Summer usually means a lighter schedule. The August meetings for SamTrans and Caltrain have been cancelled. Next meetings will occur in September

PT Barnum was called the greatest showman ever born.  Often referred to as the “Prince of Humbugs”, Barnum saw nothing wrong in entertainers or vendors using hype (or “humbug“, as he termed it) in promotional material, as long as the public was getting value for money.

Before we get to details about Barnum – let’s start with where we agree: A well-functioning police force is something we all want, need, and should not accept sub-standard service.  San Carlos is a wonderful place to live for many reasons: great schools, the parks people love, the sense of community, our great downtown,  and our safe community. There are many things a city does or contracts for: water treatment is via JPA while the city maintains sewers, garbage and recycling are done via JPA,  major road maintenance is via contract, minor is via city staff and a mountain of other services.

While everyone agrees public safety is a high priority – we are engaged in a debate on how this service is delivered.  Some claim any change from the way we deliver safety services today will be negative.  We are in a process of determining those issues and the consequences (positive and negative) if the service model is changed.  Change is always hard and is questioned. But in a time of scarce funding, it must be examined closely.

While folks are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.  Let’s review a few:

FACT: The city is enduring revenue shortfalls and has been cutting the budget for the last 10 years
FACT: The city dipped into reserves last year to allow voters a chance to increase revenues
FACT: The city reserves are nearly depleted
FACT: Four times, the voters have had revenue measures placed before them which were rejected. (2003-2009, 6 years).  Is it fair to repeatedly ask? Or should we just acknowledge the question has been asked – and clearly answered?
FACT: The cost of MAINTAINING our police force at current levels has grown significantly
FACT: San Carlos has a hard time retraining/recruiting police officers because the compensation is lower than neighboring jurisdictions.

I am continually asked by concerned community members, “I live within my means, why can’t the city?”

If your home is too expensive, you look for something less expensive.  If your car costs too much to drive, you look for something else.  While the notion of mandates (and especially unfunded mandates) is a topic for later discussion, most will agree just about everything costs more than it did yesterday.  Gas costs more, electricity costs more, health insurance costs more, pensions cost more, and employees cost more.  As a city we are doing more than we did previously, and thanks to mandates passed by both state and federal governments, we do them with no added funds to cover the costs.

How can the city spend money it doesn’t have?

Simply put, we can’t.  This council is taking strong action to bring reason to the city’s spending.

I have stated consistently there can be no sacred cows when we look at our budget.

There are real concerns of moving to a contract services for police which need detailed answers  – that’s why we have hired outside help to craft our requirements for what an appropriate service would be.  I encourage those with legitimate questions to ask them and recognize there is a process underway to ensure all those questions will be answered.  San Carlos has a special sense of community which should be maintained in the best possible form we can afford.

There are a few folks who have stated through a proposed ballot initiative: regardless of cost, don’t touch anything! To be clear, this group has neither offered any way to pay for services nor will they.  Their slogans are based in fear and their solutions are based on thin air.  Even Barnum would be ashamed of these tactics.

Folks will argue about how services should be delivered.  Three members of our community intend to put the following language on the ballot (Emphasis added to several points), with no idea how to pay for it:

PRIORITIZING PUBLIC SAFETY. The residents of San Carlos declare that City Government’s top priority is to provide the best level of public safety service possible. To better achieve such level of service, upon passage of this measure and thereafter, the City of San Carlos shall maintain police staffing, at a minimum, consistent with previously maintained levels.

“Police Officer” shall be defined as full-time sworn police positions and shall not include temporary or contract employees.

The San Carlos Police Department’s budgeted positions shall not fall below the level it was budgeted for in fiscal year 2001-2002, nor shall the City contract out with any entity, public or private, for general police services, without prior voter approval. If prior to passage of this measure, the City contracts out general police services, upon passage of this measure the City’s Police Department shall be reinstated and any police employees that were laid off due to contracting out services shall be immediately reinstated with back pay and benefits. Nothing in this section shall preclude the City from contracting for specialized police services with other law enforcement agencies or entering into mutual aid agreements with other law enforcement agencies. The City shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that the budgeted positions describe above are filled at all times by qualified full-time police officers.

In order to ensure that the City does not hire sub-standard police officers to simply meet the required staffing threshold, the full-time police officers employed by the City shall be compensated in salary and benefits, at a minimum, at the average of the local police market. To determine the “average.” a survey of salary and benefits of all other cities in San Mateo County that have a municipal police department shall be used unless another list of cities is agreed upon by the City and San Carlos Police Officers Association. The survey and any resulting compensation adjustments shall be done annually in August of each year.

1. Best Levels: How do “they” want “us” to pay for it? They have no idea. Everyone likely wants to drive a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari.  After all, those are the “best.”  By the same token, most folks don’t drive the cheapest thing like a used Yugo.  Most of us get a vehicle which fits our needs and our budget.  The same common sense needs to apply to services our city offers.

Some have pushed the notion of a military lock-down of the city with cameras everywhere, more surveillance and a loss of privacy and liberty.  Others would have you believe the council would turn public safety over to a former security guard from the mall.  Neither of these are the solution for San Carlos.

But the folks pushing this initiative want the best, no matter the cost and whatever the expense to other mandates and programs.

2. Staffing Levels: How do “they” want “us” to pay for it? They have no idea.The effects of adding officers, adding dispatch and adding positions would (with a back-of-the-envelope) take the City’s General Fund Budget Deficit from $3.5 Million per year to $5.5 to $6.5 Million per year.  How do you pay for this?  According to one of the people pushing this initiative:

Castle acknowledged the initiative has no funding for the increased spending on staff and salaries. (cite)

So while those pushing the ballot text acknowledge this will cost more money, how do “they” want “us” to pay for it?  They have no idea.   Point of history:  San Carlos has voted on four revenue measures to pay for services – and rejected all four.  OK – so they want a Rolls Royce, they have no idea how to pay for it, but that is not a problem?  Seriously, the intent is to push staffing to the heights of the Dotcom boom?

3. “Average” Salary & Benefits: How do “they” want “us” to pay for it? They have no idea. The “average” of the market the measure’s annual salary survey of all Police Departments means will get a significant raise now and a raise every year.  Two tier benefits?  Nope.  San Carlos is one of the few towns in the state where this exists – the “average” is paying much more.  Ignore the work which has been done to reign in a number of costs for benefits – this measure trashes that work.

One can appreciate folks are passionate about the issues.  I am fighting to keep San Carlos out of  Chapter 11.  There are those pushing this ballot text who want to continue to live beyond their means.  The folks of San Carlos are smarter than that…

June 2:  Caltrain JPB

June 4: San Carlos Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Meeting

June 9: SamTrans Board of Directors

June 9: SFO Airport Roundtable

There have been a number of folks talking about “Span of Control” and asserting the city is top heavy. While questions of overhead are appropriate – one should have all the data. Please read the analysis below:

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The primary flaw in (the “span of control”) analysis is one starts with an incorrect assumption of the nature of the work being performed by employees in the “management” group. The problem is compounding with the common misunderstanding of the legal differences between various types of employees and the work they perform.

All the employees in the management group are considered Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempt under the law which means they can not earn overtime. This is the only common theme running through the group as there are many employees in the group who do not supervise even a single employee. They are all considered professional employees and FLSA exempt.

Our management group would better be described as a group of unrepresented (non-union) professional employees. In a city as small and lightly staffed as San Carlos there have always been and will always be the need to perform professional work. Employees in this group have neither sole nor even primary responsibility it is to supervise. Because San Carlos just doesn’t have many employees, Department Heads spend the majority of their time performing professional level work as opposed to performing an oversight or supervisory functions. The premise of “span of control” is therefore flawed as the management employees are every bit as much “worker bees” as other employees.

Secondly, FLSA exempt employees, (members of the management group)  typically have greater skill and experience in all aspects of the work being performed in a Department, the law provides the city flexibility in allowing the city to ask those employees to perform other functions which may normally be performed by front line employees (represented employees). The law does not allow for the reverse without additional compensation to (work out of class) and ultimately reclassification of the employee to the higher level.

In other words, FLSA exempt employees can be employed by the City more flexibly under the law. If we cut a professional, unrepresented position the work does not normally go away. If the city assigns that work to lower level staff, the city would have to provide additional compensation. If the arrangement becomes permanent then the city would be legally obligated to promote that person to the appropriate job classification. And the carosel goes round and round as we would be right back where we started from.

The “Span of Control” assertion of the city cutting significantly more front line staff than management staff in the proposed budget is incorrect. When one takes out the parks maintenance outsourcing option the cuts are fairly evenly distributed across all the employee groups. There are far more represented employees in the City than “management”.

the published ratio approach is just dead wrong and is producing results that are neither accurate nor at all enlightening to the situation facing the Council.