Question: How do you spell Emeryville?
Answer: B-E-L-L
Emeryville's City Manager, Pat O'Keeffe and the City Attorney, Mike Biddle are both negotiating new two year contracts with the city. The City Council will consider the new contracts Tuesday night at the council meeting. Presented below are the terms. While reading them remember to think about the recent fiscal emergency at the Child Development Center about how we can't afford to educate our children anymore. Remember how Mr O'Keeffe insisted the parents were "too emotional" when he was trying to outsource and privatize the Center.
Here are their respective contracts in a nutshell:
City Manager's New Two-Year Contract: To be paid: $16,450/month or $197,400 in salary annually. Also paid: $575/month in compensated expenses (car allowance, etc.) plus $900/month into a deferred compensation plan for a total annual pay of: $215,100. 5 weeks of paid vacation per year. 75 hours of administrative leave per year, all of which may be cashed out annually if unused. Note: this cash-out was eliminated for all other employees in the latest budget. Benefits and salary cannot be reduced by the City Council during the term of the agreement. If terminated before the two-year term is up, apparently even if for cause, up to 6 months severance pay, i.e., $107,550. Also cannot be fired in the first 6 months after the election of council members.
City Attorney's New Contract: To be paid: $17,429.67/month or $209,156.04 in salary annually. 5 weeks of vacation per year. Two weeks of administrative leave per year may be cashed out annually, if unused. Note: this cash-out was eliminated for all other employees in the latest budget. Benefits and salary cannot be reduced by the City Council during the term of the agreement. If terminated before the two-year term is up, apparently even if for cause, up to 9 months severance pay, i.e., $156,867.03. Also cannot be fired in the first 4 months after the election of council members.
The most glaring perks are:
1. These two still get to cash out their administrative leave even though all other City employees recently had to give it up to close the budget gap.
2. They both get severance packages over $100k. This is money we have to pay them just to get rid of them!
3. They each get extended job security when a new council takes office. These two get 4 and 6 months "trial period". Apparently, someone new to the Council needs that long to evaluate their performance.
It should be noted that the two contracts are giving up 7% in employee self paid retirement, a concession they agreed to in the wake of the budget implosion, so it's not all bad.
i have commented on this many times, in writing, over the course of the past year to the tattler, to the google group and to jen west as well as the remainder of the council; i have said i think they all should be voted out because they are allowing both okeefe and biddle to renew their contracts routinely without any competition from other individuals or via contracting out the positions to a firm rather than having an indivdual working for the city as a contractor; i have said cost savings/reductions could almost definitely be had, particularly in these times of economic hardship with good people looking for work- and that at the least,this should be investigated by the city; i have said that the performance of both men is not up to par ie city's financial problems lay at the desk of the city mgr ultimately and city attorney works with him. i have said that revenue sources like a marina restaurant are ignored and the realtor/marina operator are skating for years now. i have said that bukowski represents to any would be investor an understandable reluctance to do business with emeryville and should be removed for that reason and as importantly, for his violations of office and campaign rules...
ReplyDeletenow the tattler adds its voice as well...
surely it should be clear by now that only the voters are going to make the needed changes..
the council has not and will not in my view, and certainly the catbird seats will continue to be occupied by okeefe, biddle and those council members who are adequately paid and fed.
The amount of pay and the terms of the contract are pretty standard among Bay Area city managers. I encourage everyone to do a little research and compare other contracts before coming to a judgement. I am not familiar with city attorney contracts and cannot speak to those. This in no way resembles the level of pay (4x higher) or the improprieties in the City of Bell. To imply that it does is an egregious exaggeration.
ReplyDeletethe anonymous soul may be a city mgr relative...city of bell has 40k people, emeryville 10k; if you do the math you will see how the salaries compare proportionately...there is no exaggeration, egregious or otherwise....look at the numbers...
ReplyDeletesaid soul also ignores the performance issue mentioned... buck stops with okeefe.. city has deficit.. he gets to take responsibiity not rationalize matters...
Is it true as I have heard that numbers of police and firemen on Emeryville payroll make around $200,000 a year, and they can retire at age 50 with pensions of full salary (and more with inflation) and benefits for life? Add that to the Center for Community Life and we will be forced to do maximum development. The developers will be in charge. It's not worth it.
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