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Union official offers ‘ground fire from the guys in the cheap seats’
January 8th, 2009, 6:29 am · 3 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
(Read the ‘Class warfare’ story about county benefits first)
Orange County Employees Association General Manager Nick Berardino pored over the county’s benefits spreadsheet (benefits-comparison), and offers “a little ground fire from the guys in the cheap seats” (or, alternately, a view “from the trenches of the lower class in the class war”):
“They left off a big (huge) ticket item…payment for the employees normal retirement costs by the county for the elected, execs, and managers,” Berardino said by email. “Also the management banding which ensures that almost 100 percent get the 2 percent merit increase, where only about half our folks get the merit increase (most are at the top of pay range and were not part of new manager banding).
“The fully paid health insurance is huge for the electeds with families. The fully paid dental etc. is also very big. The real issue is a comparison in the benefits for the plan. We have to use the 30 cents per hour for dental, life, disability and optical. You can imagine that the benefits in those plans can’t be very great because of the limited amount of money to cover all the programs.
“Also they don’t get overtime, but they get an extra week of paid administrative leave that they use for
anything they want in lieu of overtime and their salary is set based on working more hours and not receiving overtime so they get a double.”
Other observations from OCEA:
- General salary increase scheduled for 2009: “Managers 3 percent, Lower class “0″. This stat is extremely significant because we were in negotiation only a few weeks after this increase was granted to the managers and we requested the same amount for 09 and the county refused to grant it for us !!!!!!!”
- Union members get $25,000 worth of life insurance (paid from the 30-cents-per hour, per worker, furnished by the county to pay for all supplemental benefits), while the bigwigs get $100,000 or $125,000 .
- “A manager comes in for a couple of hours and then leaves and does not report the absence so they get paid for 8 hours and there is more time that they are saving to cashout when they leave or during the year when they can …”
- Law Enforcement Managers-Special Assignment Premium of 5 percent.
- Equity Adjustments- The CEO can based upon considerations such as market data, internal salary relationships, position responsibilities, individual performance and sound management principles approve individual salary increases which shall not exceed 25 percent
- The county did not include details about the “defined benefits pension plan” on the spreadsheet. Details are forthcoming.
More Watchdog:
- Class warfare’: Which county workers get best benefits?
- In OC, $41,000 up front for ‘free and fair’ election
- Are elections purposefully avoided at Irvine Ranch Water District?
- Union executive’s paycheck rivals that of county supervisors
- Employee union at center of county tussle saw fortunes rise
- The Pink Slips Cometh
- Did OC Supervisors really need $326,000 remodeling project?
- Horns will lock over county layoffs
- On county layoffs and budgets and crystal balls
- ‘Preferential treatment’ helped military charity’s fortunes to skyrocket
- UCI study: ‘Egregious example of wasteful spending’
- AIG burns through bulk of bailout billions
- Before he was on D.A.’s staff: Spitzer was lawyer for indicted Broadcom billionaire
- Nuclear regulators: Concerns over San Onofre remain
- Generosity waned in OC even as incomes grew, IRS figures show
- Amnesty International: Tasers too lethal for police use
- County workers get 800 job cuts, supervisors get remodels
- Victimized twice? State crime victims program spends oodles on itself
3 Comments
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Nick is being disingenuous here. He is talking about NEGOTIATED benifits, which can not by law be arbitrarily changed while a contract is in effect. OCEA settled for a two year contract while OCMA got a 3 year conttract. That was their choice. So when he cries that we have 3% scheduled for July 09, he is correct, but that is in our contract. What he doesn’t state is that in all likelyhood we will defer it or give it up alltogether come June. OCEA took their 3% in July 07 and another 3% in July 08, which was the final year of their contract. When they had the gall to ask for 3% more in July 09 beyond their contract, the CEO told them no way given the turn of events we all now face.
When he cries that they only get 30 cents an hour to buy additional Health and Welfare benefits for their members, he forgets to mention that adds up to $7.4 million per year paid to OCEA who charges an administrative fee for handling the money and that OCEA, being an insurance company, self deals many of the benefits through their parent company Velice Corp thereby boosting their profit cut even higher. How much of that 30 cents actually gets to your members Nick?
When he says almost all managers get the 2% performance incentive pay, he is right, except that we had already voted to give up 3-5% incentive pay for 70% of all managers in exchange for a lower amount for all managers AT THE REQUEST OF THE CEO and that it saved the county $500K. He also forgets to mention that we just voted to defer the 2%, saving the county another $2 million.
When he mentions retirement, he forgets to mention how OCEA negotiated retroactive retirement benefits for 14,000 members at little to no cost to them and how that created a huge multi-billion unfunded liability for the county and the retirement system.
When he mentions managers coming in for a few hours and then leaving without formally taking time off, he forgets to mention that most managers work beyond 40 hours a week without additional pay, while every 7 minutes of additional work his 14,000 members work add up to 15 minutes of overtime automatically. 22 minutes is 1/2 hour overtime, and so forth.
I could go on and on, but the point is made. Stop quoting Nick without challangeing his “facts” and asking him what he and his get point for point.
Mr. Smith your comment about underlings getting Overtime and working fewer hours than managers is NOT reality-based. I can tell you from personal experience that social workers OFTEN work 10-12 hours a day without getting overtime! Many work through lunch, and are in the office as late as 7pm—
Only the upper crust leaves EARLY without being penalized financially!
Give me a break!!
We need to urgently pass a county-wide measure that controls the pay and perks for all the higher ups working in the County of Orange Government, from the CEO thru the BOS and down to the Adminstrative mangers.
If they don’t think they get paid too much, unlike what the taxpayers believe we need to immediate start a signature drive that controls their compensation and rids them of perks.
There is a special election in early 2009 so lets do it.
I would say given the current economic conditions and all these stories in the OC REgister regarding the pay and perks of these so called public servants, the OC voters would wait in a hour line just to sign a petition to put this measure to the voters.
Let’s do it … All these Water district execs, county execs, BOS need to cut it out the fat and since they are not willing to cut their pay and their fellow cronies, we need to do it.
If they don’t like it, too bad. They all can try their hand in the private sector or file for unemployment.