MEETING DATE: 1/28/2015
TITLE:
Title
Ratification of Labor Agreement - Fire Management Association
End
FROM:
Tami E. Scott, Administrative Services Director
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Staff recommends that the City Council ratify the labor agreement with the Cathedral City Professional Fire Management Association "CCFMA".
Body
BACKGROUND:
As Council is aware, for the past several years, the City has endured some of the most horrific financial challenges in its young history. To manage the challenges, since 2009, the city employees have had numerous salary and benefit reductions, averaging in the vicinity of a 20% reduction along with a 25% reduction in city wide staffing. It has been council's desire and intent as the city's finances stabilized, the economy started to improve and as existing labor agreements expired, to negotiate successor agreements providing for restoration of some, not all, of the concessions made by employee groups.
DISCUSSION:
Similar to agreements with other bargaining units (Cathedral City Police Management Association "CCPMA", the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees "AFSCME", Cathedral City Professional Firefighters Association "CCPFA", and the Non-Represented Professional and Confidential "NonREP", the city recently concluded negotiations with the Cathedral City Fire Management Association resulting in a five (5) year successor Memorandum of Understanding. The following is a summary of a Tentative Agreement with the group: 5 year contract- 01/01/15- 12/31/19, cost of living "COLA" adjustments effective the first payroll period following the designated dates: 2.5% effective 01/01/15, 4.5% effective 07/01/15, 4% effective 01/01/16, CPI a minimum of 1% not to exceed 4% effective 07/01/17 & 07/01/18 respectively; 15 year merit increase of an additional 2.5% and adding a 25 year merit increase of 2.5% for Tier One employees; uniform allowance to increase from $120 to $135 per month; consistent under the law as provided by CalPERS, medical benefits shall become secondary to Medicare as a retired employee becomes eligible for such a program, or at age 65 whichever comes first; the City will continue post-retirement medical benefits to the family and/or guardianship of employee in the event of the retired employees death as allowed by CalPERS; certain language changes, as housekeeping items, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act and CalPERS, neither at a cost to the City. In addition to the outline above for CCFMA, the City Council previously approved 5 year contracts to include restoration of some salary and benefits with the CCPMA, AFSCME, CCPFA and Non-Represented employees.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The agreement essentially restores many of the concessions the employees gave up during the economic downturn, while at the same time eliminating future costs to newer employees. The restoration is not occurring immediately but over the term of the five year contract period. If we assume a CPI at 2% in 2017 & 2018 (industry projected); over the last 16 years, AFSCME has averaged 1.875% COLA per year, Public Safety has averaged 1.75% COLA per year, and the Non-Represented Group has averaged 1.65% COLA per year.