Doubt Cast on Guards’ Contract

Possibly opening the way for the state to renegotiate its costly contract with prison guards, the Legislature’s attorneys say the long-term deal covering the officers’ pay and benefits violates the state Constitution.

The contract requires automatic pay raises. But the state cannot spend money unless lawmakers make specific appropriations each year, according to an opinion issued Thursday by the Legislative Counsel.

Armed with the opinion, Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), co-chairwoman of a hearing on the contract and other aspects of the state prisons system, said Thursday that she would urge lawmakers to refuse to appropriate money for the guards’ full 2004 pay hike, which could be as much as 11.3%, according to official estimates. Such a raise would cost the state more than $225 million.

Speier also called for the guards’ union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., to accept pay concessions.

“If we don’t renegotiate this contract, people will die,” Speier said. She added that healthcare benefits for poor people probably would be cut later this year as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators grappled with a budget shortfall of as much as $17 billion.

Union officials immediately denounced the counsel’s opinion, which they said could weaken public employees’ right to collective bargaining. They said such a view would ensure that no union representing state employees would ever again agree to a multiyear pay package.

“Every labor organization in California should be concerned,” said Lance Corcoran, the union’s executive vice president.

Gov. Gray Davis agreed to the contract, and the Legislature ratified it in early 2002. The union endorsed Davis’ reelection that year and donated more than $1 million to his campaign.

The contract calls on the state to provide pay raises this July, and in 2005 and 2006. The size of the raises is not known; the boosts are tied to hikes granted to the California Highway Patrol and five urban police agencies in the state.

But state and union officials have estimated that the overall pay hike would be 37% by 2006, pushing salaries for veteran officers to more than $73,000 a year.

New analyses suggest that the raises could be higher. One by the Department of Finance places the contract’s cumulative cost at $2 billion, far more than the Davis administration publicly estimated.

In its eight-page opinion, the Legislative Counsel cites a state constitutional provision that says the Legislature must appropriate money annually before it can be spent. If the Legislature failed to agree to allocate the money for 2004 or later years, the contract’s pay provisions would become void, and the state and union would be expected to return to the bargaining table.

“In our opinion,” the Legislature’s attorneys said, “if a specific appropriation is not made for those provisions in the annual budget act or other legislation, the parties are required to meet and confer to renegotiate any affected provisions and may reopen negotiations on any other part of the memorandum of understanding.”

The opinion, prepared at Speier’s request, comes as Schwarzenegger urges unions representing state employees to agree to pay concessions as a way of helping the state emerge from its budget problems. The prison guards union so far has balked.

“The easiest way to cut costs is slash salaries. We’re not interested in that,” said Corcoran, the union official.

The opinion was released during the wide-ranging, daylong hearing. Members of the correctional officers union filled the Capitol hearing room, and a video crew hired by one of the union’s political consultants taped the event.

Some legislators came to the union’s defense. Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), co-chairwoman of the hearing, said she was concerned about the effect of the counsel’s opinion on collective bargaining.

“A contract is a contract,” she said, “and buyers’ remorse is not reason to undo it.”

Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk), a former parole officer who had been a member of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. and attended the hearing, dismissed Speier’s concerns, saying the contract “is not a sweetheart deal.”

And Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Salinas), who sat in on parts of the hearing, said “some of the questioning is hypocritical....The union has brought up some very good points.”

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), who carried the legislation that implemented the labor deal, said that, although he had not seen the counsel’s opinion, he “would think that, when it’s all over, a contract is a contract.”

The hearing underscored the sway that the union held during the Davis administration. The state’s lead negotiator in the union contract talks in 2001 was reassigned after union President Mike Jimenez complained repeatedly about him to Davis administration officials. The negotiator, Robert Losik, testified that he had asked for a reassignment. Jimenez later said he believed his complaints had helped convince Losik to step aside.

And in 2002, Davis appointed Tim Virga, formerly the top union executive at Folsom State Prison and a union labor negotiator, to a key Department of Personnel Administration post overseeing the contract’s implementation. Virga said he saw no conflict between his past as a union leader and his current role. He called it quite common for union officers to go to work for the Department of Personnel Administration