County Union Seeks Pay Hikes

Gearing up for what could be its most heated salary battle in years, Ventura County government’s largest employees’ union is pushing for a pay package that would put its members on par with neighboring counties.

But the increase needed to get them there, averaging 10% for the coming year, would cost an estimated $12 million and has already been rebuffed by county administrator Johnny Johnston.

As a result, the Service Employees International Union is planning a demonstration today at the County Government Center.

The 4,200 engineers, accountants, planners, typists, custodians and others represented by the union said they have fallen so far behind that some employees are paid 27% less than their counterparts elsewhere in Southern California.

They are pushing for a contract that would tie their pay to that of workers in 13 other counties and cities--a tactic successfully used by the county’s prosecutors, public defenders, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters.

Wage disparity ranges from 2% for accountants, who are paid $63,141 in Ventura County but average $64,597 for the region; to 27% for librarians, who earn $36,638 in Ventura County and average $46,396 elsewhere, according to a union survey. The numbers reflect total compensation, including the value of benefits.

Union chief Barry Hammitt is drawing up a strike plan he vows will be enacted if an agreement is not approved by June 29, when the current contract expires. The county offered 3.5% and then declared an impasse, Hammitt said.

“Employees are getting clobbered because of the high cost of housing and, now, energy,” he said. “We have no alternative but to force the issue with the Board of Supervisors and the new CAO.”

Johnston, who took over the top post last month, doesn’t argue that some county employees are underpaid and face challenges with the high cost of living in Ventura County. But the county’s budget, already facing a $7.3-million shortfall, cannot absorb such a large increase, he said.

“We are committed to doing the best we can,” Johnston said. “But I have to consider the financial health of the entire county.”

In addition to raises, the union is asking that the county begin paying cost-of-living adjustments on retirees’ pay, that a minimum county salary of $10 an hour be established and that salary ranges for some job classifications be adjusted upward. Hammitt did not know how much those items would cost the county, and Johnston declined to give specific figures, citing negotiations.

Although the costs, if approved, would be sure to spiral into the tens of millions of dollars, Hammitt said the county’s treasury could handle it if funding priorities were reshuffled.

A Perception of Inequity

“It’s a question of where the board’s political will is,” he said. “They need to decide what is important and then fund for those priorities.”

He is not opposed to trimming the county’s work force, Hammitt said, as one way to make up the difference. But those reductions should come from vacant positions, he said.

Underlying the issue is a feeling by SEIU’s membership that some employee groups have received preferential treatment in contract negotiations. In the last five years, county supervisors have agreed to healthy salary hikes for prosecutors, public defenders, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies to bring pay in line with neighboring counties’.

The increases tied to so-called “parity” pay are often in excess of the consumer price index, the measure by which raises traditionally have been granted. Firefighters and attorneys, for instance, have received 5% pay increases for each of the last two years, even though the CPI has hovered closer to 3%. And sheriff’s deputies received an 8% increase in 1999 and an 11% hike in 2000.

Non-public-safety employees, meanwhile, received an average 3% annual increase over the last three years, Hammitt said. He and other SEIU leaders argue that if parity contracts are granted to public safety departments, they should be to all employee groups.

Code enforcement officer Gloria Goldman said she sees a revolving door of employees getting training at the county and then heading out to better-paying jobs.

“I don’t begrudge sheriff’s deputies anything,” said Goldman, a 13-year employee. “But there is more to the county work force than public safety. And we have been waiting a long time.”

Hammitt said competitive wages are measured by comparing Ventura County’s pay to nearby counties and cities. This year’s study arrives at competitive pay by comparing wages in seven nearby counties: Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Santa Barbara; and six local cities: Camarillo, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ventura.

Methodology for determining competitive pay is agreed upon by the county and the union, and includes up to 41 benchmarks for certain job classifications, Hammitt said.

Glen Kitzmann, president of the union representing more than 700 sheriff’s deputies, said parity contracts have worked well for his membership. And it has stemmed the tide of deputies leaving the Sheriff’s Department for higher-paid jobs in neighboring cities and counties.

But the deputies’ contract expired five months ago, and, so far, the county has been unwilling to extend a similar one. Negotiations have also stalled over enhanced reParity contracts are troubling, Johnston said, because they assume that work conditions are the same for all of the agencies being compared. But deputies in Ventura County do not face the same level of danger as those in urban Los Angeles, where crime is higher, he said.

SEIU workers in many cases also have different workloads than in urban centers, he said. And the “me too” clauses mean that the pay bar is continually being raised, he said.

In a sense, Johnston said, such contracts put government wages on automatic pilot, something he thinks is a mistake. “You can set the altitude and cruise along, but you’re eventually going to fly into a mountain,” he said.

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County Government Salary Ranges

Ventura County government’s largest employee union is negotiating a new contract. Union leaders say many employees are underpaid compared with their counterparts in neighboring counties and cities. Here are current salary ranges for selected occupations represented by the Service Employees International Union:

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Occupation Annual salary range Custodian $14,957-$25,742 Animal control officer $18,903-$31,946 Medical office assistant $16,889-$28,604 Lifeguard $19,332-$21,146 Victim’s advocate $22,694-$38,032 Community health worker $24,490-$34,390 Computer operator $25,482-$35,756 Children’s social worker $28,812-$52,801 Building inspector $31,618-$51,708 Planner $32,009-$59,213 Physical therapist $32,915-$46,023 Psychiatrist $74,780-$124,000

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Source: Ventura County auditor-controller’s office