Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "lay offs"

Sacramento gets $19.4 million from feds to rehire peace officers

2011-09-30T01:37:48Z

Sacramento city and county were awarded a total of $19.4 million in federal funding grants Wednesday – enough to put 25 police officers and 25 sheriff’s deputies back to work for the next three years.

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program is a competitive grant program through the U.S. Department of Justice that provides funding to state and local law enforcement agencies to hire, rehire, or retain police officers.

This year, 2,712 law enforcement agencies requesting more than $2 billion to fund the hiring of 8,999 officers were considered for COPS Hiring Program funding, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Selection for awards was based on an applicant agency’s overall need for federal assistance, local crime rates, current commitment to community policing and their proposed community policing plan.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department received an award of $11,306,450 – the largest single award in the nation under the COPS program this year.

The Sacramento Police Department received $8.1 million in grant funds. It is the largest COPS grant the city has received in the three years that Sacramento has been selected for an award, and was the third highest COPS grant awarded in the nation this year.

Each grant provides funding for the salaries and benefits of officer positions for three years, with the requirement that agencies maintain the positions for one additional year at the end of the grant funding period.

The Sheriff’s Department grant will fill 25 deputy positions, department spokesman Jason Ramos said Wednesday. Those deputies will be assigned to a new youth and gang violence unit in Sacramento county.

Sheriff Scott Jones said in a press release Wednesday that his department plans to take a “comprehensive approach” to combating youth and gang violence by expanding enforcement efforts of gang unit detectives, adding a school component with school resource officers and partnering with youth-focused community organizations.

“It feels like Christmas in September,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said in a press release Wednesday, referring to the $8.1 million grant award to the Sacramento Police Department.

Huge budget cuts to the police department forced the city to lay off 46 sworn officers in July. The new COPS grant will allow the city to rehire 25 of those officers.

Representatives for the police department and the Sacramento Police Officers Association could not be reached for comment.

"We had to watch officers turn their badges in for the first time in our city's history,” Johnson said. “Now we have an opportunity to pin those badges back on our officers and get them back on the street."

Johnson declared the award “a big win” for Sacramento and emphasized that public safety must continue to be the top priority for the city.

Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) called the grants “wonderful news” for Sacramento residents in a statement released Thursday.

“This federal funding will strengthen our community’s law enforcement’s ability to keep us safe, and ensure that budgetary shortfalls do not eliminate these critical positions,” Matsui said.

Only 238 of the 2,712 grant requests were ultimately funded – roughly 9 percent of the total number of applications – for a total of $243,398,709 in grants, funding 1,021 officer positions nationwide.

In all, the Sacramento region – including $19.4 million for Sacramento city and county and a $2.58 million award for Placer county – was awarded the largest combined dollar amount in the nation.

Grant funds will be available to the Sacramento Police Department after the City Council formally accepts the grant at the next council meeting.

The Sheriff’s Department grant is expected to receive formal acceptance by the County Board of Supervisors in early October.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

ABC liaison officers: know the rules, follow the rules

2011-07-02T04:51:11Z

Despite losing 42 sworn police officers this week due to budget cuts, the Sacramento Police Department was able to keep one officer whose job is enforcing liquor license regulations and making sure licensees know the rules and follow them.

A $75,000 grant was awarded to the city of Sacramento from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), allowing the city to fill the second of only two ABC liaison officer positions in the Police Department.

ABC liaison officers play a vital role in keeping bars and restaurants in compliance with liquor laws, said Lt. Gina Haynes of the Sacramento Police Department’s Metro Division.

According to city staff, Sacramento has more than 1,000 ABC-licensed establishments, with an average of 25 per square mile in the downtown area.

“We’re a capital city, so we really have a responsibility to make sure that we have a nice, orderly city, with venues that people are going to want to frequent in their social time,” Haynes said.

Having so many places to socialize and drink has caused some challenges for the city, however.

Haynes said alcohol-related problems, including underage drinking, are a big concern to city police because of the number of young adults and minors attracted to the many entertainment venues in the city.

In March 2010, Sacramento was ranked 20th of the Top 100 Drunkest Cities in America by Men’s Health Magazine.

Also in 2010, police statistics reported a total of 32 traffic fatalities in Sacramento, 13 of which were alcohol-related, and six of which were hit-and-run, which may have been alcohol-related.

“We would be in a whole world of hurt if we didn’t have (ABC liaison officers),” Haynes said.

Haynes said ABC liaison officers provide law enforcement and education and prevention programs for liquor license holders throughout the city.

“I would consider preventing or reducing the number of alcohol-related fatalities to be vital in the way of public safety,” Haynes said.

There are only two ABC liaison officers employed by the city of Sacramento, according to police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong.

At the same time, the city processed 900 applications for liquor licenses last year alone.

ABC liaison officers answer complaints of every color: from alcohol being watered down to people selling alcohol out of their homes to retailers operating without valid licenses.

“It goes on and on and on,” Haynes said. “Anywhere there is the possibility of making money, there is the potential for breaking the law. Liquor laws are no different.”

The officers also perform compliance inspections, decoy operations, conduct DUI checkpoints and maintain ABC compliance at special entertainment events.

“They are really the go-to resource when it comes to ABC license regulations,” Leong said. “We’re trying to change the negative numbers in relation to alcohol-related crime.”

The one-year grant award for the liaison officer position extends to June 30, 2012.

After that, the city will have to apply for another grant in order to continue the liaison officer position.

“We absolutely cannot afford to let those positions go away.” Haynes said. “They do a good job, and we need them.”

Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

Mayor talks about pension reform as budget solution

2011-06-29T01:08:49Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson spoke about the need for representatives of the Sacramento Police Officers Association (SPOA) to meet with the city to explore ways to save police officers from impending layoffs at a Tuesday press conference.

“All of us on the council – the six that voted one way and the other three of us that didn’t – are reaching out to the SPOA asking for a meaningful dialogue,” Johnson said.

The City Council passed a budget on a 6-3 vote on June 21 that included more than $12 million in cuts to the Police Department and paved the way for more than 40 sworn police officers to be laid off July 1.

“We are at a difficult crossroad,” Johnson said. “(The City Council) said public safety is a priority ... and here we are now in a position where 108 (officers and civilians) are being laid off.”

Johnson said the city is not asking for SPOA to open up its contract, rather to “reboot and recommit to looking at opportunities that we have before us.”

The greatest of those opportunities, Johnson said, is for SPOA and the city to come to terms with a pension imbalance and make gradual changes to the current system that will lead to cost savings for the city in future years.

“We have to acknowledge that (SPOA) were the first ones to come to the table before,”Johnson said. “They gave us labor concessions, and they feel the city didn’t do its part, and I can respect that.”

Still, Johnson said the need for discussion about pension reform cannot be ignored, and the City Council has opened the door to discussion once again, if the union is interested.

“If (SPOA) are having honest discussions with their membership and no one is interested (in coming to the table), then we have to just cut officers and move forward and talk about pension reform next year or the year after,” Johnson said.

For most city employee positions, contributions to the employee retirement system come from both employers and employees.

Currently, however, city police officers do not have to pay a percentage of their earnings to their retirement benefits. Instead, the city picks up the full cost.

Johnson said that “pension reform is not the end-all,” however.

“If the police contributed 9 percent, that’s a $5.2 million savings (to the general fund). That doesn’t solve all of our problems.”

While noting that changes to pensions are necessary, Johnson emphasized that the city is not looking for the SPOA to “contribute it all back at one time.”

“If SPOA contributes their share, over time, we believe as a city we can still do our part and continue to be fiscally smart and move forward where everyone wins,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the City Council sent what it felt were “key points of discussion” to the SPOA, and he hopes the union is considering those points and talking to its membership about engaging in discussions about pension reform.

So far, Johnson said, he’s waiting for a response from the SPOA.

“I think it’s unrealistic to think that, in this economy, that there’s not going to be real discussion about pension reform,” Johnson said. “There HAS to be.”

Det. Mark Tyndale, SPOA representative, responded in a telephone interview Tuesday, saying that the SPOA is “constantly in conversation” with its membership, but the relationship with city leadership is strained right now.

Tyndale said the council members made their intentions toward the SPOA clear with the vote on the budget, and now there is a real sense of mistrust from the police union toward the council.

“We’re not unwilling to go (into a discussion),” Tyndale said. “We just don’t feel like we will be treated with good faith.”

It’s going to take more than a simple “please come talk” invitation from Johnson to bring the SPOA to the table, Tyndale said.

If the City Council as a whole – and Interim City Manager Bill Edgar – were to come together to discuss pensions with the SPOA, “I’d be in that room,” Tyndale said.

City Council passes final budget

2011-06-22T06:51:12Z

More than 300 city positions will be eliminated in the coming year after the City Council passed a finalized city budget Tuesday night.

Despite impassioned pleas from members of the Sacramento City Crime Scene Investigation unit and local union representatives, the 14-member CSI unit and 45 sworn police officers are on the chopping block.

The budget passed on a 6-3 vote, with Council members Angelique Ashby, Steve Cohn and Mayor Kevin Johnson each voting against the measure.

The new budget incorporates $4.6 million in one-time resources to close the gap for fiscal year 2011-12. It also funnels $3.36 million into the city’s economic uncertainty reserve fund.

Betty Masuoka, assistant interim city manager, noted that discussions with labor organizations to work toward concessions are under way, however no concessions have been formalized that would impact adopting the budget.

“The budget before you is balanced, and we are asking the council to adopt it tonight,” Masuoka told council members.

According to city manager staff reports, the budget meets the City Council’s goals of developing a sustainable budget plan, carefully using one-time resources and balancing the impact of any layoffs with the benefit of service level decisions.

Masuoka said the city manager and the finance department staff will meet with the council over the next few months to discuss policy questions and strategies that arise from implementation of the budget.

The nearly 70 people in the audience were silent when the council took the final vote.

“I’m just appalled,” said Marcia Mooney, representative from the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 39. “This really hurts our CSI people and, in the end, the City is going to be worse for it.”

City Council, police union at a standstill

2011-06-21T00:55:36Z

Approval of a final city budget that includes $39 million in ongoing cuts and the elimination of 320 city positions is expected at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but Police Department personnel aren’t holding out hope for an 11th-hour save from potential layoffs.

“The council is firm on its decision,” said Det. Mark Tyndale, Sacramento Police Officers Association (SPOA) vice president. “And we are firm in ours.”

On June 7, City Council members urged SPOA representatives to consider contract concessions for its members in an effort to relieve the burden of deep budget cuts that will have a significant impact on the Police Department and public safety personnel.

The SPOA has not made any move toward the negotiating table, however, and, according to Tyndale, union representatives have no desire to do so.

“We expect a last-minute call from the council or the city manager’s office, but it’s a not a phone call that we are going to make,” Tyndale said.

Referring to concessions the Police Department made during budget negotiations in 2009, Tyndale said that, “two years after the fact, the council has shown that they aren’t going to back up what was promised back then.”

In 2009, the union made concessions on delaying raises for department personnel for three years. Those concessions resulted in approximately $12 million in savings for the city, Tyndale said.

“We don’t believe the council will approach us (now) in good faith, and we aren’t going to open our contract to be betrayed again,” Tyndale said.

During discussion of potential department cuts at the June 7 council meeting, Councilman Steve Cohn offered a motion that would allow the City Council to use one-time funds from the Economic Uncertainty Reserve (EUR) to match pay and benefit concessions from the police and fire departments up to a total of $4 million.

The motion failed on a 6-3 vote.

“It wouldn’t have solved the problem,” Tyndale said of Cohn’s motion, “but (SPOA) would have seen it as a good-faith effort.”

Tyndale said that union members were more disappointed in how the vote was divided than the fact that the motion failed.

“Council Member Darrell Fong’s vote stings the most,” Tyndale said. “He came from our department. He knows us. He said he’d be there for us.”

Fong, the District 7 representative and a former police captain, responded in an interview Monday that, although he understands that SPOA members are upset, he stands behind his vote against the matching funds motion.

“Cohn’s motion was to give both police and fire money from the emergency reserves fund,” Fong said. “Hitting the one-time reserves isn’t something I want to do. We have to show some restraint.”

Fong, who said he will direct his City Council salary for the 2011/2012 fiscal year to the Police Department’s budget, ~~declined his $60,800 city council salary when he was elected to the council in 2010,~~ was quick to point out that both civilians and sworn officers will be laid off if this budget is approved.

“It was a tough decision I had to make,” Fong said. “I made it clear that everyone – not just police, not just fire, but everyone – needed to come together to resolve the deficit we face.”

Fong said that, going forward, he’s looking for changes that will restructure the city and avoid future deficits.

“Services have to survive, even if they’re reduced,” Fong said.

The City Council will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 915 I St., to finalize the budget for 2011-2012.

Read the City Council meeting agenda here.

Editorial Note: A correction has been made to this story after it was published. The incorrect information has been struck out and the correct information has been added.

Layoffs of 35 city cops avoided

2011-06-15T05:37:18Z

Thirty-five police jobs were saved from proposed layoffs after the Sacramento Police Department received a waiver on a federal grant that funds officer positions, spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong confirmed late Tuesday night.

The number of proposed layoffs in the 2011/2012 budget for Sacramento police officers has dropped from 81 to 46.

The City Council will vote next week on proposed budget cuts that include layoffs of cops and other Police Department staffers. Council members were weighing whether to lay off 81 police officers, but the grant waiver means they will decide whether to lay off 46 officers. The council will also choose whether to lay off 68 civilian police department staffers – those proposed cuts were not affected by the federal grant waiver.

The city is facing a $39 million budget gap for the 2011/2012 fiscal year.

"This grant exemption is a positive in an otherwise difficult budget year,” Police Chief Rick Braziel wrote in a Tuesday night press statement. “We are thankful for the quick approval of this grant exemption, which would not have been possible without the efforts of Bernard Melekian from the Department of Justice, the support of Congresswoman Doris Matsui and the hard work of our police staff.”

Meanwhile, Interim Deputy City Manager Betty Masuoka told the City Council at a Tuesday night budget hearing that she had no update on any labor concessions from city unions. Despite the standstill, “staff continues to have an open door” to negotiations with city unions, she said.

In addition, the city could still negotiate with the unions for possible concessions after the budget is approved, Masuoka said.

While Councilman Darrell Fong, a retired police captain, has said he intends to vote for the police cuts, he announced at Tuesday’s council meeting that he would redirect his City Council salary for the 2011/2012 fiscal year to the Police Department’s budget.

The base pay for Sacramento City Council members is $60,800 annually.

“I’m hopeful as we continue between now and next week to keep having discussions and hope to get to a better place,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said at the meeting.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Retention of jobs and public safety are priority for Mayor Kevin Johnson

2011-06-08T02:41:36Z

Despite reports of the city’s proposals to lay off more than 350 jobs, including 80 sworn police officers, during Tuesday’s press conference, Mayor Kevin Johnson said that avoiding such layoffs will be a priority.

Throughout the conference, Johnson said he wanted Sacramento to remain a full-service city and that he hopes to alleviate any distrust between police officers and the city by playing a more active role in addressing the interests of both parties.

“We’re trying to preserve as many jobs as we can and keep public safety at the top of our priorities,” he added.

“We’re about to pass and adopt a budget in about three weeks or so, and we do not want to be in a position where our community, our constituents and the greater Sacramento area are impacted because we can’t create an environment where our streets are safe.”

The weekly press conference was supposed to address city business and the future of an entertainment and sports complex in Sacramento via the “Here We Build” arena campaign, but when the floor opened to questions, the discussion quickly became centered on the current budget situation and, consequently, what Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting might entail.

Tuesday’s council meeting agenda was set at the end of May to address all the controversial potential budget cuts to the Parks and Recreation, Police and Fire departments.

When asked about concerns and potential alternatives to the current budget proposals, the Mayor said that it depended on the discussion that would occur during the council meeting.

He provided three possible outcomes of the upcoming meeting: 1: Tentative decisions will be made on whether the current proposals for each department will occur, 2: Time will run out and the vote will carry on to Thursday or 3: Possibly vote on two of the three departments and keep one floating for discussion again later.

During the conference, Johnson also mentioned the city and state of California’s interest in a high-speed rail due to its long-term cost-effectiveness, decreased carbon footprint and its potential to be an “unbelievable job creator.”

City Council aims to lessen police budget cuts

2011-05-18T15:46:54Z

The Sacramento City Council members made it clear Tuesday night that they do not want to make the $12 million in cuts to the Police Department recommended in the proposed budget. But it’s unclear at this point how the council will lessen the cuts to the department.

A crowd of police staffers and supporters, which swelled to about 400 at its high point early Tuesday evening, turned out for the City Council’s budget hearing.

The city is grappling with a $39 million budget gap for the 2011/2012 fiscal year. A total of 149 department staffers, including 80 sworn cops, would be laid off in the proposed budget, according to police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong.

The city currently has 701 sworn cops.

“Twelve million (dollars) in cuts is too much for public safety to share this burden,” Councilman Darrell Fong, a retired police captain, said.

At the end of the City Council meeting, which ran longer than four hours, six City Council members voted not to move forward with the current proposed budget of $12 million in cuts proposed by Interim City Manager Bill Edgar and Interim Deputy City Manager Betty Masuoka.

The city manager’s office is responsible for proposing the amounts of budget cuts, while Police Chief Rick Braziel is responsible for divvying up how to make the proposed cuts at the department.

The City Council makes final budget decisions.

Six of the nine council members rejected the proposed budget because three were absent.

Mayor Kevin Johnson was at the NBA draft lottery in New Jersey, representing the Sacramento Kings. Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell was mourning the recent death of her mother and Councilman Rob Fong was in Los Angeles on a business trip, according to Councilman Steve Cohn.

RE Graswich, the mayor’s special assistant, presented the following statement on behalf of Johnson:

“In Sacramento, we’re in the fourth year of a devastating budget crisis and we continue to face difficult challenges. When I ran for mayor in 2008, I said public safety would be my top priority.

“That continues to remain true today,” Graswich said. “Public safety is a core function of city government. It plays a critical role in how we operate as a full-service city.

“It’s critical that as we move forward, we continue to practice fiscal responsibility, eliminate wasteful practices, capitalize on efficiencies and make collective sacrifices to provide the service our residents expect and deserve. I look forward to continuing to work with my council colleagues and finding the best solutions to solving the budget crisis.”

Greg Galliano, a 25-year-old Sacramento police officer, was one of many department staffers who urged the council not to make the cuts. He said the department is currently dealing with “massive call volumes.”

“If we take these cuts,” Galliano said, “we’re going to experience something that we’re not going to be able to protect you from.”

Leong explained the breakdown of the proposed layoffs: Sworn cops, 80; Community Service Officers, 38; Crime Scene Investigators, 14; Supervising Dispatchers, 6; Records Supervisor, 1; Administrative and Clerical, 10.

At a press conference before the City Council meeting, police staffers held up numbers that signified they could be among the numbers of people laid off.

Read the schedule of budget hearings here. Learn about the debate over cuts to the Parks and Recreation Department here.

The City Council is scheduled to adopt the city’s budget for the 2011/2012 fiscal year on June 21.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

County cuts could cause more layoffs

2011-05-14T01:40:46Z

Sacramento County’s budget situation for the 2011/2012 fiscal year could be described by the grammatically incorrect but accurate phrase “less bad.”

In other words, the county’s budget gap of $90 million is less severe than the $181 million shortfall it faced last year. But the current gap, which is likely to result in a wave of layoffs, is still grim.

County Interim Executive Officer Steven Szalay laid out budget details in a Friday morning press conference at the downtown county building on H Street. The county plans to cut 321 employee positions in its budget process, Szalay said.

“I’m very sad to have to have these service-level reductions,” he said. “They’re definitely going to hurt in all sectors of the county.”

The county expects to face cuts in nearly all departments, he added.

County officials said they have not yet calculated how many of the positions are currently filled by employees and how many are vacant. The number of filled positions, which will help the public understand how many layoffs there may be, will be released with the budget proposal in two weeks, Szalay said.

The county’s drop in revenues since the 2007/2008 fiscal year has been a central reason for the county’s poor financial state, Szalay said. Since then, the county’s revenues from property, sales and motor vehicle taxes have dropped by more than $100 million, he added.

The 321 positions do not include any positions from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s office, according to Szalay.

The $90 million gap consists of a roughly $70 million gap in the county’s general fund and cuts to the county from the state, according to county spokeswoman Chris Andis.

Szalay said the Sheriff’s Department will need to make $26 million in cuts. However, Sheriff Scott Jones said he is examining several funding sources and is confident he can pare down that number. He said he hopes to not make layoffs.

“All facets of the county have been devastated by cuts,” Jones said. “We are not alone in that.”

There is a bright spot in this year’s budget, according to Szalay. “We are making progress towards the goal of having current revenue pay for current services,” he said.

While Szalay proposed the budget, the Board of Supervisors will make all final budget decisions.

The number of actual layoffs that could result from the budget crunch may not be known for some time. The county applies a complex demotion process when it makes layoffs that can change the final number. Some workers may decide to retire.

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors’ chambers at 700 H St. will be the site of the budget hearings, which are scheduled to begin the week of June 6. The hearings will be open to the public.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City budget crisis: Past, present and future

2011-05-07T00:51:25Z

The city’s current budget gap of $39 million is grim. But the city’s financial situation is even more dismal when examined in the context of its budget cuts in recent years.

The city has laid off about 215 employees since February 2008, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams. In addition, the city has taken 900 positions off its books since the 2008/2009 fiscal year and cannot hire employees for those spots, according to the city budget document. The city currently has 4,576 employee positions, Williams said.

Interim City Manager Bill Edgar and Interim Deputy City Manager Betty Masuoka are recommending the City Council approve an $812 million budget for the 2011/2012 fiscal year. Of that amount, $362 million would be the general fund.

The city defines the general fund, consisting of taxes and fees, as its main fund for operations.

The City Council is now weighing whether to lay off hundreds of city employees in the next few weeks.

Mayor Kevin Johnson was visibly distressed Tuesday night after Masuoka briefed the City Council on the budget cuts and layoffs suggested by the city manager’s office.

“Those brutal facts gave me a headache,” Johnson said. “We’re talking about laying off a lot of people. And that just doesn’t feel good for any of us.”

Edgar explains in the budget document why the city has a $39 million gap. Because the city is still in a recession, sales tax revenues are likely to stay flat, and property tax revenues are down, the budget document says.

Labor costs have risen due to union contracts, new Fire Department staff in Natomas and mandatory retirement payments for employees, according to the document.

And, the city must keep its vehicles in working condition and replace old public safety machinery such as ambulances and defibrillators, all of which costs money, the document states.

City employees from various departments could be laid off, including 80 cops.

Police officers have been shielded from layoffs for decades: No officers were laid off during Sacramento City Councilman Darrell Fong’s 30-year career with the Police Department, Fong said last week. He retired from the department in 2009.

Even though the department has not faced layoffs of cops, the number of positions has shrunk in recent years.

“We had 804 officers in 2007 and 704 in 2010,” police spokeswoman Laura Peck said.

The city currently has 701 sworn police officers.

Johnson said Tuesday that he wants to learn more about the context of the cuts in recent years. He asked staff to present information soon on the following questions:

“How much have we cut from our general fund over the last four years?” Johnson asked city staff. “And then, secondly, how has that impacted job reduction over that period of time? I’m just interested because that time period has been brutal for our community.”

The Sacramento Press will report on city staff’s answers to Johnson’s questions when the information becomes available.

On top of its past and current woes, the immediate future for Sacramento’s city government does not look bright.

City officials project in the budget document that the city will continue to face budget gaps until fiscal year 2015/2016. The gap for fiscal year 2012/2013 is $11.7 million and is expected to rise to $22.9 million in fiscal year 2013/2014.

In fiscal year 2014/2015, the city expects to be $18 million in the hole. The gap drops to a $13 million deficit predicted in fiscal year 2015/2016.

“Given the lack of any significant revenue growth in the forecast, the current level of annual expenditure is not sustainable,” according to the budget document.

Still, the discussion of the current $39 million gap is continuing, and it’s possible that council members could find ways to prevent some cuts.

For example, Council members Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Angelique Ashby all said they like the idea of seeing whether the city could move the public safety headquarters from Freeport Boulevard to the city’s Richards Boulevard location. The city has extra space at its Richards Boulevard building, Fong said.

Moving public safety workers to Richards Boulevard could save the city an estimated $800,000 - $900,000 per year in energy savings and maintenance costs, Fong said, referring to an estimate from the Police Department.

The Freeport building is not energy-efficient, he said.

City leaders need to look for “creative options to save a few bucks,” McCarty said.

Read a list of all the upcoming city budget hearings here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City eyes 350 city jobs for cuts

2011-04-30T01:57:07Z

More than 350 jobs, including those of 80 sworn police officers, could be cut to balance the city’s budget, Interim City Manager Bill Edgar said Friday.

The city manager’s office released recommendations Friday on how to resolve a $39 million budget gap. The proposal released by the city is not set in stone: The City Council is responsible for making final budget decisions.

“This is the budget that everyone has dreaded,” Edgar said. “(This is) the budget where the chickens come home to roost.”

The city manager’s office proposes cutting 294 positions. In addition, Edgar said he is recommending that the City Council cut about 60 more positions to privatize maintenance of city golf courses.

In the coming weeks, representatives for the city’s unions are expected to negotiate with city officials over the planned budget cuts.

The proposed budget recommends that the City Council lay off 80 of the city’s 701 sworn police officers. The city manager’s proposal also suggests laying off about 70 civilian workers in the Police Department and cutting 18 vacant positions for sworn police officers.

Detective Mark Tyndale, vice president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association, said the union’s members are upset, scared and “very angry” about the proposed cuts to the department.

The union made concessions on raises in 2009 that resulted in $13 million in savings for the city, he said.

“We have stepped up, and we have given,” he said.

SPOA’s view is that the city unfairly gave raises to a few top city officials recently.

Tyndale also argues the city mismanaged money by paying raises to members of another city union, Local 39, after negotiations fell apart between Local 39 and the city in 2009.

(However, it should be noted that Local 39 members suffered layoffs as a result of the failed negotiations with the city in 2009. Local 39 Director of Public Employees Joan Bryant, who represents city workers that are not in the public safety field, recently argued that the city unfairly favors public safety workers on retirement benefits.)

Despite Tyndale’s anger over the proposed budget, he said SPOA will continue to “have a dialogue with city management” on the budget.

“We expect to be treated fairly by them,” Tyndale said.

The proposed cuts will reduce police services, said department spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong.

“It will have impacts to crime and to the service level we’re providing,” he said.

In one of many examples, Leong said the department would not be able to respond in person to property crimes like theft and home burglaries if there are no suspects on the scene. “We’re not coming out,” he said.

However, if there are suspects present, the department would respond, he said.

Sacramento City Councilman Darrell Fong, who retired from the Police Department in 2009 after a 30-year career there, said no officers were laid off during his tenure with the department.

“I’m really concerned about the cuts to public safety,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Fire Department also faces major cuts in the proposed budget. There are “whole communities that aren’t going to have EMS or fire response,” said Jaymes Butler of Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522. “They’ll have to pull from another community.”

The numbers of layoffs and the cuts to services for the fire department are still unclear because the city has been selected to receive a $5.6 million grant earmarked for fire services.

However, Butler estimated that the cuts would result in the following actual layoffs: 14 captains, nine engineers, 35 firefighters and seven firefighter/paramedics.

Positions are different from actual layoffs, because the city sometimes saves money by cutting vacant positions.

However, Edgar said he doesn’t expect the number of positions – more than 350 – to differ much from actual layoffs.

“I think it’s fair to say that most of (the positions) are filled at this point,” he said.

The city budget document released Friday projects that the city will continue to face budget gaps until fiscal year 2015/2016. The gap for fiscal year 2012/2013 is $11.7 million and is expected to rise to $22.9 million in fiscal year 2013/2014. In fiscal year 2014/2015, the city expects to be $18 million in the hole. The gap drops to a $13 million deficit predicted in fiscal year 2015/2016.

Read the full text of the proposed budget here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Newsroom mood 'grim' over impending cuts

2011-02-05T01:55:42Z

The mood in The Sacramento Bee's newsroom has been grim this week after its parent, the McClatchy Company, announced another 32 jobs will soon be cut.

Management notified 32 people on Monday that they were facing layoffs unless others agreed to take buyout packages. Dozens of people have since been asked to consider accepting buyouts that amount to two weeks' severance pay for every year worked, up to 40 weeks.

Their responses are due by 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. Announcements about the layoffs are expected soon after, Bee Community Affairs Director Pam Dinsmore said.

"We're calling it a job elimination, so it means those jobs are going away," she said.

Newsroom employees are still "reeling" from the news, said features writer Niesha Lofing, Guild unit chair.

"We're really worried," she said. "It's terrible having to see people make these gut-wrenching decisions again and again."

From the Newspaper Guild unit, the Bee plans to lay off 12 people, including two reporters, one artist, one content developer, two copy editors, three page designers, one graphic designer in the advertising department, an outside ad assistant and an ad account manager. A full-time critic job will become part-time.

Jobs will also be cut in circulation, support, finance and building services.

The cutbacks will bring the total number of jobs lost at the paper since 2008 to about 387. The Bee closed its regional newspapers in 2008. In the newsroom, 50 jobs have been cut in the last two years, Dinsmore said.

Bee employees will number 754 after the cuts. There were 177 people working in the newsroom as of Jan. 20.

Some people have already turned in response forms to accept the buyouts, but still have time to change their minds. Others were still evaluating the company's offers Friday.

A continued reduction in newspaper ads and the size of the paper has concerned employees like Lofing.

One of the worst things about the staff cuts is how helpless employees feel as they watch coworkers leave the paper, she said.

"When you cry on the way to work – not for yourself but because your colleagues are so upset – it's a terrible feeling," Lofing said. "All I can do is write the stories and hope the advertising comes in."

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @SuzanneHurt.

Bee announces 32 job cuts

2011-02-01T01:24:20Z

The Sacramento Bee announced Monday it will be cutting back 32 positions, nine of which are in the newsroom.

“It is the price of doing business in this region at this time,” said Pam Dinsmore, community affairs director for the Bee.

“The hope is that this is a voluntary separation agreement,” she added. “There are two reporter jobs that are being eliminated. Outside of two reporters, there are seven others in the newsroom that can opt to take a severance package. Most of those are in the production of the newspaper.”

Monday’s announcement marks the fourth job reduction at the Bee since March 9, 2009, amounting to a total of 214 jobs. Not taking into account this week’s cutback announcement, the Bee currently employs 786 people.

According to the Bee, in addition to the cuts, two full-time positions will be scaled back to part-time.

“We’re still the largest newsroom in Northern California outside of San Francisco,” Dinsmore said. “You cut back on outer areas and try to keep local news and Capitol news thriving.

“As in all media, we are looking forward to brighter times ahead,” she said.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City, county faced grim year

2010-12-31T01:35:08Z

Sacramento’s city and county governments confronted grim budget situations throughout 2010. The city faced a $43 million budget gap, while the county struggled with a $181 million hole.

Local government employees felt the pain of budget cuts: Sacramento County laid off about 380 employees during the summer.

The county also slashed 29 positions in its engineering department in September. The county will no longer hire engineers for those spots.

City officials laid off 12 workers represented by Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, city spokeswoman Amy Williams said in September. The layoffs occurred after talks between the city and the union failed.

However, the city’s job loss situation could have been worse. City officials and Stationary Engineers Local 39 negotiated a contract during the summer that saved at least 80 jobs.

Budget cuts hit Sacramento’s Fire Department, but the blow was lighter than expected. The City Council decided in June to increase from one to two “rolling brownouts” for the department. An earlier plan called for four rolling brownouts.

The term “rolling brownouts” refers to taking certain fire trucks and engines out of service at various times, former Fire Department spokesman Jim Doucette said in June.

A variety of city programs faced cuts, including the city’s 311 information line and youth program.

Consolidations of several city departments and offices took place as well. Code Enforcement, formerly a department, became a division of the Community Development Department. Neighborhood Services became a division of the Parks and Recreation Department, while Human Resources joined with Labor Relations.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development department audit raises questions

2010-10-07T00:26:55Z

An audit report stating that the city’s development department failed to collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers raises a host of questions. The audit’s finding that city employees broke state and city laws makes the situation even more complex.

The audit, prepared by Sacramento firm Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc., investigated the department’s work from fiscal years 2007 through 2010.

“In summary, the weak system of internal controls allowed employees to disregard state and city building laws, codes, and regulations aimed at protecting the public’s health, safety, and general welfare,” the audit states.

Read the full audit report here.

The City Council is expected to discuss the audit’s findings on Oct. 12.

City Councilman Rob Fong said Wednesday that he will focus on obtaining the lost revenue to the city. The report’s findings are “outrageous and shocking and incredibly disappointing,” he said. “My priority is getting the money back.”

Interim City Manager Gus Vina on Wednesday answered a series of questions from reporters on issues relating to the $2.3 million in uncollected funds, violations of laws, the culture of the department and possible disciplinary actions.

Journalists from The Sacramento Press, Fox 40, KCRA, News 10, CBS 13 and Capital Public Radio posed the following questions to Vina at the Wednesday press conference.

Q: Do you find that these lapses were well-intentioned? Or, is there indication that there’s perhaps corruption involved?

Gus Vina: It’s difficult to answer that. Part of my job now is to look at some of the specific issues that the audit report has highlighted. I will need to dig a little further into that very question. We know at a minimum that because of the lack of rules and policies and the fact that the decision-making was being made at an extremely low level in the organization, we need to explore that very question.

Q: What is the likelihood that you’re going to get any of this $2.3 million back?

GV: We’re working with the city attorney’s office to answer that question. This is as fresh to us, really, as it is to you. So we need a little time to dissect it. But we are going to work with the attorney’s office on what can we do to go after some of the revenue that was not collected.

Q: As city manager, is it your hope that we might get some revenue as the result of this investigation?

GV: We will be as aggressive on that as the law allows.

Q: If the city had this $2 million, could any layoffs have been prevented in Fiscal year 09 or in FY 10/11?

GV: I suspect that we could have probably minimized some of the layoffs with the revenue having been collected. I think that what’s important to note is that when we look at staffing in Community Development, it’s not just the revenue that you look at ... it’s workload. The report spent some considerable amount of time looking at that workload. We’ve had over 70 percent decrease in some of our workload in Community Development. Obviously, this recession has had a profound impact on our business. And, so, we would have been in a declining mode in terms of our workforce two, three, four years, anyway.

Q: These lower level (employees) — why were they allowed to make these big decisions?

GV: Let’s talk about culture change for a minute. If you go back, say, three (or) four years, we brought in folks to Community Development to in fact look at the bureaucracy, and how difficult was it to work with the city on development projects. There was a lot of excitement created around a “Get the Customer to Success” theme, and looking at how we might streamline some of the processes. What this report is now pointing to, is that that probably went a little too far. The technology that was put in place ended up being too open to decision-making without policy in place. That’s the bridge now. We still want to provide good service to our developers. And we don’t need unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. It needs to be streamlined. But the bridge to success here now is policy, training, and decisions that are consistent.

Q: Does this at all, in your mind, tarnish the legacy of Ray Kerridge? His big thing was “bring the customer to success” and make it easier to build and develop here.

GV: I respectfully am not going to comment on that. I’m not going to speculate on Ray Kerridge’s legacy, and I wish him well in Roseville.

Q: Will there be any disciplinary actions taken? And, if so, when...will the public learn about that?

GV: If, as I review the report, there’s a need to go down the disciplinary road, then I will certainly do that.

Q: Will that information be made public?

GV: Most of the time, personnel matters are not.

Q: The report though says flat-out that laws were broken.

GV: What you need to look at, is why were laws broken? And what I’ve read so far in the report is that it speaks to lack of policy that led to decisions that were inconsistent with the law. So, motivation is important. And that’s what we need to find out next — what was the motivation?

Q: Is it your opinion that the city attorney should look at these findings to see if any criminal charges should be brought?

GV: I will be working closely with the city attorney’s office and Labor Relations office as necessary.

Q: What does that mean?

GV: That means I don’t know enough to tell you whether there’s criminal charges or not. I would be speculating and I’m not going to speculate.

Q: When a low-level employee doesn’t comply with the law, how do you figure out if it’s their fault, or it’s the culture of the department and the fault of someone higher up? Or both?

GV: That’s exactly my next step: What was violated, what were the reasons and at what level? And the report has been pretty clear that decisions were being made at a low level due to lack of policy and procedures in place.

Photo: Vina and Councilwoman Lauren Hammond at the July 13 City Council meeting.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

County made about 340 fewer layoffs than predicted

2010-09-02T04:48:17Z

Sacramento County has made about 340 fewer layoffs than it had predicted it would make as a result of June budget cuts.

County officials in June estimated that at least 725 employees could be laid off. The county resolved a $181 million budget gap in June when it passed a first draft of its budget.

But County Budget Officer Tom Burkart said in an interview Wednesday that the county ended up laying off about 380 people, instead of 725.

“The 725 actually was an estimate,” Burkart said. “And we did cut 700-plus positions, but they weren’t laid off.”

Retirements, demotions and vacant positions kept the number of out-the-door layoffs down,
according to Burkart.

The county’s layoff process is lengthy, so it is not immediately clear how many people will be laid off when officials provide an estimate for the number of layoffs.

In its layoff process, the county follows certain civil service employment rules and takes employee seniority into account, said county spokeswoman Chris Andis. This complex process results in some employees being demoted instead of laid off, according to Andis.

The Board of Supervisors is holding a hearing on Sept. 8 to approve its final budget and vote on adjustments the county has made to its budget since June. As part of the adjustments, the county is planning to cut additional positions in the Engineering Department and in the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a document written by Interim County Executive Steven Szalay for the Sept. 8 meeting.

The budget hearings may continue on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10, according to Andis.

But the Sept. 8 meeting won’t provide a finalized county budget picture. While the board will approve the budget for the 2011 fiscal year next week, the county’s budget could change again when the state budget passes. Sacramento County administers state programs and is affected by state budget cuts.

The board’s Sept. 8 budget meeting begins at 2 p.m. at 700 H Street.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Local 39 provides details on tentative deal with city

2010-08-06T22:41:46Z

An official with a union representing 1,600 full-time city workers said that the union and the city government have found a way to avoid lay offs.
Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Stationary Engineers Local 39, told the Sacramento Press that city managers and her union found common ground on contract negotiations Friday afternoon.

Local 39 and the city worked out a tentative two-year agreement, Bryant said. She said the agreement would include no pay cuts. The contract also includes 11 furlough days for the 2010/2011 fiscal year, she said. In the 2011/2012 fiscal year, there would be 12 furlough days.

The tentative contract also would give each employee 40 hours of personal leave time each year of the 2-year period, Bryant said.
Local 39 is guaranteed no layoffs for 2010/2011, she said, with one exception. If the City Council determines there is a fiscal emergency in the Utilities Department, the guarantee is off.

City officials and union representatives are announcing the agreement at a 4 p.m. press conference.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Arborists keep Sacramento connected to nature

2010-07-30T07:48:31Z

Maintaining Sacramento’s 100,000 trees is no small task, and with seven positions likely to be cut next week, the Urban Forestry tree maintenance staff will be stretched even thinner.

“We’ve gone from about 58 full-time-equivalent employees to 28 since 2005,” said Urban Forestry Manager Joe Benassini.

Those 28 positions are currently filled, with another eight technically on the books but not staffed. Benassini said the department has not been filling positions vacated through attrition in anticipation of the budget problems and has yet to lay off any employees.

But unless an agreement with unions is made by Aug. 5, some staffers will be let go.

Residents at the July 19 Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group raised concerns that tree maintenance staff was being unfairly targeted while pruning staff was being kept on the job.

Benassini said Thursday that in the attrition the department has seen over the past five years, more pruning staff has been lost than maintenance staff, and the department needs to keep a balance.

“The truth is that the skill sets don’t translate both ways,” Benassini said. “I can take a pruner and have them plant trees and do basic maintenance work, but I can’t take an arborist and teach them how to rig and climb and prune trees. It’s much heavier, more-skilled work.”

Benassini was quick to add, however, that arborists are essential to the city, and he hopes the current situation is not permanent.

So what, exactly, is an arborist?

The city currently has two positions classified as arborists, but there are many on staff who are certified as arborists, according to Benassini. That certification means employees have passed a test to ensure they have the level of expertise to properly maintain a tree.

“It’s not as thorough as a college degree in botany, but it means they are qualified,” Benassini said.

“Our arborists really deal with trees on a tree-by-tree basis,” Benassini said, comparing them to having the same job in Urban Forestry as a surgeon has in a hospital.

When arborists are dispatched to deal with a particular tree, Benassini said that nine times out of 10, it is to water the tree.

Pointing to an English Elm tree near City Hall Thursday, Benassini said that when the tree was planted sometime in the late 1800s, the streets were dirt and the trees were largely maintained by residents.

“People had a better understanding of how things grew,” Benassini said. “They knew how to garden and they understood the soil. It’s not as common today.”

Linda Tucker, spokeswoman for the Sacramento Department of Transportation, which includes Urban Forestry, said the city may be seeing the need for a paradigm shift in which residents take a more active part in caring for the trees, as arborists can’t fill the need for all 100,000 of them.

Having residents help with the watering would allow the arborists to focus on the more specialized parts of their jobs, including root pruning, inspections of trees, helping developers determine the proper amount of trees and their placement and putting the right tree in the right place.

To help with their work, arborists now have aerial maps of all of Sacramento’s trees and computer records of the status of their health and other information. That was all brought in over the past two years, Benassini said.

But will residents actually take the time to water the trees around their properties?

Tucker said she thinks so.

“Even tenants (renting from absentee landlords) should see the trees right outside their houses,” she said. “It doesn’t take much to bring out a hose and water a tree once in a while.”

Pamela Frickmann, a community forester with the nonprofit Sacramento Tree Foundation, agreed.

“I think they would be willing,” Frickmann said. “I think that they are unaware that it is becoming more their responsibility. They’re not aware that maybe the city can’t come out as often as they would like, but everyone would be willing to do that, I would think.”

Tucker said the city will still be able to maintain trees even if no agreement is made with labor unions, but calls for service will be answered within a couple of weeks instead of a couple of days.

Tucker and Benassini agreed that the trees are a critically important part of Sacramento.

“It’s what makes Sacramento livable and not a sea of rooftops,” Benassini said. “It’s our connection to nature.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City doles out pink slips

2010-07-22T01:17:05Z

The city of Sacramento sent out pink slips to about 90 employees Wednesday because city management and two unions have not yet found common ground in their contract negotiations.

However, Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat said city officials have not given up on efforts to resolve their differences with the unions.

In June, the city closed a $43 million budget gap for the 2011 fiscal year.

The two unions that have not made concessions are Stationary Engineers Local 39 and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447. Local 39 represents employees in numerous city departments, including Utilities, Transportation and Community Development.

Bisharat said Tuesday that the city was still actively negotiating with the unions and “still hopeful” for an agreement to avoid layoffs. But the city sent out layoff notices in order “to pull the trigger if we need to,” Bisharat said.

If the negotiations end successfully, then city management will retract the pink slips, she said.

But if talks do not improve soon, the laying off of about 90 employees will go into effect Aug. 6, according to Bisharat.

Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Local 39, said it was “very disturbing” that the city sent out layoff notices Wednesday. The union has faced layoffs of more than 200 workers in the past two years, she said. The union represents about 1,500 workers locally.

“The city has an obligation to cut its spending and stop cutting workers at every turn,” Bryant said, “because pretty soon you’re going to have no one to cut.”

She claimed that the city is laying off workers to put pressure on the union to accept the city’s demands.

Local 39 is continuing to negotiate with the city, she said, but noted that the city’s specific requests are “not something that we will likely jump into.”

The city is asking Local 39 to sign off on a three-year contract that would end in June 2013, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams. A 4 percent pay cut would go into effect now with the proposed contract, Williams wrote in an e-mail. Starting in June 2012, employees covered under the contract would receive a 5 percent raise.

Among other details, the contract would include a monthly furlough day throughout the three-year period, Wiliams wrote.

When the City Council balanced Sacramento’s budget on June 22, it extended negotiation talks with three unions for 30 days. One of the unions, the Auto, Marine and Specialty Painters Local 1176, made concessions to the city last week, Bisharat said.

The city had hoped to use savings from labor concessions to balance its budget. But when city managers didn’t gain concessions from unions by June 22, the City Council decided to allow an extra month for negotiations.

Since the city didn’t have the savings from concessions in June, the City Council moved $648,000 in other funds to help fill the budget hole.

The layoffs of about 90 employees would mark a second group of layoffs for the city this summer. About 50 employees worked their last day on July 16, Williams said.

Harry Rotz, the business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, could not be reached because he was out of town Wednesday, according to the union’s office.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

County budget hearings next week, 725 planned layoffs

2010-06-11T02:35:29Z

Sacramento County officials plan to lay off 725 employees in response to the county’s budget hole.

The Board of Supervisors will discuss the county’s $181 million gap and planned layoffs at budget hearings next week. Board members may approve the budget for the 2010/2011 fiscal year next Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, according to the county’s schedule of budget hearings.

The proposed budget figures released by officials Thursday include major cuts to programs as well as the planned layoffs.

Interim County Executive Steve Szalay said at a Thursday morning press conference that the proposed budget was the third consecutive county budget containing deep cuts.

“This is a sad day in the history of Sacramento County,” he said.

If the board approves the layoffs, they would go into effect July 3, Szalay said.

The Sacramento Press will post the proposed budget as soon as it is available online.

Here is the schedule for next week’s budget hearings:

Monday, June 14:

The meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. Departments and programs that will be discussed include Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, Correctional Health Services, District Attorney, Probation, Public Defender, Engineering, Planning, Animal Care, Regional Parks, Finance, General Services and Personnel.

Tuesday, June 15:

The meeting will start at 2 p.m. and cover cuts to the county’s Medically Indigent Services Program, Health and Human Services and Human Assistance.

Wednesday, June 16:

The meeting will start at 2 p.m. and include discussions on the In-Home Support Services Public Authority, Retiree Health and the Transient Occupancy Tax.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Rhee urges top school officials to get political, find supporters

2010-05-25T04:30:32Z

School district superintendents should find ways to gain political support from community members, according to Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

At a Sacramento Press Club luncheon Monday, Rhee urged the city’s businesspeople, media professionals and politicians to back Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond in his efforts.

These groups should “give this man some cover,” Rhee said.

Superintendents are not elected to their positions, but they can benefit from making alliances with groups, she said.

“When you are a superintendent and you want to do bold things that might not be popular, you have to have some political capital," she said.

Rhee, who is engaged to Mayor Kevin Johnson, gave the example of layoffs she made last fall. She said that because of a budget crunch, she laid off 266 teachers.

Rhee said she changed the way layoffs had been carried out, deciding that the criteria for a layoff should be the quality of a person’s work instead of the length of time they have worked for the school district.

The business community’s support of her criteria was helpful, she said.

“The business community were the ones who were my strongest supporters of this,” she said. “They came out and said: This is how we run our businesses. We would never run an organization in a way that you were just ... getting rid of people based on how many years they’ve been there instead of looking at what they produced for the organization.”

Rhee, who praised government systems in which mayors run schools, said she and Johnson were not planning any efforts to reverse California law to allow mayors to manage schools. However, she did say that an effort to change state law could be worthwhile later.

“Now, a few years down the line: Is this something that might be appropriate?” she asked rhetorically. “Absolutely.”

Asked after the event if she planned to move to Sacramento, Rhee responded that she still has a lot of work to do in Washington, D.C.

A move to Sacramento is “not going to be any time in the near future,” she said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City may lay off as many as 200 employees

2010-05-01T00:33:16Z

The city of Sacramento may need to lay off as many as 100 to 200 city staffers as it makes cuts to balance its budget, Interim City Manager Gus Vina said Friday.

Vina proposed a draft budget Friday that would erase a $43 million gap. In the proposed budget, programs and services would face $14.6 million in cuts. The removal of all vacant positions and possible concessions from labor unions would amount to $19.6 million. Vina also plans to apply $8.8 million in other funds to the budget.

Vina’s draft general fund budget figure for the 2010 / 2011 fiscal year is $360.3 million.

“None of this is easy,” Vina said in an interview Friday. “We have only so much income and we have to have a balanced budget. I would encourage the public to stay engaged.”

The city’s budget documents will be posted online and the public is invited to attend all of the city’s budget hearings, Vina said.

Read the city’s draft budget here.

The city’s financial situation is bad because of low revenues from sales and property taxes, according to the budget document.

The draft budget document does not clearly spell out how the city’s various departments will be cut.

City management is being “very thoughtful” in planning cuts to services this year, said city spokeswoman Amy Williams. Information on precise cuts will be released near the beginning of June, she said.

During upcoming budget hearings, Vina said he will ask the City Council to weigh three ideas for generating revenue. One of those ideas would be to tax medical marijuana. Another idea is to update and raise the “business operations tax,” which is similar to a business license, Vina said.

A third idea would be a parking tax for private lots, he said.

The ideas are in early stages, he said. If the City Council is interested in the ideas, “we’ll do some more homework on it,” he said.

The city cannot take action on any of the three ideas without help from voters. City voters would need to approve each idea through a ballot measure, Vina said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

County's budget picture includes "recently identified" gap

2010-04-16T05:28:03Z

Sacramento County officials are predicting the county could face a $9 million gap in addition to its current budget hole of $166.5 million. A big chunk of the estimated $9 million consists of costs from laying off hundreds of employees during the 2009/2010 budget process.

The extra $9 million was news to county officials — a county budget document presented to reporters Thursday states the $9 million was “recently identified.”

Of the $9 million, $6 million are costs to the county’s general fund for unemployment insurance and pension obligation bond payments, according to the document.

“That’s primarily (because) as the county has layoffs and folks have gone out the door — there’s less employees to spread that cost,” County Chief Operations Officer Nav Gill said during a Thursday press conference. “And that increases the cost we have to recover.”

The other $3 million in new estimated costs is from property tax declines, according to the document.

Gill said that if the county had not laid off 748 people in the last budget process, the county’s budget situation would be even worse.

“Each position that’s laid off has a cost associated with it,” Gill said. “One of the things that we are doing in June’s budget is making sure that the full cost of what it costs to have a layoff is quantified, and we budget for that.”

Hundreds of layoffs could be ahead

The county is looking at the possibility of laying off hundreds more people in the coming months to respond to its ongoing budget crisis.

Last June, the county’s budget gap was $180 million.

In the county’s budget process, positions are viewed differently from actual layoffs. For example, a person is not laid off if the county cuts a vacant position. But if the position is filled, then the person filling it will be laid off.

County officials currently plan to cut 604 filled positions in the 2010/2011 fiscal year budget process, which would mean 604 layoffs.

The county does not have a final number of layoffs it expects to make in the months ahead, according to Interim County Executive Steven Szalay. However, he said the number of positions the county will need to cut will rise.

What are the reasons behind the budget gap?

A key factor in the current budget gap is the county’s decision last year to use one-time funds to close out $80 million in its budget, Szalay said.

Gill noted that other causes include increased retirement and Social Security costs; mid-year budget cuts that did not save as much money as county officials had anticipated; reimbursements from the state that the county expects will come in late; and costs for employee group insurance.

The harsh economy affects tax revenues that come to the county, Szalay noted.

“Sacramento County is going through what all private businesses and public agencies are going through in this terrible economic time — we’re no different,” Szalay said.

Szalay also pointed out that the county “can’t count on additional revenue” because new taxes are unpopular in California.

The county is working on dozens of efficiency projects to cut costs and boost revenues, according to Szalay.

Some of the efficiency projects involve working with nonprofits, according to Bruce Wagstaff, interim agency administrator for Countywide Services Agency. Some of the departments within the agency include Human Assistance, Probation and Environmental Management.

Gill said cuts would be made county-wide. However, high cuts are being analyzed for departments including Personnel Services, Animal Care, Probation, Human Assistance, Health and Human Services and Regional Parks.

Sacramento County’s budget hearings start June 14, Szalay said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Bee to cut 25 jobs

2010-01-13T03:58:42Z

The Sacramento Bee and other McClatchy newspapers are making another round of job cuts.

The Bee announced Monday it will cut 25 people by month's end, while McClatchy newspapers including North Carolina's News & Observer and The State in South Carolina announced additional layoffs. The total number of layoffs at the country's third largest newspaper company was not available.

Reporters will not be among those cut at The Bee, although the paper will lose a photojournalist, two copy editors, two designers and two others in the newsroom, said Pam Dinsmore, the paper's community affairs director.

"We've made the decision that the reporting staff — that's not a place that can go down in any numbers," Dinsmore said.

Currently, 71 reporters work in The Bee's newsroom and Capitol Bureau, and total newsroom staff numbers 197, she said.

Bee management will offer buyouts to trim positions in four departments: 16 in audience development and membership services, one in human resources and one in advertising, in addition to the seven newsroom cuts. Employees will be offered a maximum of 40 weeks' pay, depending on how long they worked at The Bee, Dinsmore said.

"It's a pretty generous severance package," she said.

The Bee will lay people off to meet the goal of cutting 25 by Jan. 29 if enough buyouts are not taken. These are the fourth round of cuts in about 18 months. McClatchy cut 15 percent of its workforce last spring. Before that, the company had already cut more than 4,000 positions, or a third of its employees, in about a year.

On Monday, The Bee also jointly announced it will team up with Capital Public Radio over the next year to offer a series of stories exploring Sacramento's attempts to pull out of the recession. The two news agencies will coordinate the project, which they described as the first of its kind for Northern California. Reporters will work on stories for their own agencies rather than collaborate to produce joint stories.

“We’re looking forward to this ongoing collaboration with Capital Public Radio," said Joyce Terhaar, The Bee's managing editor for content, in a prepared statement. "We each bring different expertise to the partnership that augments what we offer readers online."

The Bee lifted a wage freeze last month and has hired three people since November. Two journalists, one from the Los Angeles Times and the other from the Boston Globe, joined the editorial board this month.

McClatchy owns 30 daily papers and dozens of non-dailies, among other interests.

A representative of the Bee's Newspaper Guild unit could not be reached for comment.

County lays off 300 staffers, 700 since July

2009-09-23T03:20:59Z

Sacramento County’s elected officials laid off 300 employees Tuesday, which brings the total number of layoffs to more than 700 since July, according to county spokesman Zeke Holst.

Susan Peters, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said at the Tuesday board meeting that the layoffs were needed in response to the ailing economy. In her comments, she foreshadowed possible upcoming layoffs to address the county’s $76 million shortfall. “I honestly don’t think that this is the last time you’ll see us back here with position reductions,” Peters said.

“And we may be able to tweak a few things next week, but it’s not going to be very much, if anything,” she added. “I’m sorry the economy is the way it is, and I wish there was some way we could patch together this budget that no one would be hurt.”

Many more budget-related developments are expected to unfold in the coming weeks. The board approved layoffs Tuesday, but hasn’t yet passed its final budget for the current fiscal year. It has planned new budget hearings to take place Sept. 29, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. The final budget is now scheduled to be approved Oct. 2, according to Mark Norris, administrator of the county’s Internal Services Agency.

County unions, including United Public Employees Local 1 and the Sacramento County Alliance of Law Enforcement, are likely to continue battling with the supervisors. Unions are strongly protesting a county plan to create shortened work schedules for about 7,000 employees.

Christa Yous, an investigative assistant with the Department of Human Assistance, told the supervisors that she has received a pink slip from the county and is on a future rehire list. With her voice shaking, Yous said she has become “the face of the terrible economic turmoil that’s before this county.”

Photo of Supervisor Susan Peters by Kati Garner.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Read Schutten's memo on hundreds of planned county layoffs

2009-08-26T21:42:01Z

The Sacramento Press is publishing a memo from County Executive Terry Schutten on hundreds of new planned layoffs for county employees. Read Schutten's Aug. 24 memo to county employees here.

The county’s latest general fund deficit figure is $54.5 million. Plus, $7.8 million will need to be cut because building activity is poor, Schutten wrote.

The county is planning to cut 360 positions Sept. 27. In addition, county officials are proposing to cut 16 hours per month from the workload of county employees who are represented by unions. The cuts in work hours are proposed to start Nov. 8.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Budget Update: City layoffs to occur in about two weeks

2009-06-17T20:59:59Z

The City Council has changed its original plan to lay off 168 workers Friday, and now layoffs are expected to take place in about two weeks, according to acting city spokeswoman Wendy Klock-Johnson.

The number of layoffs is in flux and may soon change depending on negotiations with five city unions.

On Tuesday, the city adopted its 2009/2010 fiscal year budget and closed out a gap of more than $43 million. The budget that was approved comes with major cuts to city services. Changes to the budget will be amendments because the budget has been adopted.

City officials continued to say Tuesday that many cuts and layoffs could be averted if the unions make concessions.

Negotiations between city managers and Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522 continue to be controversial. The City Council did not approve the latest agreement with the firefighters’ union, Klock-Johnson said.

The layoff dates are being extended to allow the city more time to come to concessions with unions, she said. The city is lengthening the deadline for layoffs to all 168 workers, including those who are not represented by unions.

City employees receive pink slips, 168 possible layoffs

2009-06-03T04:54:26Z

A number of city employees received pink slips Monday that said their last day of work would be June 19. Though 168 workers received the layoff letters, city officials said the number of potential layoffs would go down if unions make concessions.

The city is planning layoffs and cuts to services to address a budget deficit of more than $43 million.

Sacramento began its budget planning for the 2009/2010 fiscal year with a $50 million deficit. The deficit figure dropped to $43.6 million in March after the Sacramento Police Officers Association made concessions on pay increases, said Gus Vina, an assistant city manager.

The firefighters’ union, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522, made a tentative deal with the city on Friday. Union members will vote this week to decide whether to approve the deal, which would cut their scheduled pay increases. The city plans to slash 50 positions in the fire department if the union does not accept the agreement.

Another major union, Stationary Engineers Local 39, is in negotiations with the city.

“We have not cracked that wide open,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said Tuesday, referring to the status of the city’s negotiations with Local 39. He said that if the firefighters’ agreement is approved, the city would be in “much stronger position” with Local 39.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City: Layoffs to occur even with union concessions

2009-05-08T00:51:04Z

City management will still need to lay off staff even if all of its unions make concessions, according to the city’s finance director.

Sacramento Finance Director Leyne Milstein said she could not say how many layoffs would be needed if all the unions make concessions. That’s because the City Council will make the final decisions on cuts to services and programs, Milstein said.

Concessions from the unions will not create enough savings to avoid layoffs, Milstein said.

The city’s proposed budget aims to resolve a $50 million deficit.

If the unions do not make concessions, city management plans to lay off 189 city employees.

At its May 19 meeting, the City Council will address the proposed budget.

The city is in negotiations with its unions, which include the firefighters’ union, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522, and the Stationary Engineers Local 39. Sacramento government has eight labor unions.

The Sacramento Police Officers Association is the lone union at this time that has made concessions.

New layoffs at The Bee: Who?

2009-03-09T22:49:48Z

Just one work day after union members voted to accept wage cuts and layoffs to postpone even more cuts, The Sacramento Bee started laying off some 128 employees in editorial and other departments Monday morning.

Among the names of those getting pink slips today were pop music writer Rachel Leibrock and sports writer Martin McNeal, as well as general assignment reporters Ramon Coronado, Melissa Nix, Walt Yost, sports writer Scott Howard-Cooper, and photographers Brian Baer and Florence Low. And for virtually the first time since the paper started shedding positions nearly three years ago, there were editors among the casualties.

Also leaving are IT wunderkind and newsroom gadfly Marco Smolich, and longtime newsroom aide George Costenbader.

Coming after the departures of some 65 newsroom employees over the last year through buyouts and attrition, the layoffs further weaken The Bee's news-gathering operation, bringing the editorial staff down to 190.

A number of positions are also being eliminated in advertising and the classified call center, as well as a graphic artist, an ad assistant and three people in the IT department. Other jobs in the packaging center are also being eliminated.

Early waves of departures have come over the last three years, after buy-out packages were offered to a range of names such as Bob Sylva, R.E. Graswich, Janet Fullwood and other name writers. The cuts have accelerated in the past year: The Bee's Dale Kasler reported today that the paper has cut 301 jobs since last June, about a quarter of its staff. But unlike earlier rounds, this one featured little to soften the blow.

There could have been even more layoffs, if the Guild members hadn't voted to accept the company's latest conditions: 3 to 6 percent salary cuts, and a week's unpaid furlough, and freezes in pension contributions and 401k matching contributions. Accepting those conditions allowed management to keep 19 other employees on, at least for now.

According to today's Bee, the news department is losing 29 union and non-union workers, or nearly 13 percent. That brings the total of newsroom jobs shed over the last year to about a quarter of the original 250 employees. Parent company McClatchy is laying off 1600 employees, or 15 percent of its work force.

There's no guarantee that this will be the end. With McClatchy's stock under fifty cents a share today (down from a high of $77), the future of the company looks bleak.

It could have been worse. The Rocky Mountain News recently stopped publishing entirely, and both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the San Francisco Chronicle are apparently weeks or even days away from doing the same.

Ed Fletcher, a Bee reporter and shop steward for the Newspaper Guild's unit at the paper, said in an email that he didn't want to release the names of those being laid off yet, out of respect for their feelings.

But because they are, many of them, public figures whose departure is a loss to Sacramento, their names should be mentioned. So here, pieced together from different sources, is a list of the names of people said to be laid off today at The Sacramento Bee. If you heard other, or different, names, please comment below. Note that these are only half of the people being let go today.

Melissa Nix

Martin McNeal

Quwan Spears

Brian Baer

Florence Low

Rachel Leibrock

Terry Dvorak

Walt Yost

George Costenbader

Yvonne McKinney

Robert Faturechi

Scott Howard-Cooper

Rachael Bogert

Marco Smolich

Debbie Meredith

Chad Jones

Jennifer Morita

Ramon Coronado

"Grim" layoff news at The Sacramento Bee

2009-02-12T23:53:48Z

The bloodletting at the Sacramento Bee is about to get much worse.

According to an email sent out to Newspaper Guild members at the paper, a meeting this morning that was supposed to wrap up current bargaining got very ugly, very quickly.

After the meeting, Guild representative Wendy Mejia posted the following email (written by reporter Jim Wasserman) to Guild members, printed below in its entirety:

Sacramento Bee employees should expect a serious wave of layoffs in early March, as well as other cost-cutting measures now being considered, including wage cuts and mandatory furloughs as McClatchy Newspapers’ financial crisis worsens, company representatives told the Guild’s bargaining committee in a 90-minute session Thursday.

The company said all options are being considered, but that layoffs would occur in quantities to trigger a federal WARN Act notification by The Sacramento Bee – required when a company does mass layoffs. (More information on WARN: www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm)

“We need to reduce very quickly,” said The Bee’s Human Resources Director, Linda Brooks. “I don’t want to lead anyone astray. That number is going to be big.”

She provided no specific numbers, no financial target, no dollar figure. Brooks said in an on-the-record bargaining session that the company is still working on all manner of ways to cut costs, from fewer pages to fewer employees.

Mandatory furloughs are being considered possibly for the second quarter of 2009. And wage cuts being considered run from the publisher on down, the company said.

“The newspaper industry is in a depression and this company is part of it,” said company attorney Bob Ford. He said all of McClatchy’s newspapers are making similar plans to cut costs as the firm’s revenue picture deteriorates faster than projected even weeks ago. He said the layoffs would be on a scale exceeding anything before seen at the Sacramento operation.

The company said nothing is likely to happen before Friday, Feb. 27. The company and the Guild, which represents 268 of The Bee’s 1,126 full- and part-time staffers, have scheduled a session at which The Bee will formally propose cost-cutting measures. Our bargaining committee was told in no uncertain terms that our rejection of any or all of those measures – such as potential wage cuts or furloughs – would lead only to more layoffs.

Company representatives said layoffs under the WARN Act provisions will come with the following provisions:
- 60 days of continued employment following the layoff notification. Medical coverage continues.
- Accumulation of severance pay, two weeks per year of service to a maximum of 40 weeks.
- Accrued vacation continues during the 60-day period. Medical benefits would continue for three additional months after layoff under COBRA, and possibly longer, said Brooks.
- The company will also bring in EAP counselors and financial advisers to help laid-off staffers plan a strategy. It will also offer people use of company computers to apply to the Employment Development Department. Others will be brought in to help people through the process of applying for state jobs.

Brooks said criteria to determine layoffs consists of three things, and that preliminary planning has already been done. Criteria include skills, performance and tenure. In the case of a tie breaker, tenure wins.

Prized newsroom skills, said Brooks, include expertise in investigative reporting, databases, mapping tools and freedom of information requests.

McClatchy Newspapers had previously announced that it intends to trim $100 million to $110 million in costs soon. Former VP for News, Howard Weaver, said just weeks ago that all the chain’s newspapers are making money. But the company is carrying approximately $2 billion in debt from its 2006 acquisition of the Knight Ridder chain and earnings are falling.

Bee Guild President Ed Fletcher was told that the company will consider offering voluntary buyouts if it gets names very soon of volunteers. Bob Ford offered no guarantees on that front, but acknowledged that it could be helpful in reducing the numbers of layoffs.

“We don’t need a feel for it,” he said. “We need names.”

Brooks said that people who ask for buyouts will not be targeted for layoffs, having indicated their interest.

Fletcher, and bargaining committee members Cindy Taylor of advertising, and Walt Yost and Jim Wasserman of editorial, asked numerous questions to pin down more details. Guild representatives Linda Frediani and Wendy Mejia also participated. We were told that each 1 percent wage cut among bargaining unit members would save approximately $140,000 to $160,000 – approximately three jobs.

The paper is also exploring ways to use fewer print pages – each fewer page printed daily saving about $52,000 a year. We asked about voluntary furloughs and expressed the willingness of our members to take them. Those are in the mix, we were told. It takes approximately 52 people taking one week off per year to save one job.

In short, this session was grim. It has come to this after a long, gradually-building slump in the housing sector and larger economy.

This session was scheduled to discuss the continuing question of a pension freeze. That fell to the sidelines. We were once again told very bluntly that the company believes it has the legal power to freeze pensions and that any expenses it has to pay if the Guild challenges it on the question will result in more layoffs. That freeze is scheduled to take effect March 31, but remains on the bargaining table.

To summarize, it appears, unfortunately, that a business many of us love, a newspaper that many of us have spent years climbing toward, is caught up very badly in America's economic crisis. We are being told to prepare for an extraordinary and painful journey in coming weeks. The company has promised to send us details as they have them. We promise to do the same.

Wendy Mejia, Local Representative
California Media Workers Guild

2009 Starts At The End For Some

2009-02-02T15:27:04Z

Hope was in the air across the nation on January 20th as Barack Obama was being sworn in as our 44th President. Fear, anxiety, and panic was in the minds and hearts of many of those working in the Sacramento Clear Channel building that very same day.

It wasn't an ordinary day for those driving to the Ethan Way broadcast facility. You see, Clear Channel, owner and operator of over 1,000 radio stations nationwide, had previously announced a massive restructuring that would cut their work force by 9%, or 1,850 employees. But who would be shown the door? Sales staff; on-air personalities; management? How about a mix of everything.

Bruce Maiman, the popular host of "Sacramento's Only Local Talk At Night", as KFBK-AM (News Talk 1530) branded it, was one of the casualties. Bruce is a great broadcaster, and probably one of the few genuine hosts that Sacramento talk radio has seen in a long time. You could hear his passion every night as he made his listeners really think with phone call-in topics such as: What is one thing the government would have to do to cause you to go up in arms against your country?

If that doesn't make you think, there may not be much hope for you.

Insiders tell me Maiman's slot is going to be filled by a "best of" Armstrong & Getty from sister station KSTE-AM (Talk 650). (Edit : This report has been confirmed by industry trade magazine, AllAccess)

News Director Drew Sandsor was another victim that will be restructuring his life. As the News Director he oversaw the news staff of anchors and reporters. KFBK has been a market leader for many years so it is safe to say that Sandsor was a valuable asset to the team.

With Clear Channel also owning the 2nd highest-rated News/Talk station in the market, KSTE-AM, there isn't a lot of hope for Maiman or Sandsor, unless they seek another role in the radio industry in Sacramento.

In addition to these two talented staffers it is estimated that approximately half a dozen Account Executives (sales people) were also released; Yes, commission-only employees even saw the boot.

Clear Channel Gets Jacked

On December 15th of last year Clear Channel announced a trade deal with CBS radio (locally owns KSFM-FM 102.5, KYMX-FM Mix 96.1, KZZO-FM 100.5 The Zone, KNCI-FM Country 105.1, KQJK-FM 93.7 Jack FM and KHTK-AM Sports 1140). This agreement would give CBS two of Clear Channel's Houston, TX stations, and would give Clear Channel five of CBS' stations, including KQJK-FM.

This swap is still awaiting regulatory approval, but is expected to be allowed.

It has raised question about whether or not Clear Channel will keep the current "Jack FM" branded format of "Playing What We Want." Clear Channel is not a company that usually licenses brands and formats (which is how CBS uses the JACK-FM name and likeness), but this deal could make KQJK one of the most profitable in the Clear Channel Sacramento cluster.

Whoever Invented Baseball On Oldies Radio Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves

It has been long-rumored, but is now expected, that Oldies KCCL-FM (92.1 K-Hits) would be signing for another year as the flagship station for the Sacramento Rivercats. A source from within the Rivercats organization told me, "It is very likely that our team will be heard on 92.1 again, and management is very excited about it."

A phone call to KCCL's offices for confirmation went unreturned.

Ratings For Fall 2008

Radio ratings for Fall 2008 (October-December) were released two weeks ago. The top ten stations with persons ages 12 and older are as follows:

KFBK-AM, KSTE-AM, KDND-FM (107.9 The End), KRXQ-FM (98 Rock), KSFM-FM, KSSJ-FM (Smooth Jazz 94.7), KNCI-FM, KYMX-FM, KSEG-FM (96.9 The Eagle), KHYL-FM (V101.1).