Vallejo Fire Fighters, City Employees Form Coalition to Keep City From Bankruptcy

August 25, 2008 – Vallejo, CA Local 1186 is part of a coalition of Vallejo City employees seeking dismissal of the City’s May 23 bankruptcy filing in order to protect critical City services, wages and health care coverage for employees and retirees, and Vallejo taxpayers.

The coalition maintains the City could have avoided bankruptcy – and still can – by accepting the employees’ standing offer to cut their own pay, permanently give up two sets of raises due them (totaling 14.4 percent) and to change other work rules to save the city more than $10 million and avoid the immense cost of an ongoing bankruptcy.

But the Vallejo City Council has rejected the offer and has asked a judge to void all four of its employee labor contracts, blaming skyrocketing employee costs for a $16 million deficit. Employee unions say that the City has money hidden in other accounts and is using bankruptcy as a ploy to eliminate its employee contracts.

Voiding public employee contracts would set a major precedent for other cities and counties in the state to file for bankruptcy. Vallejo’s contracts cover approximately 400 fire fighters, police, electricians, maintenance workers, secretaries, clerks and other City employees.

The Vallejo City Council declared bankruptcy after months of labor negotiations and cutbacks, while promising residents it would maintain essential services. “Bankruptcy will put public safety at risk,” says Local 1186 President Kurt Henke.

Fire fighters and the other employee unions are concerned that the millions of dollars in legal fees, increases in bond payment interest, lower property values and an inability to attract new residents and businesses are all likely as the City enters bankruptcy. These cuts also mean less funding for fire fighters, police officers and critical community services.

While the City claims that salaries and benefits for the fire and police unions comprise three-quarters of the City’s general fund budget, employee unions say the City is using misleading statistics and that public safety costs are really 17 percent of City spending. “By shifting services and other program costs out of the general fund into special funds, the City has been able to inflate the public safety percentage,” Henke says.

The City’s fire fighters, police officers and electrical workers commissioned an audit of the City’s finances that shows the City has ample funds to avoid bankruptcy and to support existing public employee contracts. And, the City’s own staff has identified millions of dollars in surplus properties, 18 recommendations for increasing revenues and tens of millions of dollars owed to the general fund that the City has made no effort to collect.

Vallejo Local 1186 and other public employee unions say that decades of bad management by the City Council and City leaders caused the problems. Vallejo City Manager Joe Tanner has admitted he took a 42 percent pay increase totaling $89,000 at the same time he was calling for salary reductions for other City employees and dramatic cuts to vital City services.

When an August 17 fire at an assisted living center killed three, injured three others and forced more than 100 out of their homes, fire officials determined that the closing of two fire stations and reductions in fire fighting personnel “may have prompted a slower response” and contributed to police officers having to pitch in without proper equipment.

“It’s difficult to speculate on what coulda, woulda, shoulda happened, but obviously having two stations closed has definitely had an impact on our ability to respond to incidents,” Jon Riley, vice president of Local 1186, told the San Francisco Chronicle. The department formerly had 116 fire fighters, but is down to 77.

For more information, visit the Vallejo Bankruptcy web site developed by the coalition of Vallejo city employees, including police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, and miscellaneous public employees who maintain streets, parks, traffic safety, and water and housing services.