Simi Employees, Management Negotiators OK 2-Year Contract : Labor: Non-management workers will get a 2.5% raise this month, followed by two raises totaling 3% in 1995.

After a month of closed-door haggling, city employees and management negotiators in Simi Valley have agreed on a two-year contract.

Under the pact, unanimously approved by the City Council at a special meeting Thursday, the city’s 264 non-management employees will receive a 2.5% across-the-board salary increase beginning July 25.

They will receive an additional 2% increase in June, 1995, and another 1% increase in December, 1995.

The city’s 185 management employees also will get raises, and some workers will get additional pay increases to make up for inequities when contrasted with employees in other similarly sized cities.

Once all of the increases take effect, a tree trimmer who now makes about $31,000 annually will make an additional $1,700 a year. A secretary who earns $29,000 yearly will take home an additional $1,600 each year.

“I think it is a fair agreement,” Councilman Bill Davis said. “It certainly is not a windfall, but with the economy the way it is, I don’t think anybody is complaining.”

In a written statement, Bill Shawhan, general manager for the California League of City Employee Assns., said he was satisfied with the agreement.

“It is the union belief that this contract represents a serious effort on the parts of both the city and the union to cooperate in these difficult times,” said Shawhan, who represented city employees in the negotiations. “We would have liked more, but we believe the contract is adequate and meets the needs of all the parties for the time being.”

Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell, who handled negotiations for the city, said the salary increases kept the wages of Simi Valley employees on par with other cities of comparable size.

“We looked at a whole range of factors, including compensation in other cities like Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Ventura,” Sedell said. “Where ours were lower, we have increased them accordingly.”

Sedell found 11 employee categories in which workers were underpaid, including account and records clerks, dispatcher trainees and certain types of maintenance workers. Those employees will receive an additional 1% to 2.5% raise. Management employees will get a 3.36% raise and an increase in annual merit pay raises from 3% to 4%.

Police captains who now make about $76,000 annually will see their salaries increase to $79,000, while a senior planner earning about $59,000 annually will be paid an additional $2,000 a year.

Mayor Greg Stratton said he believes the raises are fair.

“I’m sure some people will say, ‘Goodness gracious, those raises are big,’ ” Stratton said. “But in reality they are not very much, because my observation is that public sector employees do a little better in recessions and not as well in the good times.”