The following were questions asked at the meeting by members to OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino: Q: Will there be layoffs? A: As it stands today, the County has said that the current five percent across-the-board department cut will not result in layoffs. OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino (right) and legislative advocate Steve Baker address the crowd on how the state budget may affect OC.
Q: What does the County want to do to employee earnings and benefits?
COUNTY BUDGET
A: The County always wants to reduce compensation. They have already approached OCEA and our response is simple — as soon as executives and managers catch up to what we’ve already done, we’ll consider other proposals. You can’t continue to make working people carry the County on their backs when executives and managers don’t contribute a fair share toward their pensions.
• The County’s five-year budget plan calls for a hard hiring freeze and 5 percent budget cuts from all general fund departments in an effort to cut $100 million over the next five years. • The plan also includes proposals to reduce salaries, limit step increases and annual leave payouts, and potential changes to your pension benefits. The County acknowledges that many of these proposals would require labor negotiations and legislative changes, and that could result in legal challenges. • If County executives, managers and elected officials gave up their perks and started contributing the employee contributions for their pensions, the County would save about $20 million.
And remember, our average pension is $29,000 per year. We get no Social Security. And we pay the entire employee contribution plus a portion of the employer contribution. Q: How did the board and executives get in the position to give themselves raises? A: They allowed an 18-month, five percent voluntary pay cut to sunset in January.
YOUR PENSION • The hybrid pension plan is now available for new employees. We continue to work with the U.S. Department of Treasury to obtain a ruling that existing employees will have a one-time option to select the new pension plan, and we are cautiously optimistic of a positive response within a short time. • One or more County Supervisors want to go beyond the significant changes we have already agreed to. Based on their public comments, they plan to continue their attack on public employees by seeking to further reduce pensions for existing employees. There are also groups who have talked of putting a measure restricting public employee pensions on the ballot. There is no doubt that these next few years will continue to be challenging for public employees. Many of the proposals to cut budgets and benefits will likely occur. The only way for us to protect your family’s security and the critical work you do is if we remain unified through these difficult times. Please continue to stay informed through our website, www.oceamember.org, and by following our page at www. facebook.com/oceamember. Together, we will continue to lead our County through these challenges and see a better day.
Q: If an amendment to the State Constitution were passed regarding pension formulas, what could it do? A: We don’t know because there isn’t any current proposal that has qualified. However, one concept being talked about would permit elected bodies to change a current employee’s pension formula. The change would still be subject to collective bargaining, but the elected body would be given authority to implement changes if they don’t reach a deal with the union. It is important to note that any attempt to unilaterally change current employee pensions would result in lengthy litigation which would then go through a lengthy appeals process. It would likely be many years before such an action would effect employees, even if challenges to it ultimately proved unsuccessful. Q: County workers have not been given raises, and have seen furloughs and endured layoffs. Why not strike? A: We can march, we can go to the board of
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OCEA EMPLOYEE
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