City seeks flexible furlough for workers

City workers have been asked to take a 4.3 percent pay cut in the form of furlough time over the next 18 months as Petaluma seeks to trim $2.3 million from its municipal budget.

As of Tuesday, however, none of the city’s five unions had voted on the proposal, and City Manager John Brown indicated an alternate offer may be proposed.

Brown is facing a Dec. 7 deadline for informing the City Council whether layoffs will be necessary in the new year. He began meeting with unions last week and suggested a flexible furlough that would allow employees to take time off based on individual work schedules.

“I tried to make that as accommodating to the employee as possible,” Brown said.

The city’s largest union — representing workers in office, secretarial and maintenance roles — said the furlough was presented as a way to prevent further job losses.

“In order to prevent layoffs, everyone citywide would have to do the furlough,” said Doug Silacci, president of Petaluma’s 110-member Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees chapter.

The offer was given to other unions representing police officers, firefighters, public safety managers and professional staff, he said.

The furlough proposal calls for employees to take 45 hours of time off during the remainder of the fiscal year, through June 30. The following fiscal year, 90 hours would be cut.

Employees could work out individual work schedules with their supervisors and possibly work fewer hours each day in order to absorb the furlough time, AFSCME said.

If all employee groups agreed to the furlough, the total savings would be $1.9 million, AFSCME said.

However, members of each union have to vote on the proposal separately, and Silacci said he doesn’t have a lot of faith that all unions will endorse the furlough.

Brown said Tuesday that last week’s proposal received differing reactions from union representatives and said he is working on a new proposal for employees.

He said the revised proposal hasn’t been finalized but said he hopes it will be “something that might be more universally acceptable to all employee groups.”

Brown indicated that a “block furlough,” such as closing city operations the week after Christmas, isn’t likely.

If an agreement isn’t reached by Dec. 7, the council could be advised then that the city needs to enact layoffs Jan. 1, he said.

“If we don’t come to some sort of an agreement on a package that works for everyone, then we have to start talking layoffs,” Brown said. “I want to avoid that route.”

Earlier this month, the city announced a projected $2.3 million budget shortfall over the next year and a half. Brown indicated that although supplies and the street budget could be cut to preserve money in the general fund, cuts would still be required from personnel.

The city has already trimmed 52 positions from its budget over the past 18 months, either through layoffs or early retirements. A proposal to cut 5 percent from employees’ pay this fiscal year wasn’t accepted by workers, prompting further cuts.

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