Spokane7
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September 24, 2010 in City
Vestal: Alleged givebacks are a cop-out
It’s time for a real police concession
Give it back.
This is the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad mantra of this recession. Give back your job. Give back some salary. Give back your raise. Give back a week of pay. Give back a bigger piece of your paycheck for health care.
The deal for workers, as formerly understood – you do this, we give you that – is off. And it’s being redefined every day.
It’s horrible. It’s no good. It’s very bad.
And now Spokane’s cops and firefighters need to swallow a big dose of it. Not work around it by leaving important jobs unfilled. Not trade in a raise for extra vacation. Not tell us about the two unpaid days you worked six years ago.
The city says it can save 80 jobs if unions will give up their 4 percent raises for 2011 and agree to limit the city’s contribution to their health care plan. Another 40 spots will stay dark regardless. This isn’t a negotiation – the deals are signed – it’s a simple plea.
Give it back.
For the good of the city, if not those 80 people.
Easier said than done? Absolutely. The thing is, a lot of us out here have done it already. A third of working Americans have been without a job, period, at some point during the past three years, according to a Pew survey released over the summer. Twenty-eight percent of people with jobs had their hours reduced. Twenty-three percent took pay cuts.
Lousy all around.
Of the 120 overall positions that could go away, 47 are in the Police Department. Twenty-eight are firefighters.
We need cops and firefighters. As cops and firefighters routinely remind us.
So please. Give it back.
The picture so far is not heartening, at least so far as the police union is concerned. They have announced they are not agreeing to reopen their contract. They ain’t budging, in essence. It’s a mystery how the public ever fell out of love with them.
The guild went on the offensive Thursday, spreading a “fact” sheet about administrative raises to suggest a lack of seriousness about the budget among those at the top. This sheet included a few truthful figures – including a couple of double-digit raises in the past two years that are kind of flabbergasting – and a slew of faulty ones, in an attempt to paint a picture of self-dealing administrative largesse.
These figures were uncritically reported by a local TV station, and city administrators were understandably peeved about it Thursday, given the number of mistakes.
As satisfying as it is to bash those in authority – and as galling as it is to hear constant justifications for raising salaries at the top of organizations – the comparison isn’t apples and apples. It’s apples and orangutans. Administrators won’t get raises next year, because Mayor Mary Verner ordered a freeze months ago.
And it’s next year that the police, fire and other unions are being asked to forgo their raises.
So, nice try, guys. But give it back.
Because the budget can’t be balanced by taking away a couple of administrative raises. Not even close. The city will have to turn to its biggest expense by far – rank and file workers.
Ernie Wuthrich, the head of the Spokane Police Guild, said in an interview Wednesday that his union is not stubbornly refusing to help. This was the day before he sent a letter to the city saying the guild rejected the cap on medical benefits and was not agreeing to reopen its contract.
Last year, he said, the guild agreed to a change in shift hours that reduced the amount of overtime officers were earning – saving the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Some guys were making $15,000, $20,000 a year in overtime,” he said. “I think that’s a heck of a concession. I think that’s pretty responsible. That’s some of the fat people want trimmed, and our guys were willing to do it.”
Forgive me if I don’t weep. But giving up a steady gusher of routine overtime pay – three years into a recession, it’s difficult to call that a sacrifice.
What’s a real concession? Here’s what’s not: Last year’s deal by the police guild to give up a raise in exchange for 52 more hours of vacation. This was what you might call a win-win-lose situation. Police win. City budgeters win. Citizens lose – lose thousands of hours of police protection on the streets.
And one more thing, officers. If you work less and take home the same money, it’s a raise.
I want to note that, while I’m no Norma Rae, I’ve sat in union meetings and voted to approve a deal that made me feel ill. Argued over whether it made sense to accept a pay cut to try to preserve jobs.
It sucks. It’s no good. It’s very, very bad.
But we live in this world now. Not that one.
So suck it up. Give it back. I don’t want to be grandiose about it, but you owe it to the city – to the people who depend on you. Who pay those good salaries. And maybe, once the recession ends, if it ever does, you can come to the negotiating table and remind the city of what you’ve done.
Wuthrich pointed out an example of an administrator who was walking the walk, as far as salary goes: Verner.
The mayor is taking a salary of $100,000, less than two-thirds of what she’s entitled to.
“She put her money where her mouth is,” he said.
Exactly right, Ernie. Here’s hoping the unions follow her lead.
Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com.
The draw of the unknowable 
mikeln on September 24 at 6:02 a.m.
What happend to the 20 million in drug money the cops had hidden from public view? Give that up to save your jobs, simple. Or has that money simply vanished?
Scoutster on September 24 at 7:47 a.m.
The Police Guild reminds me of a store keeper in large urban areas that plies his trade behind a wall of bullet-proof glass and passes money and goods through a slot.
They simply don’t want to touch us common folk for fear they might get contaminated.
Rank and file cops: it’s time to stop your union leadership from completely ruining your reputation in this town. They don’t get it.
hawken on September 24 at 8:05 a.m.
The largest employer in the US is now the government…. and it continues to grow with our current President and Congress. Government employees have higher salaries on a comparative basis than do private sector workers. Government employees have much better pensions on a comparative basis with private sector workers. It’s difficult, if not impossible, in most cases to even terminate a government employee with cause. I really don’t think the county will go up in flames if we loose some fire-fighter positions…. I really don’t think the drug cartels will move to Spokane if we loose 47 officers. There are lots of non-patrol and admin positions that can be cut from within the department, transferring those officers to the patrol car. If the SPD and Sheriff’s Department are like most other police agencies, they are top heavy with supervisory, command and admin personnel…. all of whom are commissioned police officers. How about re-organizing the department, demote top-heavy command, supervisory and admin personnel…. If they truly believe that we will be overrun with crime by the loss of 47 positions. Let the police guild whine…. we are in a depression with some 16% of our population unemployed. Yes, I know the government says 10%…. but that’s based solely upon the number of unemployment claims. It DOES NOT count the unemployed whom have given up looking for work. It’s time for government employees to get over the fact that they have no special right to a job, or immunity from the pain the rest of us are experiencing in this depression. Don’t keep increasing our taxes, borrowing and printing more money and stacking the debt upon my children and grandchildren. My first grandson was just born. He is already responsible for $30-$40,000 of the debt that our governments are incurring and will continue to incur if our President and Congress have their way! And please don’t take anymore bailouts from the Federal Government for local overspending which also punishes our children and grandchildren. As a nation, WE ARE BROKE!
johno on September 24 at 8:52 a.m.
Am I understanding this right? The people with the seniority won’t make some sacrifices so those on the bottom can keep their jobs?
Ron_the_Cop on September 24 at 9:01 a.m.
To All:
I don’t like losing police/fire positions either. As a former police union president and economic crimes detective I too on occasion have dug deeply into my City’s budgetary process. I served search warrants on sitting city council members, the City’s financial department, senior city administrative staff re a conflict of interest case involving the management of our cable TV franchise agreement.
Once in a contract dispute when our city was claiming it had no money, we discovered they too were keeping a slush fund hidden in the annual budget in the way they were booking contributions rates to Cal-PERS (CA retirement system) and what the actual rates turned out to be. These funds were hidden in salary accounts until the end of the year when they rolled over into the general fund as unallocated funds.
The Guild does itself no favors in taking cheap shots. What they need to do is target and make public the slush fund accounts that the City keeps off the annual budget - the Bank of Hein (Sp?) The Solid Waste Reserve Account. Mr. Cooley could you please explain what the $40M to $50M sitting in this reserve fund is encumbered for? Is this a prudent reserve or is it hoarding of public taxpayer money? This is one of the City’s piggy banks that it loans itself money - the YMCA building and more.
Someone should ask the WA Board of Accountancy if they’ve made a deposition yet on the complaint filed against Mr. Cooley for his misuse of the term CPA with his name:
Gavin Cooley CFO Spokane, WA - Misuse of CPA complaint filed
http://tinyurl.com/ylmmodu
Was Mr. Cooley’s allowing his CPA license to lapse and it’s continued usage on a City webpage a mere oversight or perhaps a strategic move on Mr. Cooley’s part to limit his civil liability in the RPS Bond Frauds while misleading potential City bond investors as to the City’s financial due diligence? Mr. Cooley was the principal architect of the RPS Settlement Agreement with Laurel Siddoway (Now appellate court judge) and Steve Rector the secretary-treasurer of the Cowles Co.
Inquiring minds want to know. The Guild is tilting at mere chump change. They should be setting their sights higher.
The City elected are playing a bait and switch by not coming to grips with a structural deficit that was caused by the RPS Settlement Agreement. RPS Bonds I and II will ultimately cost the taxpayers of Spokane $100M. I’m not at all impressed if it’s true that the assistant city attorneys are getting a substantial raise for inferior legal work - Rocky re the Zehm Case and now the Ombudsman ordinance revision with Breean Beggs. Need I mention that the City Attorney’s Office was a chargeable principal in the RPS Bond Frauds (See http://tinyurl.com/ykemtqr and http://tinyurl.com/ybgkjqe )
Current parking meter revenue of about $2M is being used to service the debt from RPS bonds II as part of the RPS Settlement Agreement. What takes some digging is this payment is much more like $3M. The parking revenue is not enough to cover the costs of collecting and producing this revenue - a big item is personnel costs of those that collect the money from the meters and enforcement. This is a hidden subsidy of perhaps $1/2M to $1M per year that comes from the General Fund if the parking revenue generated isn’t enough to cover the debt service on RPS Bonds II and these additional costs of collecting this revenue.
My challenge to the Police Guild - set your gun sights higher. The City elected/appointed are playing you as pawns to CYA. Shades of the City of Bell, CA? Where the Hell is Steve Tucker when you need him?
Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
Past two-term president of the Riverside Police Officers’ Assn (Riverside, CA)
Former Economic Crimes Detective
lewis8457 on September 24 at 9:50 a.m.
Shawn this is a excellent article i wish you would put a different headline on it so it would get more traffic.
Hawkins hit it, there are more and more government workers, some day that will be all there is. In the mean time the private sector is supposed to feel warm and fuzzy inside while they live in their cardboard boxes and their public servants live in 12 room mansions.
The unions have taken over and even though the private sector pay scale here in Spokane is not based on the national average the public sector unions demand their employees are paid according to other UNION national averages.
And what they don’t get, the well is dry. they are running on fumes and at some point the machine will stop. And then it will be too ate to bargain.
No they will not give back they will drive the budget into the ground and then blame it on someone else. Isn’t that what we have learned from our local SFD and SPD?
misjustice on September 24 at 11:13 a.m.
Shawn; great article! I like the title, especially the cop-out.
The Guild seems intent on further tarnishing their image (which doesn’t help the hard working good cops that are on the force). Their arrogance, indifference, and seeming disregard for the city’s budget problems contributes to citizens’ sense that it is them versus us, not only just in the streets, but in all things. We’ve been given the finger, essentially.
This will, no doubt, get drug out for as long as possible; as the Guild seeks legal recourse to prevent layoffs, it will continue to point fingers and shift the focus to other parts of the city budget. The mud will be slung; making for little more than political drama and amusement. And the Guild’s image will be left a little dirtier, a little more tarnished.
PlanB on September 24 at 11:26 a.m.
Great article! Hopefully the Mayor will keep up the fight, and it literally is a fight. Getting rid of the guild altogether would make Spokane a safer place for citizens and law enforcement alike.
Ron_the_Cop on September 24 at 11:39 a.m.
PigBuster, Misjustice and Plan B,
Hey folks I’ve acknowledged the Guild is doing itself no favors but the the Mayor is deflecting the real issue and trying to CYA for her own and sins/omissions of others. This latest tiff is mere chump change compared to the robbery/rip off of the public treasury that is at the root of this financial squeeze that is now jeopardizing public safety with the threatened layoffs. Read my post carefully above and check the links out.
Where the Hell has the Council been? Perhaps studying bike paths, watering surveys and other Bohemian pursuits instead of guarding the hen house?
The Council was literally shaking in their boots re the Guild and the City Attorney’s Office in the recent revision of the Police Ombudsman ordinance. Who the Hell is running this City anyway?
Smokie on September 24 at 12:02 p.m.
A pretty clumsy attempt by Mr. Vestal to lump the fire union in with the police guild’s latest imbroglio. When, in fact, every time the city has asked firefighters to give up something, the fire union has stepped up to the plate with concessions. The cops have rocked up and said “no.” And the police always come out the winners having done so.
Firefighters should take heart that the Spokesman-Review has finally acknowledged the two days that firefighters worked in 2006 and 2007. Granted, Mr. Vestal says it was six years ago, when it was really three and four years ago, but I am sure the S-R fact checker was the first to go in their recent layoffs.
It would have been nice if he mentioned the $400,000 worth of health insurance concessions the firefighters made last year, but maybe in Vestal’s blog “six years” from now he will make it happen. Maybe a tweet?
Mr. Vestal might have also mentioned that, every year, the firefighters have made concessions, the city’s budget has also wound up in the black by the end of the year - by millions. Where did the firefighters’ concession money go? That would take some investigative journalism to discover. See above.
I wonder if readers know about the Spokesman-Review’s role in the city having to compensate employees more. You see, the thing that the newspaper never talks about is that it’s not the one percent raise here, or the two percent raise there, that costs us citizens. It’s the 20% and the 40% rise in medical insurance premiums for employees that really socks it to we-the-taxpayers in Spokane.
Hmmmm, private insurance companies whose profits point ever skyward, the citizens who are bound by contract to pay the premiums/profits and a newspaper who is fueled by the advertising dollars of the culprits draining the city coffers. Add to that the S-R’s allegiance to big corporations at any cost, and its no wonder Mr. Vestal has been assigned to keep crudely building straw men.
In the end, I am sure that when, and if, Spokane’s firefighters make any concessions, it will be because they have determined it is the right thing to do, not because an editorialist has demanded they do so, and certainly not because they expect any positive coverage from the Spokesman-Review.
We just learned that it takes at least 3-4 years (six by their account) for any concessions to be mentioned (albeit in a derogatory fashion) by the Spokesman-Review. And the way the newspaper business is going…
Well, like I said, maybe we can read about it in Mr. Vestal’s blog or twitter feed.
misjustice on September 24 at 12:32 p.m.
Ron asks, “Who the Hell is running this City anyway?”
It would appear that the Guild is. They’re exerting the power of NO! over the council, the mayor, and the taxpayers.
Smokie; Glad that you decided to post this information again. It helps to clarify the budget fight. And demonstrates that firefighters have made concessions.
MrNatural on September 24 at 12:53 p.m.
Wow…first time I’ve been flagged…sorry if I came across too provocative Shawn…I shall remember for future comments that you insist on good taste…
Still I think the Police Guild has too much sway against the people they are accountable too…
irritable on September 24 at 1:52 p.m.
Who is running the City? That would be the unions. At some point the City forgot that they are the employer and have a business to run and turned control over to the unions.
When the contracts come up for renewal next time, not just the Guild contract, all the contracts i hope that the City will make sure they get a strong management rights statement included. It would be refreshing to actually have the City ran as a business where as the employer they have the RIGHT to make the hard decisions necessary to stay solvent. Maybe the council needs to not approve the contracts until they force everyone back to the table until someone gets a grip on reality.
I have no problem with unions or negotating, I just have a problem with taxpayers getting stuck supporting benefit plans and pay scales that not one person in the private industry would agree was sustainable because the City does not have the backbone to stand up and say enough is enough!
The City needs to take back control and have the right to hire needed employees, fire the employees who are not performing or are otherwise not the right fit for the job, layoff employees if absolutley necessary, AND set realistic and sustainable goals and objectives to manage the workforce and the budget.
Albert on September 24 at 4:56 p.m.
Shawn - great article and good points for sure. I only hope that they do let the cops go, reconfigure the firefighters, and stop the ridiculous hefty raises just announced to the upper paid personnel in the City Hall. If we had less cops, then we would enjoy less shootings and less lawsuits. Not kidding. Let the cops go - the more the better. Keep the firefighters, but no new hires.
zelda on September 24 at 5:46 p.m.
MSNBC’s “Red Tape Chronicles” has an excellent, well-sourced examination of this issue at http://redtape.msnbc.com/ .
This segment captures most of my feelings on the subject:
>>At a time when the world of private sector employment is dominated by layoffs, wage freezes and uncertainty, shouldn’t taxpayers know which public employees in their communities earn more than $110,000? Or at least know who’s earning taxpayer-funded salaries of more than double or triple the median household income in their region, and why?
>>“… (But) high school-educated public workers are more highly compensated than private sector employees, because the public sector sets a floor on compensation. The earnings floor has collapsed in the private sector.”
>>It’s that collapse which has led to increased scrutiny of government worker pay, and to the extreme politicization of the compensation issue.
Shylock13 on September 24 at 6:51 p.m.
What else should we, the taxpayers, expect from the Spokane Police Guild? It already considers itself above all of us, particularly if they are called to account for anything (when do they have to talk to anyone, for example, when they shoot a poor ordinary taxpayer? why do they oppose a strong Ombudsman—let alone a Civilian Review Board—to hold them accountable for their actions?) Obviously, the Guild believes it is the agency in charge of Spokane, its government and its taxpayers!! The Guild’s arrogance, greed, and belief of invincibility are intolerable!!
Shylock13 on September 24 at 6:52 p.m.
What else should we, the taxpayers, expect from the Spokane Police Guild? It already considers itself above all of us, particularly if they are called to account for anything (when do they have to talk to anyone, for example, when they shoot a poor ordinary taxpayer? why do they oppose a strong Ombudsman—let alone a Civilian Review Board—to hold them accountable for their actions? Obviously, the Guild believes it is the agency in charge of Spokane, its government and its taxpayers!! The Guild’s arrogance, greed, and belief of invincibility are intolerable!!
Bullshapitsca on September 25 at 9:49 p.m.
Bad management breeds unions.
Ron the cop said it best, “Where the Hell has the Council been? Perhaps studying bike paths, watering surveys and other Bohemian pursuits instead of guarding the hen house?”.
As long as bike paths, watering surveys and other Bohemian pursuits are more important than the proper management of department budgets, this will continue. Only the ballet box has the power to get the dog wagging the tail.
Bob_Knows on November 07 at 2:42 p.m.
As long as Americans (including those who voted for Ms. Murray and most union members) are voting for socialists who kill business, its going to get worse. Instead of voting your union party line, socialist anti-business, try voting for those who promote business and jobs. You got hope instead of a job. You got change instead of a strong economy. Deal with it.
Bob_Knows on November 07 at 2:52 p.m.
Did you see the TV news Friday morning? Some one (1) man who “might have been disturbed” was in his home. The blue gangbangers showed up with a small army of “SWAT” pseudo military thugs, and 20 other blue shirt gang members ALL AT OUR EXPENSE. They spent many hours, much on “overtime” before going back to their pig sty. ONE (1) flatfoot going ‘round to have a chat with the guy would have defused the situation and restored peace to OUR neighborhood for less than 10% of the tax money. The reason they send 50 when 1 would do the job is because their BLOATED BUDGET hires 10 times as many bored gun thugs as are needed to do the job. Most of them are sitting around in their pseudo military uniforms keeping their armored vehicles (tanks) warmed up looking for some excuse to assault one of OUR neighborhoods.
Its time to CUT TAXES and fire 90% of the sniveling thugs. Let them do good work by sending 1 or even 2 flatfoots around to have a chat instead of responding with a huge gang of cowboys playing military space cadet.
eagleproducer on November 10 at 1:36 p.m.
ron: Steve Eugster and former radio talk show host, Rick Miller, both predicted exactly what occurred in the RPS case when the deals were being put together. I specifically remember the warnings from the few dissenters of the project and how general funds would invariably be used to cover costs associated with the bonds regardless of the performance of the garage and mall.
Have you ever read Don Quixote?