BY SARA TABIN
Daily Post Staff Writers
At a time when many people are being laid off or having their salaries cut, Mountain View city employees are in line to get raises.
City Council will review new one-year agreements with the city’s unions at Tuesday’s (April 28) meeting. City Manager Kimbra McCarthy said in a memo to council that members of the EAGLES and SEIU unions, which represent most city workers besides firefighters and police, will be getting 3% raises next year under the new agreements. Department heads would also get the raises but council-appointed employees including McCarthy would not. The raises would start June 28.
Police and firefighters would get a 4% raise. Police employees who don’t wear badges, mainly office workers, would get 3%.
Department heads would get 3%.
Under the current salaries, an account clerk, represented by the SEIU union, makes about $68,219 before benefits. An SEIU code enforcement officer makes $101,257 before benefits. A library assistant, represented by the EAGLES union, makes about $66,556 before benefits while a wastewater supervisor makes $120,812 and a transportation manager makes $157,752. The public works director makes $233,650.
The memo says the city has a broad enough revenue base to weather the current financial problems caused by the COVID-19 shutdown.
Raises set in Palo Alto too
Palo Alto union workers are also up for raises on July 1 because of contracts negotiated previously. SEIU will get a 2% bump that will cost the city $1.2 million.
The police union will get a 3% raise at a cost of $2.2 million. And firefighters will get a 3% hike at a cost of $1.4 million. Palo Alto is anticipating a $20 million loss to its budget by the end of June because of the economic slow down caused by the stay-at-home order and is looking at what programs will be cut next year.
I’ll remember this when it comes time to vote for city council in November.
This is insane! Just the other day Stanford Healthcare announced 20% pay cut for employees who are working everyday in hospital facing grave dangers 🙁 Cities should put these raises on hold until economy opens up and City collects enough taxes to be extravagant again!
Lucky to be a City employee.
Funny that this is considered news. Unionized employees had a labor agreement with the city for the raise way prior to the pandemic (as they do every year).The only difference is that the members finally voted to accept the agreement so it will be taking effect in June.
In the meantime large corporations are furloughing or laying off their employees while accepting Federal Pandemic funds but obviously that is ok.
@Union Employee complains that “large corporations” are laying off employees while receiving federal pandemic funds. I’m not sure what that has to do with union employees getting raises paid for by local taxpayers. But @Union Employee misstates how the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program works. It requires businesses to use the money they get to maintain their payroll. If they layoff employees, they have to pay back some or all of the money. Since @Union Employee either doesn’t understand the program or intentionally lied about it, here’s a link that should clarify things: https://taxfoundation.org/sba-paycheck-protection-program-cares-act/
The issue of whether unionized city employees should get raises is something reasonable people can differ on, but it’s not helpful to make up false information.