City union will give up pay hikes

City Hall’s largest employee union has agreed to defer planned pay increases for its members, giving city leaders some budgetary breathing room to avoid or delay layoffs.

The deal, approved by the City Council Monday, delays two 2 percent pay increases due this year and next for the 100-member Petaluma chapter of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees.

In exchange, the city has extended the AFSCME contract another year, through 2010, and will use some of the $233,000 savings from the deferral to retain laid-off workers.

The union agreed to defer pay hikes “to try to retain jobs for their fellow employees as well as help us out in a very tough budget time,” City Manager John Brown told the council Monday.

Brown said he will use a portion of the savings to rescind the layoff of an information technology specialist who was let go at the end of the fiscal year.

“That particular position allows that department to continue to provide us the full spectrum of technology that we need in order to move forward in the face of limited other resources,” Brown said. “It also allows us to develop some revenue contracts with other agencies, so that will allow us to earn some of the salary back over the course of the year, and that seemed like a good investment.”

Three maintenance workers also let go at the end of June will be able to return, at least on a temporary basis, Brown said. There is an opening in the water department — paid through a different fund — and two six-month positions will be created by assigning work that was being done on overtime by current water department employees.

Assuming the laid-off maintenance employees can “test” as qualified for those positions, they will not be let go, he said.

“We have the ability to keep four people on board with what AFSCME has given back here,” Brown told the council. “I want to thank them for having made that concession. This represents probably the brightest spot in last week’s activities at City Hall.”

The return of four employees leaves six workers who were let go to help the city balance its $36 million general fund for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Those positions included office workers and public works employees, and came on top of previous layoffs in the city this past spring and fall.

(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)