MWD Freezes Travel, Rejects 6% Salary Hikes

Bowing to a worsening economy and a tight budget, directors of the Metropolitan Water District on Tuesday placed a moratorium on all board travel and rejected a proposed 6% salary hike for hundreds of management employees.

At the same time the board reaffirmed its plan to raise $25 million by imposing a real estate tax on Southland landowners.

The new parcel tax will be charged at a rate of $5 per parcel or $5 per acre on lots greater than one acre, for all properties in the agency’s giant region, stretching from Ventura to the Mexican border and inland to Riverside. The MWD supplies about 60% of all the water consumed in the six-county area.

Even with the new tax, the giant water agency had to stall or cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects for the coming fiscal year.

But it was only at the eleventh hour that directors overwhelmingly agreed to freeze their own travel perks and hold the line on pay for senior management as they adopted the $817.9-million budget.

“In these economic times (the wage package) is too generous,” said Director Christine Reed, who represents Santa Monica. “It just isn’t fiscally prudent for us to approve this. It just isn’t right.”

Director Larry Stamper said city workers in Burbank have already agreed to give up raises to avoid layoffs. “I can’t go back to Burbank saying I supported this” wage hike.

Only management employees are affected by Tuesday’s vote. The raises, which will be renegotiated, would have increased the agency’s payroll by about $1.6 million annually. Rank-and-file workers at the MWD, representing about 75% of all workers at the agency, are in the last year of a three-year contract and will get raises of 5% in July and an additional 2% in December.

The board vote also temporarily freezes a plan to add to the perks of General Manager Carl Boronkay. The board may try to renegotiate Boronkay’s proposed contract, which would have held his salary flat at $189,000 annually but would have granted him a new tax shelter insurance policy that would be worth $43,000 in five years.

The board’s travel and tours programs, which were put on hold indefinitely, cost the agency several hundred thousand dollars a year. Until new rules and procedures are adopted, director travel must now be approved in advance by the chairwoman of the board.

Earlier this year, in an attempt to shore up a budget hit hard by the drought and lower water sales, the board adopted the parcel tax and special administrative fees aimed at raising a total of $50 million a year.

The new fees and taxes, which will affect about 17 million consumers, followed the adoption in March of a 21% rate hike that will go into effect on July 1 and raise about $80 million annually. The rate hike will cost the average consumer about $1.25 a month.

State Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino) has begun efforts to stop the parcel charge. At Ayala’s request, the state legislative counsel issued an opinion saying that the agency can charge a standby fee or a parcel fee, but not both.

“They’re making a big mistake,” Ayala said in an interview Tuesday. “When we go to court--and we will go to court--they will have to pay back all the ratepayers.”

MWD General Counsel Fred Vendig said he believes the charges are legal.