Reluctant Deputies OK New Contract

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday ratified a new labor pact that includes a 13.5% pay increase but leaves out guaranteed future raises and substantially increased pension benefits.

Glen Kitzmann, president of the Ventura County Deputy Sheriff’s Assn., said a majority of the union’s 800 members reluctantly voted to accept the three-year contract. He declined to give specific numbers but said the approval vote “was not overwhelming.”

“Even those that voted in favor are not real happy,” Kitzmann said. “They just know this is all they are going to get out of the county right now. Basically, it gets a little bit of money in their pocket and we will go from there.”

The Board of Supervisors is expected to approve the contract Sept. 10 when it returns from a monthlong recess.

Tuesday’s agreement is seen as a resounding victory for supervisors and County Executive Officer Johnny Johnston, who held firm in rejecting increased pension and automatic raises, despite intense political pressure.

Kitzmann and more than 200 deputies packed a supervisors’ meeting in June 2001, calling the county’s offer “a personal insult to every one of us.” Sheriff Bob Brooks also urged supervisors to find a way to end the impasse.

The union unsuccessfully targeted Supervisor Judy Mikels for defeat in last spring’s primary election, walking door to door in support of her challenger and picketing outside her campaign events.

But the hardball tactics backfired once the public learned what deputies were asking for, said Herb Gooch, political scientist at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Many called supervisors and wrote letters to local newspapers to say that deputies already receive a generous pension package and urged supervisors to hold firm.

“The union tried to politicize it as much as possible by taking on a supervisor and they still did not get what they wanted,” Gooch said. “So it is a setback for them.”

His ability to push the contract through also confirms that Johnston, who succeeded former county administrator Harry Hufford just as contract negotiations were getting underway, is firmly in control, Gooch said.

“When he came in, this was a big, hot item on the front burner,” Gooch said. “He was able to get the board to trust him, to give him more time and it went his way. It shows he’s got his chops. He can play.”

When contract negotiations began in November 2000, the labor group’s top priority was winning a new pension benefit that several law enforcement agencies across the state had already secured.

The benefit would have allowed deputies to retire at age 50 and receive a pension that equaled 3% of their “final compensation”--the combined value of pay and benefits--for every year of service.

Under the formula, a long-serving deputy could retire at 50 and receive a pension that equaled, and in some cases even exceed, his or her active wages. Johnston said the county could not afford the benefit package, which he estimated would cost $60 million. Retirement pay for deputies currently is 2% of salary and benefits per year of service.

Johnston also urged supervisors to reject the union’s demand that deputies receive raises whenever pay for law enforcement in surrounding counties increases. Although deputies had won such a “parity” agreement in their previous contract, Johnston argued that it took away supervisors’ ability to set salaries. Annual salaries for deputies currently range from $42,000 for a trainee to $65,000 for a senior deputy.

In the contract before supervisors, deputies agreed to accept a 6.5% increase for the current fiscal year, 4% in the following year and 3% in the final year. The contract would expire in June 2005.

Johnston said he doesn’t view the union’s ratification vote as a personal victory.

“We had to make a course correction and that is always painful for everyone,” he said. “It is not personal. It’s financial.”

Brooks said he is pleased his deputies will soon be getting a raise because they had gone nearly two years without one. But the absence of the enhanced pension benefit could hurt the county’s ability to attract top recruits to the Sheriff’s Department, he said.

The president of a statewide peace officers group agreed.

At least 205 of California’s 500 law enforcement agencies already have adopted the enhanced benefit as part of their overall pay package, said Clancy Faria, president of Sacramento-based Peace Officers Research Assn. of California.

“The real concern is you are asking folks coming into your system to work longer to earn the same benefits other agencies grant at 50,” he said. “If you have a choice, where would you go?”