Guest View-John Musolf: Town Council Commits To Two Years Of Increases For Police

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Mayor Hiremath is a "master" of burying important items in the consent agenda portion of the town council meeting.  He mixes unimportant items with important items.  John Musolf's Guest View provides an illustration of one such important item. This one has to do with step pay increases for the Oro Valley Police Department.   This item impacts budget spending for two years.
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"Item E on the May 2, 2012 Town Council Consent Agenda Resolution No. (R)12-23, approving a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Public Safety Employees (Police) and the Town of Oro Valley pursuant to Chapter 4, Section 4-1-8 of the Town Code, Public Safety Employee Relations and Processes was not a routine and non-controversial item.

It will affect two years of the Town Budget (FY2012/2013 and FY 2013/2014) and should have been discussed as regular agenda item in a public hearing on the budget. In my opinion, it is an abuse of the use of the Consent Agenda. It passed without any discussion.

Analysis

This MOU with the police will be effective for the following two fiscal years, July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2014. It will affect not only the budget for FY2012/2013 but also the budget for FY2013/2014. Multi-year budgets items should not be undertaken by Council since there is no assurance of what the economic situation will be in the future. We are committing future tax dollars today.

To quote the memo to Council from Stacy Lemos:

“The negotiating teams mutually agreed to a step/merit implementation plan that involves providing a step/merit increase on 7/1/13 for those eligible employees whose anniversary dates fall between and inclusive of 7/1/13 and 12/31/13; and on 1/1/14 for those eligible employees whose anniversary dates fall between and inclusive of 1/1/14 and 6/30/14 of that fiscal year to shorten the wait time for those employees whose anniversary dates fall later in the fiscal year, which was a concern for the PSNC during negotiations”.

Reinstating a step increase for the police for a future FY2013/2014 budget in 2012 does not make any economic sense. Let’s look at the economic conditions in FY2013/2014 for setting the budget. Committing the Town to a future financial action a year from now is not a prudent fiduciary action on the part of the Town Council.

This Memorandum of Understanding is also reaching beyond an agreement with just public safety employees (police) and affecting all town employees which in my opinion should be a separate budgetary discussion.

To again quote the memo to Council from Stacy Lemos:

“As part of fulfilling the Town Council's goal of investing in Town employees, management recommends the reinstatement of the step plan along with a modest merit increase ranging from 2% to 3.5% for non-step plan employees in the second year of the MOU, FY 2013/14. A similar merit increase would also be recommended for the rest of Town staff not represented by this Memorandum of Understanding during FY 13/14 as well”.

The merit increases for non-step employees should not be part of the police negotiations. This statement is trying to influence and gain support for acceptance of pay increases for the police by saying all other town employees would share in the pay increase."

John Musolf

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