing a campaign. That’s what it is, a campaign.”

Ty Reid, POA president, agreed that his group is being political: “Yes, we are running a political campaign now. We have to. We’ve qualified for the ballot and there will be an election.”

Reid, however, blamed the council itself for the POA initiative. He said pleas by his group for more city spending on police safety--as well as police salaries--have fallen on “deaf ears” and, even since the initiative qualified last month, council members have been unwilling to negotiate a compromise that would keep the measure from going to the voters.

“Yesterday and today we were willing to negotiative this thing,” said Reid. “They refused to meet with us in an attempt to work out problems. We’re left with no alternatives to this.

“The reason we’re doing this is, quite frankly, Mr. Struiksma and his colleagues have not handled the situation correctly.”

Reid said he was “concerned” about the council’s rival initiative, but added, “I think we are going to prevail on Election Day and we will have the majority of votes. We’ll turn out more votes on Election Day than the council’s initiative.”

“We’re going to work harder, it (the POA proposal) is easier to understand, and I think this time the average voter feels . . . that they want to step in and have a say in this situation that’s gone on so long,” he said.

The police pay initiative is the second major challenge to the council’s authority in the last year. The first was Proposition A, a response to the council’s approval of several developments in the city’s urban reserve. Approved in November, the measure wrested control of urban reserve projects from the council and gave it directly to voters, who must now approve those projects in a citywide election.

The POA initiative would override the council again by asking voters to approve a one-time pay raise, effective July 1, for police officers based on the average salaries paid to their law enforcement counterparts in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, Long Beach and the California Highway Patrol.

The pay raise is needed, Reid has said, to attract and retain police officers in a Police Department with the highest mortality rate per capita in the United States, according to POA figures. Ten San Diego police officers have been killed while on duty in the last decade, Reid said.

The POA’s measure would cost the city $10 million the first year and $130 million over the next decade, City Manager Sylvester Murray has told the council. Struiksma and other city officials said that would require some serious budget manipulations and jeopardize the city’s goal of hiring 143 additional police officers during the next fiscal year to begin two-man patrols.

Murray also told council members in a memo earlier this month that he dislikes the initiative because it pegs salary increases to municipal pay in other major California cities. Arguing that pay in the San Diego market is generally lower for most comparable jobs in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Murray warned:

“If the POA initiative passes, we can expect to receive similar pressure from the rest of the city work force for comparable pay increases. The cost of a 17% pay increase for all city employees would be $31 million in (fiscal year) 1987 and $390 million over the next 10 years.”

Those predictions were combined with warnings from City Atty. John Witt that the initiative struck at the heart of the council’s power to set salaries.

Ironically, that power is found in a City Charter measure approved by San Diegans in two 1980 initiative fights over police and firefighter pay issues. In June, 1980, while they narrowly rejected a police proposal to force the city into binding arbitration in salary talks, voters overwhelmingly approved a charter amendment making the council responsible for setting salaries but directing it to make police protection its No. 1 priority.

In November, 1980, city voters rejected an initiative to increase firefighter salaries based on what was being paid in other areas of California. They also passed charter language preventing the council from basing any salary decisions on what is being paid in other jurisdictions.

Both winning measures were rival proposals placed on the ballot by the council. Council members hope the rival measure approved Tuesday--basically a restatement of the charter--will lead to the defeat of the police pay initiative.

To help its rival measure’s chances, the council decided Tuesday morning in a closed session to include a provision allowing multi-year contracts with city workers, something the workers have requested in the past. Currently, the charter only allows annual contracts.

“It will assist us in our long-range financial planning . . . by adding stability to our negotiating process,” said Jack McGrory, management assistant to the city manager. “You only have that disruptive negotiating process happening every other year, as opposed to every year.”

Reid was non-committal on whether the POA liked the multi-year contract clause.

“I think the first thing we have to look at is making up for the tremendous disparity between what is being paid here in San Diego and in other major cities in California,” he said. “Once that’s taken care of with our initiative, then we can take a serious look at a long-term solution to the problems so that we are not here, every year, beating our heads together.”