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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

The first item on the Glendale city council workshop session of Jan. 7, 2014 was a legislative update.  Council’s interest was in making a run on the state legislature to adopt a mechanism to reimburse host cities for major events. Reimbursement could be applied to anything major such as the Barrett Jackson Auto Show or a major NBA tournament. It’s an idea long overdue.  From the time Glendale hosted its first Super Bowl and lost money doing so, I have continually pressed for such action. Even in discussions with the Host Committee regarding Glendale’s second hosting of a Super Bowl their reaction in pursuing such legislation was tepid. In the past 7 years there has been no interest, except in Glendale, to create such a mechanism. Glendale’s Intergovernmental Director, Brent Stoddard, continues to sound less than enthusiastic about its successful adoption by the state legislature in direct contrast to Mayor Weiers who said several times that he was “optimistic” that this would be the year for such successful legislation to be adopted. I would prefer to believe that this is the year for its adoption. Let’s hope they suceed in obtaining some kind of legislation to remedy this situation. Glendale simply cannot afford to host events that, in fact, benefit the entire state.

That leads to something that the TV media has been reporting lately. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has filed a bill to end the tax exemption status of the NFL (granted in the 1940’s) on grounds that Americans are subsidizing a for-profit sports league. The NFL’s non-profit status was something I had highlighted in one of my blogs several months ago. Many were surprised to learn that it had a non-profit status.

Coburn’s bill, the Properly Reducing Overexemptions for Sports Act (PRO Sports Act), would do away with the tax break currently enjoyed by the league offices of the National Football League, the National Hockey League, golf’s PGA Tour, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association have voluntarily given up their nonprofit status. Coburn has argued that if all the professional league offices were denied this exemption, Americans could recapture the estimated $91 million that goes each year for the subsidy. There is a group called the Rootstrikers, (http://www.rootstrikers.org), created in 2011 by Harvard law school professor Lawrence Lessig and political activist Joe Trippi to fight political corruption. They want to give momentum to this issue and have started an online petition to support Coburn’s bill. If you feel so inclined, check it out.

It is estimated that the NFL realizes $9 billion dollars annually and their top executives earn more than most corporate CEOs. For example, the NFL’s CEO is paid $30 million dollars a year. With that kind of revenue the NFL is a gorilla when it comes to congressional lobbying. In recent years it spent nearly $4 million dollars and at the same time contributed nearly $2 million dollars to congressional campaigns. It has a lot of clout and Senator Coburn will have an uphill battle to get his bill passed successfully.

Later today we’ll take a look at other council discussions at its recent workshop: one on municipal marketing and one on organizational restructuring.

© Joyce Clark, 2014

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On the November 26, 2013 City Council meeting agenda was Item 23, an ordinance revising employee unclassified and classified positions as well as a revision of Human Resources Policies 201, 513 and 514. It was an item that council tabled and directed to be brought to a workshop — as well they should have.

As Councilmember Martinez stated there had been no review or discussion of this item prior to its appearance as an ordinance that night. City Manager Brenda Fischer took full responsibility for not bringing it to council prior to the vote. She should have. This ordinance, if approved, will be a blatant and naked accrual of more power to the City Manager and a diminishment of employee rights. Instead of former City Manager Ed Beasley’s “iron fist” we now have current City Manager Brenda Fischer’s “velvet glove.”

If I were a city employee I would be concerned. Currently the “at-will” employees are:

  •  City Manager                        1
  •  City Clerk                             1
  •  City Attorney                        1
  •  City Judge                            1
  •  Assistant City Judges             5 estimated

Under the proposal add:

  • Assistant and Deputy City Manager level positions
  • All department Director/Assistant Department Director level positions
  • All employees, exempt and non-exempt, assigned to positions in the legal department (includes City Attorney’s office and Prosecutor’s office);                            
  •  assigned to positions in the City Clerk’s office;                                        
  •  assigned to positions in the Mayor’s and City Council offices;
  •  and all classified employees in their introductory or probationary period of employment.

Under the current system reflected in the FY 2013 budget there are approximately 9 positions (estimate of number of assistant city judges is 5) that are unclassified and are considered as at-will. Under the proposed “velvet glove” system the number grows to approximately 120 positions. That number does not include “all classified employees in their introductory or probationary period of employment.” My math can be shaky but it appears to be a 1,000% increase planned in the number of at-will employees and that does not include probationary employees.

What are the differences between classified and unclassified employees? The major distinction is that unclassified employees have no right of appeal or right of grievance should they be fired. There does not have to be a “cause” to terminate. Consider them to be contract employees. There is no permanence or stability associated with the job. They are salaried employees who earn no overtime pay. There is no annual merit or “step” increase. Rather increases are based upon performance and productivity.

Retirement “vesting” and benefits can be different between the two systems. Unclassified employees can usually vest in retirement immediately while there is a waiting period for classified employees.

A classified job offers an individual job security and stability. Security at work has been demonstrated to improve and to enhance the individual’s performance. In the private sector companies that offer permanent jobs understand the need of promoting higher levels of job satisfaction to improve workforce performance. A classified employee will generally receive more employment benefits and bonuses like health insurance, pay raises and holiday pay.

There is no right or wrong position on these job classifications. Younger, more mobile workers seem to prefer at will employment while older persons are more comfortable with the security of job stability.

However, this new proposal raises a myriad of questions and concerns:

What about the issue of subjectivity? What if a department head has an assistant department head that does terrific work but their personalities clash? There exists the potential for abuse.

What about public safety? Do department heads and assistant department heads in police and fire become unclassified? If so the estimated number of 120 will grow substantially.

What about those employees currently in their introductory or probationary phases? Did those that already accepted employment from the city choose stability or mobility? If it was stability did they unwittingly forego another opportunity at another city assuming that once they passed their current probation they would have a stable job? In this new proposal once they finish probation after January 2, 2014 do they become at-will, unclassified? If so, over time, every employee will become unclassified. The proposed ordinance specifically states, “Legislative note: The expansion of the unclassified service to include employees hired and or promoted on or after January 2, 2014.”

The ordinance also states, “Unclassified employees are entitled to all regular benefits and leaves unless otherwise provided in the human resources policies and procedures.” How long will it be until unclassified employees see revisions to HR policies and procedures?

Then there is the description of classified service within the ordinance, “The objective of this service is to provide public and management services covered by a fair and nonpolitical system of personnel management for the City of Glendale.” Those seem to be desired outcomes in municipal government. So why the proposed change? It goes on to say, “The unclassified service is made up of employees in positions where administrative necessity dictates that the position be more responsive and accountable to city policy.” Is the unclassified system inherently more subjective and political? Yes.

The City Charter under Article III, Section 3, (3) states the City Manager has the authority to “appoint, and when deemed necessary for the good of the service, lay-off, suspend, transfer, demote or remove all department heads, officers and employees of the City subject to such merit system regulations as the Council may adopt.” However, only classified employees are subject to the merit system and even if the City Manager wished to get rid of a classified person there are protections in place that must demonstrate cause. The council may make all the adjustments it wants to the merit system but they will only apply to classified employees whose numbers in this proposed scenario seem to diminish over time.

Another sentence has been added in this section, “The City Manager delegates the Human Resources & Risk Management Executive Director as the decision making authority with regard to the entire recruitment and selection process.” It is worded carefully for it appears that the HR Director can select candidates for positions but the ultimate hiring and firing will be done by the City Manager.

Why was this proposed? I’ve been told by sources that it was adopted by the City Manager after she had to appear before the Personnel Board in the matter of the Don Bolton termination. A different source suggested Mayor Weiers’ love of all legislative practices and procedures (this model is used by the state legislature) drove this initiative. Weiers has tried to have several state legislative practices adopted but what works at the state level does not always work well at a local level.

What justification is offered by either the City Manager and/or the HR Executive Director for a major change in personnel classification? None — apparently.  In the City Council Report under Purpose and Recommended Action the proposed action is described but its purpose is not.

Why the reluctance to offer the purpose of such a major change? We are certain to hear that this proposed system offers flexibility in a changed work environment. Sounds like double-speak, doesn’t it? Make no mistake. This scheme centralizes power in the City Manager’s office. As elected officials leave so, too, will their staff under this proposed system. It can get really expensive in short order.

It was extremely prudent of council to table this proposal for future discussion at a workshop. The questions are many:

* Why is this major policy change necessary? And do not accept the answer of flexibility.

* Exactly how many employees out of the 1,000 plus will become subject to this policy?

* Will it apply to all new employees throughout the organization after January 2, 2014? From that date forward, once they have finished probation, will they be unclassified?

* How does such a policy change affect future budgets? What is the anticipated cost of moving to such a system? Add 20% to any staff estimate, if they provide one.

* Will department heads and assistant department heads in public safety become unclassified? If not, why not?

* Is the City Auditor and her department employees unclassified? If not, why not?

* Who will have the ultimate authority for hiring and firing unclassified employees?

* And most importantly — What practices will be implemented immediately and prior to a council vote to prevent any potential abuses including that created by subjectivity?

 

© Joyce Clark, 2013

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to :http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

cit mtg 2Wow, we just saw a window into council priorities. Since January and the new council began meeting, their meetings are conducted with lightning speed, usually lasting half an hour and on rare occasion because of the sheer number of items on their agenda it may go as long as an hour. Today, June 18, 2013 there were only 6 items on their workshop agenda and it took them over an hour to deliberate. Why? Because these were all items that have a direct impact on them and their business.

Here’s the lineup:

  1. Council has changed the voting meeting time from 7 PM to 6PM.
  2. The Vice Mayor’s position will follow a calendar year (Jan. to Jan.) rather than the fiscal year (July to June).
  3. Council subcommittees will remain annual appointments with a 2 year consecutive term limit. After serving 2 consecutive terms a councilmember must move to the other subcommittee (there are only two). After being off for 2 years councilmember may again sit on committee vacated.
  4. Response time for Council Items of Special Interest remains 30 days for staff response.
  5. Council has traded Moment of Silence for Prayer after they have opportunity to review suggested guidelines for conducting a Prayer.
  6. Workshop meeting location has moved from Council Chambers back to its old haunt, Room B-3, or the “basement” as Mayor Weiers likes to call it.

calendarInterim City Manager Bowers announced that at the June 25, 2013 meeting the Internal Audit will come forward. After the open meeting, Council went into Esession and it was an unusually long one for them, starting at 2:45 PM and ending at about 6:30 PM. The issues were substantive. From various statements made to the media by the City Attorney and some councilmembers there will be no vote on the Coyotes deal on June 25th. So look for June 28th or July 9th. However, Council has a vacation break in July so it makes more sense for it to become an agenda item at the specially called meeting for June 28th.

polling 1We know council was briefed on the PAD and SMG bids and council probably learned their asking price to manage the arena. It probably made Councilmember Alvarez’ heart beat faster and I imagine she offered an impassioned but hardly eloquent plea for acceptance of one of them. We know another topic of discussion was the Renaissance Sports and Entertainment (RSE) bid. Councilmember Sherwood publicly admitted that there were deal points that caused council difficulty. I would think the city’s guarantee of $15M (or X number—you fill in the blank) a year without any guarantee that there would really be the elusive $8M-$11M in enhanced revenue going to the city could have been a stumbling block. Whatever the issues were, council would have given direction to staff to go back to RSE and renegotiate those deal points. The ball in now in RSE’s court. If RSE is serious, it will have to make further concessions that demonstrate their skin in the game. Councilmember Sherwood also publicly acknowledged that the deal points need to be publicized one week before the vote. I applaud council for their stance on the side of reasonable and prudent public disclosure.

Councilmember Alvarez walked out of Esession in disgust, complaining that council was making “too many concessions” to RSE. The mere idea of entertaining the RSE bid is a “concession” in Alvarez’ mind. One other Alvarezism from the open meeting springs to mind. While discussing putting public comments at the beginning of the meeting she virtually accused her fellow councilmembers of not championing Democracy and the American Way by accusatorily saying, “We’re not dictators.”

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Glendale City Council

Glendale City Council

Today, June 4, 2013 Glendale council will conduct a workshop meeting. Here is the link to the agenda:  http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/agendasandminutes/Workshops/Agendas/060413.pdf

Workshops are not like regular evening meetings. They are intended as a means of staff bringing forward subjects they believe are important or staff is responding to a councilmember’s request for further study on a subject. Unlike night meetings there is no opportunity for public comment.

The public agenda is short. There are only two items: an update on Glendale’s airport and council selection of its members for the two standing subcommittees, Government Services and Sustainability as well as selection of Vice Mayor. The airport issue is one that Councilmember Sherwood brought forward. For years the airport has been vexing as it has never reached its full development potential. That is a topic for another posting. We could see some interesting dynamics play out in the self selection of councilmembers to serve on the two standing subcommittees.

The more troubling aspect of the agenda is the Executive Session agenda. Executive Sessions are designed to allow council and staff to discuss, in a non-public setting, contracts, personnel and property leases/purchases. Its interpretation is often overly broad by a city’s legal department. There are 8 items on the Executive Session agenda. It is 4 times as long as the open session! Some of topics placed on the Esession agenda are questionable and were not decided in favor of the public.

One of the topics is the city’s external audit requested by this council. There have been several Esessions that included a secret discussion of this item. One would think that since this has been visited in Esession several times previously that a public update would be provided. Tsk…tsk, council. So much for transparency.

Another item that was previously discussed in workshop is the Cardinals training camp proposal. See this link to get more information from council’s March 5, 2013 workshop:  http://www.glendaleaz.com/Clerk/agendasandminutes/Workshops/Agendas/030513.pdf . The original proposal wasn’t so hot for the city. Since it was discussed in open session previously it probably would have been a good idea to bring this item forward publicly once again. So much for transparency.

jobing.com arena

Jobing.com arena

There are two more items that certainly deserve public scrutiny. Both relate to Jobing.com arena and the Coyotes ownership. The drop dead date for submissions to Beacon Sports, the city’s consultant, for arena management was May 31, 2013. Of course, at city discretion, it can accept bids after that date because of the disclaimer clause in the RFP. One Esession item deals with “potential agreements related to the management of the arena” and the other Esession item is to provide “instruction in connection with potential agreements related to the Hockey Team…”

Yet Mike Sunnicks in his story of June 3, 2013 in the Phoenix Business Journal quoting Glendale spokesperson Julie Watters, says, “Initial responses to the RFP have been received by Beacon Sports. The submissions are currently being reviewed by Beacon to determine completeness and if they qualify for further consideration,” Watters said. “We will follow up tomorrow (Tuesday) with Beacon to determine the status.” Sunnicks provides the reader with a rehash of old information — nothing new. This is the link to his story: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/morning_call/2013/06/glendale-awaits-qualified-bids-for.html?ana=twt

Yet this is one of the secret items to be discussed by council at its workshop today (Tuesday). Methinks the council has been given a report by Beacon with those who have made bids (to date) to manage the arena. How else could council discuss this very topic?  So much for transparency.

Cardinals training camp proposal…external audit…management of city owned arena…the hockey team’s very survival in Glendale…all topics of extreme interest to the people of Glendale. Yet the only discussion to be had will be secret. So much for transparency.

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convention 2On Friday, April 26, 2013 the Glendale City Council had another special budget workshop. This time their agenda was to revisit the issues of police and fire requests for additional personnel and healthcare premium increases for employees and retirees.

Ms. Sherry Schurhammer once again presented the proposed budget and the cuts recommended for 2015 and 2018. Staff’s recommendation was to deny the police and fire requests for additional personnel and to accept the increased healthcare premiums. Her major take-away is that the city has a structural deficit and acceptance of this budget as proposed was the first step toward eliminating it.

Fire Chief Burdick came back with a revised request for an additional 8 positions and two  fire truck leases. Police Chief Black upped the police ante to 31 positions plus 6 non-sworn positions. Together these two departments requested a new ongoing expense for the General Fund of $5.5 million and a new one time expense of $1.2 million for the General Fund.

For most of the session there was a united front of 4 councilmembers willing to grant the police and fire departments their requests. They were Councilmembers Alvarez, Chavira, Sherwood and Vice Mayor Knaack. Later one of them will break from this pack and change the council consensus and direction to staff-but that’s for later in this blog. Let’s begin with the four’s reasoning for granting the police and fire wish list.

Norma Alvarez

Norma Alvarez

At least Councilmember Alvarez is consistent. She began with remarks like, “a business should be paying for their own” and “ they’ve (businesses) taken a lot.” Make no mistake. She was alluding to the city owned arena. She also suggested that we “forget festivals” and pointed out that Glendale Glitters will cost the city $759,000 to produce this coming year. She even suggested that the funding for Public Safety be taken out of the Enterprise Funds (water, sewer and sanitation). She made sure that everyone knew that “the past is what brought us here” and she’s “not gonna forget the past.” She became confused when talking about crime being up in Glendale. It depends on what kind of crime. Glendale’s overall crime rate is down but certain categories such as theft have gone up.  Apparently the bottom line was that she had received a complaint from a citizen (certainly not vast hoards of people) that a “suspicious activity” call was not answered for an hour. Obviously calls are prioritized. If there is imminent danger to life or a crime is in progress it receives the highest priority, a Number 1 and is answered within 4 or 5 minutes. A call such as she described would receive a priority of 3 or 4 and would be answered eventually when an officer was available. Apparently that is not good enough for her.  It was vintage Alvarez. She blamed others, protected her agenda in the guise of protecting the taxpayer and exhibited her usual amount of confusion.

Chavira photo

Sammy Chavira

We finally saw the true Councilmember Chavira as he stood in support of Alvarez’ desire for more police and fire personnel. He worried about “call degradation.” Bet he couldn’t define it for you. He literally blessed fire and police personnel. Solicitudes were oozing from every pore. He was clearly upset that the police department had asked for more personnel and funding than had the fire department.  Then he spoke the magic word, “parity.” Just to remind you, he is a Phoenix firefighter and is going to push his brother Glendale firefighters’ agenda. He and his brother firefighters positively bristled at the mere possibility that police could end up with “more” than they would. So he suggested that the police personnel request be reduced to 20 personnel thereby reducing the ongoing request to $4 million. Make no mistake. His agenda is to further the desires of the Glendale Fire Department. They own him. Not just because he’s a brother firefighter but because the fire union poured upwards of $50,000 into his campaign. That’s a lot of chump change that Sammy will be paying back for a very long time. What Chavira did was not helpful. He widened minor disagreements between fire and police into the size of the Grand Canyon. It has now surfaced like an unwanted boil on your backside.

Martinez photo

Manny Martinez

Councilmember Sherwood offered some well thought out questions and clearly supported the police and fire requests. He, at the end of the session, still felt that if the city paid less back on a loan it has with the Enterprise Funds, the city could pay the additional costs of these requests. Councilmember Martinez stuck to his guns and simply made the point that it was not appropriate to grant these requests and that they “were not in a popularity contest.” He also said it was not productive to continually go back to the past and to point fingers. Councilmember Hugh was silent until the end of the session.

Knaack

Yvonne Knaack

Vice Mayor Knaack made it clear she was in public safety’s corner when she said the defeat of Proposition 457 (would have allowed the removal of sales tax increase) was due to Public Safety’s efforts.  She said that voters defeated it because public’s perception was that its defeat would preserve Public Safety. I know that is the message that police and fire were using in their campaign to defeat Prop 457. All that I can say is that at the very least, Councilmember Martinez and I made it very clear, often and quite publicly, that its defeat would prevent the city from making draconian cuts to this year’s budget and buy the city time to make more temperate cuts over the next five years. We both repeatedly referred to the city’s structural deficit. We did not say it would save fire and police jobs. We said it would save the city from having to make major personnel cuts to any department but that cuts would still be needed.

The issue of the proportionality of public safety sales tax was initiated by Vice Mayor Knaack. The voter approved tax calls for proportionally 1/3 to fire and 2/3 to police.  This will surface again but I think council will find that changing the proportionality of the tax is far more complicated than they know. She also publicly acknowledged that the arena management fee could very well be higher than the $6M in this budget.

Perhaps the surprise of the session was comments made by the Fire Chief. He said $1.2M to $1.3M was needed to insure “constant staffing” within the department. One would think that would be his first priority within his department budget. He also indicated that he would have “no problem shutting down a truck” to cover his department’s overtime. He virtually threatened council with his observation that they will have to make policy decisions regarding fire next year. He followed that by saying he would close a fire station if fire was not adequately funded. The nut is the definition of “adequately.”

Weiers

Jerry Weiers

Mayor Weiers also offered some rather interesting remarks. He noted “the angst between the fire and police departments.” He also said that the previous council should have stayed with the 1.2% sales tax increase across the board rather than the 7/10s in place now.  He then called for council to express their final positions so that consensus could be achieved and direction given to staff. It broke Alvarez-Chavira-Sherwood-Knaack in favor of increased revenues to police and fire. Weiers-Hugh-Martinez were opposed and wanted to accept the staff recommendation. It appeared that fire and police had won the day but wait…

Bowers

Dick Bowers

Interim City Manager Dick Bowers responded with “there is no money to find” and the proposed budget as presented is a “sound and reasonable approach.” He indicated that if council gave direction to accede to police and fire requests, cuts to all other departments would be “surgical.” It was then requested that council identify which departments they would like to see eliminated to meet the police and fire financial requests. Council then spent 5 or 10 minutes reading the material related to departments other than fire, police or enterprise departments. It was embarrassing painful to watch but  reality set in when they realized how much would have to be cut. Vice Mayor Knaack finally broke and changed her direction in support of the staff recommendation. Chavira made one stab to try to get her back into the fold and she responded with, “I have the right to change my mind.” It was a tough decision to make but she did the right thing.

Two important lessons surfaced from this workshop. A majority of this council has not accepted that there is a structural budget deficit and expenses are outstripping revenues; and fire has bared its teeth with dire promises to delivery service if their demands are not met in the next year’s budget. Mayor Weiers, Councilmembers Martinez and Hugh are to be commended for holding the line and accepting that budgetary expenses must be pared and pared now.

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