The Vacaville City Council approved the city’s response to a Solano County Grand Jury report scrutinizing the city’s retirement benefits package, while suggesting the city look into establishing a citizens advisory committee.
On June 25, the grand jury authored a report warning that the city’s Other Post-Employment Benefit (OPEB) package for city retirees was “not sustainable” and would lead to a loss of employees and services to citizens if not addressed.
Among the report’s recommendations were to establish a citizens oversight committee to study OPEB and make recommendations to the council, placing OPEB-related items on the council’s main agenda rather than the consent calendar and directing staff to include the fiscal impact of changes and methodology used in determining the financial impact of OPEB in simpler language.
The city partially disagreed with several of the report’s findings, including the implementation of a citizens oversight committee. The city noted that it was making “steady progress” to address the city’s unfunded liability and such a committee was “not necessary” at the moment.
During the public comment portion, several speakers took issue with the city’s response. Resident Danny Wells delivered a presentation, highlighting the city’s financial status. He cited a report by Sen. John Moorlach which ranked Vacaville in the bottom 10 percent among California’s 482 cities and that Vacaville had only 23 percent of the asset reserves to cover an OPEB liability of $106 million, leaving an unfunded liability of $82 million. He also took issue with the City Council approving an 11 percent pay raise for firefighters.
“The benefits of this is $3.7 million that had not been previously budgeted for this purpose, using essentially all of Measure M funds for the firefighters contract alone in 2023,” he said.
Former Councilman Curtis Hunt saw the grand jury report as “a platform to make real change and come up with public policy.” He subsequently expressed three points: lifetime retired medical benefits for employees and their families was not sustainable, that 85 percent of Kaiser continued to expose the city to major fiscal risk and that memorandums of understanding between labor groups should not be placed on the consent calendar as they have in the past.
“The consent calendar is for items that require little or no discussion (and) are not controversial,” he said of the third point. “Yet, the last two council meetings…you have made efforts to approve a 9 percent increase to police salaries, an 11 percent increase to firefighters in the consent calendar.”
Hunt suggested more time was needed for the city to develop, short-term, long-term and medium strategies.
“Your dismissive response to the grand jury is really poking a bear,” he said. “The next six months, you’ll see whether you’ve poked a teddy bear or whether you’ve poked a grizzly bear.”
George Guynn, past president of the Solano County Taxpayers’ Association, suggested the council take the grand jury’s recommendations into consideration.
“They’re gonna help you get in a position where you don’t have a lot of people trying to peck on you all the time,” he said.
Several speakers suggested the city seriously consider the recommendation of a citizens oversight committee.
“Way too often, things happen in here that the community doesn’t know about until it’s actually happening and they can’t do anything about it,” resident Alice Reed said. “Just listening to people that were here tonight shows that there’s a lot of good, smart people out here that can help you solve this problem.”
Vice Mayor Dilenna Harris agreed with the report that all matters concerning OPEB or MOUs should be on the regular agenda rather than the consent calendar.
“I don’t want to discuss that more,” she said. “I want that to happen.”
Councilman Nolan Sullivan agreed that a citizens oversight committee should be established, containing at least one active retiree, employee and the city treasurer.
“We have a duty to educate and engage the public, and I think this is a great opportunity to do that,” he said.
Councilman Mitch Mashburn said that past councils had worked hard to eliminate OPEB.
“We have to do this through a negotiation process with the employees,” he said. “As Vice Mayor Harris pointed out, that ends up being an expensive proposition.”
Mashburn also corrected the citation of an 11 percent raise for firefighters.
“That’s in totality over four years,” he said. “If we were to look back to 2008 and in totality look at the raises that the employees gave up for the money that they gave back, and what they have gained since then. Our firefighters have gained about 1 percent a year, which doesn’t even keep up with inflation.”
Finally, Mashburn took issue with a citizen-based committee being termed an “oversight committee” because it suggested the committee would have some jurisdiction over OPEB policies.
“I would not be in support of the council surrendering any of its responsibilities or its authority with regard to governance of the policy in regard to OPEB,” he said.
However, Mashburn said he would support a citizens advisory committee to provide suggestions to the council.
“I’m always open to solutions,” he said.
Mayor Ron Rowlett asked City Manager Jeremy Craig if the council would have to go over what an advisory committee would entail. Craig said it could come back as an item at a later council meeting.
The council unanimously voted to accept the response with the suggestion of setting aside time to formulating the methodology of establishing a citizens advisory committee and stipulating that OPEB and MOU items always be placed on the main agenda.
August 28, 2019
TheReporter.com
By Nick Sestanovich
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