Budget Crisis? What Budget Crisis?

"Me Too" Clause Increases Pay For City Hall Managers

Managers at City Hall have declared that city-wide budget cuts, made in the wake of the June budget battle should come from somewhere other than their salaries the Tattler has learned. Tucked inside a July 20 memo, penned by Assistant City Manager Delores Turner for the City Council's consideration, is language that would restore the pay (an effective increase) of managers at City Hall. The managers had earlier agreed to a pay cut to help defray the budget crisis.

The memo reports that the Management of Emeryville Services Authority (MESA), a collection of non-union city employees at the management level, has decided to recommend to the City Council to vote to increase their pay at Tuesday night's council meeting. The memo says that if the Service Employee SEIU union member underlings are able to negotiate a lower contribution rate to their retirement, then all the non-union managers will automatically get the same deal, hence the use of the term 'me too'.

The memo falsely justifies this pay increase for top level managers by claiming the managers earn "comparable salaries" to the union employees when the union employee "greater pay provisions (such as overtime compensation)" is considered and so in the interest of 'fairness' they should be let out of the previous pay cut agreement. This argument was made because the SEIU had earlier stated that most employees under its representation don't make enough money to allow a cut in pay owing to the high cost of Bay Area living. The management at City Hall has not made that argument, until now.

A check of the facts shows the pay related claims made by the managers in Ms Turner's letter are incorrect. In 2009, gross pay amounts for all city employees show only two SEIU-represented employees earned more than $88,000 gross (including overtime) while 24 unrepresented employees earned more than that amount. These facts belie the oft claimed unsustainable nature of the city's pension costs being based on the high SEIU employee compensation, the majority of which earn less than $60,000.

Budget Hocus Pocus Revealed

Police Overtime Pay Drastically Cut? Oops, Not.

It seems the pencil pushers at City Hall are wanting to show some progress in the fight to reduce the budget deficit, or perhaps at least give the apearence of a reduction. An Emeryville resident has uncovered what appears to be a fiscal shell game conducted by City Hall meant to highlight a new regime of fiduciary prudence in the city's budget.

Emeryville resident and UC Professor Brian Carver revealed the budgetary legerdemain in a strongly worded May 7th letter to the council. The letter showed the police overtime pay went from $444,274 in 2007-08 to $579,675 in 2008-09. In 2009-10 the 'Estimate to Complete' is $600,000 and a 2010-11 budget (as well as a 2011-12 budget) of $174,000. He pointed out, "Instead of spending the $600,000 we spent over the last year on police overtime, we are budgeting just $174,000, a more than 70% reduction".

"At first glance, this appears to be excellent news" he extolled but added, "The truth is something else entirely". In an entry eerily similar to George Bush's war budgeting tactics, Mr Carver reveals the same budget line shows that in 2009-10, we also budgeted just $174,000 for police overtime and nonetheless ended up over-spending that budgeted amount by more than 244%.

This problem was discussed at the April 16th Finance Committee meeting and the recommendation was made that the Chief of Police be required to return to council and request authorization for additional overtime if the budgeted amount is exceeded in the coming year. Mr Carver points out how this idea is flawed in its implementation, "In October or November when the Police Chief comes to the council and says they have exceeded the budgeted amount for overtime and requests an additional budget allocation, what will the council say? At that point it will be too late and the council will have little choice but to approve the additional overtime".

Police Department personnel have indicated much of the overtime pay can be attributed to just two sources; the Bay Street Mall and Kitty's, a cabaret on Hollis Street near the Berkeley border.

Brian Carver, a professor at the School of Information at UC, lives with his wife and two children in the Triangle neighborhood. He and his wife have long been advocates for the Child Development Center and their children attend the Center.

Budget Shenanigans

Budget Spiral: Stealing From Peter To Pay Paul

The City of Emeryville is robbing the piggy bank again, and it's the 'Low to Moderate Income' housing fund that's taking the hit this time. After years of lavish gifts in the form of massive multi-million dollar subsidies to wealthy developers all over town, it appears our budget is in dire straights now.

The Redevelopment Agency is required to make a payment to a state mandated school fund called the Supplemental Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (SERAF). Proposition 98, passed by California voters in 2008 mandates the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency meet its SERAF obligation of $11,291,592 in Fiscal Year 2009-10. The first payment is due on May 10.

Since the Redevelopment Agency has no unencumbered funds left to make the first required payment, Helen Bean, Emeryville's Directer of Economic Development and Housing has recommended taking the money from the housing fund.

In a May 4th dated memo to the city council, Ms Bean acknowledged "The appropriation of $11.3 million from the Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund will significantly deplete the ability of the Redevelopment Agency to pursue and fund affordable housing projects".

Three impending housing projects are now endangered according to the memo:

• The Avalon project, called by city officials a "family friendly" housing development at the Golden Gate Key site on San Pablo.
• 3900 Adeline, a controversial condo proposal the council recently approved for Madison Park Corporation that involved the demolition of an "architecturally significant" and "historically significant" brick building.
• The recently completed Oak Walk project at San Pablo Avenue and 40th Street, slated to be converted to low and moderate housing after the developer, BayRock Development pulled the plug on their initial condo development agreement with the city. After the market tanked, BayRock convinced the city to pony up $3 million for the conversion from market rate housing to low and moderate. This developer stated the project would become "blight" if the city didn't pay $3 million for the conversion.

The city council will decide this issue on Tuesday May 4th at 7:15 PM at City Hall.

History of YMCA Complaints Raise Questions About Child Safety Should it Take Over ECDC

City Looks At Turning Over School To Berkeley YMCA

By Brian Donahue

Facing a budget deficit, city officials hope to farm out the care of local toddlers to an outfit with a solid reputation that doesn't match reality.
According to critics, the Berkeley/Albany YMCA is an irresponsible, corner cutting daycare operator that has amassed a litany of complaints. The city has fast tracked "outsourcing" as a way to make the Child Development Center pay for itself. Parents and residents have been chagrined by a refusal to consider other options. Many have noted that the city doesn't seem to want to entertain any idea other than immediate outsourcing. The Berkeley/Albany YMCA has stepped into the breach and has been championed as the best operator to take over running the Center, which the City has run since 1979.

In the rush to outsource, the city takes as a given that the YMCA would be just as qualified to run our Child Center as the City itself despite that outsourcing removes accountability to the parents and taxpayers who are footing the bill.

Emeryville resident Brian Carver, a parent of a child at ECDC and a professor at the School of Information at U.C. Berkeley, has noted the city's failure to quantify how outsourcing will affect child welfare. Mr. Carver, after researching the Berkeley/Albany YMCA's record, released a letter showing Emeryville parents and residents the litany of problems at the existing Berkeley/Albany YMCA. Here are some highlights from the letter:

April 6, 2010

Members of the City Council,

As you know, parents of children at the Emeryville Child Development Center (ECDC) have been in discussions with the City Council and City staff to oppose the idea of turning over operations of ECDC to a private provider since parents were informed of this possibility in late December 2009.

ECDC parents were told at a March 25, 2010 meeting that the City Manager currently intends to recommend that the City move ahead with a plan to turn over the ECDC facility to the Berkeley- Albany YMCA.

Until now we have largely opposed this move due to the harm that would come from firing all the excellent teachers at ECDC, many of whom we believe would be unwilling or unable to accept a position with the YMCA—if offered—due either to the lower pay and benefits or to the speed with which certain educational requirements would be mandated. However, we now write to inform you of some facts—surprising to us—that suggest that the very safety and well-being of Emeryville's children may be seriously jeopardized by such a change.

Accompanying this letter are copies of public documents retrieved from the California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division (CCL). The documents detail a pattern of substantiated complaints and other cited deficiencies at the Berkeley-Albany YMCA's local facilities. The deficiencies cited range from minor lapses to the truly horrifying. To summarize a few that give us the greatest concern:

● An incident in which a 3-year-old walked out of the Ocean View facility unnoticed by staff and was discovered by a stranger down the street and later returned to the facility by Berkeley Police. (pp 75-76).

● An incident in which a teacher at the Berkeley YMCA 10th St. facility used a threatening voice and caused a child to urinate in their pants. (pp. 46-51).

● A report of a director withholding her attention from a child as a form of punishment and proceeding to ignore the child for an extended period of time. (pp. 39-40).

● An incident in which a teacher at the South YMCA location hit a child in the back of the head during circle time to get the child's attention. (pp. 27-28).

It boggles the mind to entertain the thought that a parent might go to pick up their child and find that the center's staff has lost their child. However, what we believe the accompanying documents reveal is not an unfortunate string of individually horrifying incidents, but rather a systemic unwillingness or inability to operate child care centers within the licensing framework established by California law.

To view Mr. Carver's research and analysis on the subject in its entirety, visit
http://bit.ly/baymca (94 pages of public documents from CCL).
and
http://bit.ly/ecdctr (15 pages of public documents from CCL).