Sign
up Cards in .PDF format
Sign
up Cards in .DOC format
Overview on
Workforce Strategies
On February 6th, at the request of Mayor Tom Leppert, City
Manager Mary Suhm gave a ninety-six page briefing to the Dallas City
Council. He apparently wanted the entire council to get an overview of
the issues facing city employees before the matter goes to Councilwoman
Medrona’s ‘Quality of Life and Government Services Committee’.
Additionally, Suhm is fast-tracking a review of the Grievance Rules with
a timeline of only a month or so. Ed Note: More
on the Grievance Review further down the page)
The
briefing was not posted until late Friday evening. But the main thread
running thru the entire things is that we are compensated above market
and over the inflation rate, with benefits just slightly, ever so
slightly below other municipalities, but all is wonderful. Not obviously
from the employees point of view but hey, we weren’t the ones
preparing the briefing. Of course we did prepare a three page detailed
rebuttal to the briefing and sent it to all of the council and the
mayor. Apparently enough of
our counter arguments caught council’s attention that Suhm is
preparing a detail explanation of the report problems we pointed out.
One of the main problems we pointed out was Suhm using the Consumer Price
Index to figure our inflation rate. There are of course many different
ways to figure this, and of course the briefing had the numbers most
favorable to them, but the real problem was not the differing rates, but
rather the calculations themselves. The briefing numbers (page 30 of the
report) appeared to assume full year raise percentages which has never
happened. The one and only market adjustment of 2% was delayed until
January of 05, all most all other merits increases have been delayed six
months, until April of the following year. Also they rolled in this
year’s average merit which we will not get until sometime in 2009!!!
Additionally, even though Civilian employees are concerned with
the ground lost since our pay problems started in 2001, the briefing
went back to 1997. Almost all gains that the employees have had in the
last eleven years occurred in the first four.
We
requested that Suhm prepare a chart would run from FY97 until FY 07 and
calculate CIVILIAN pay gains vs. yearly employee loses from increases in
pension, monthly health care, drug/other co-pay increases and defunct
programs like short term disability and SIP.
Additionally,
on several items we requested that the City Manager start separating
‘Employee’ information into Civilian and Uniformed categories. This
way a true picture of the money spent on Civilian employees will emerge.
For instance, when calculating how much ‘employees’ will cost the
general fund in Fy 07/08, pension costs will total $113,654,870.00. Of
that number 86.7% will go to the uniformed pension fund, and only 13.3%
will go to the civilian employees. Or to put it another way, our pension
costs the city 1.8% of the general fund compared to the Uniformed
pension costs which total 12%.
Speaking
of the general fund, which in 2004 was only 40% of the total budget, the
amount spent on ‘employees’ wages and benefits is down 4%. It went
from 82% in 2004 to 78% for 2008. It will be interesting when Suhm
prepare her report, to see how much exactly is spent on Civilian
employees and how much on Uniformed. Not surprising mind you, just
interesting.
The
council was concerned at the amount of employees who could retire right now if they wanted to. (Page
14)
Other
fun stuff that we pointed out to council about the briefing? The
briefing mentioned of the 2003 Hay Group evaluation of the City’s
total compensation plan stating that City of
Dallas
employer-paid benefits
are at the 25% percentile. We pointed out that they were in the lower
portion of the 25% percentile, more like the 10-15% area.
We
also noted many of the problems with the Dick Grote evaluation system we
are stuck with. And asked why if it was so wonderful and helpful for
Civilian employees it wasn’t also being used by Uniformed employees.
And
finally we pointed out how vague and meaningless this year’s appraisal
goals are and how impossible it will be to prove you deserve more than
just a ho-hum grade.
(Ed.
Note: Huge file,
It is best to save it to your hard drive & THEN open it from there. http://dallascityhall.com/council_briefings/briefings0208/WorkforceStrategies_020608.pdf
Social Security
Fairness
Government
Pension Offset* and the Windfall Elimination Provision**, which unfairly
reduce the Social Security benefits for certain public sector employees
are currently being debated. Many city employees who also have earned
social security pensions will see them slashed to almost nothing under
these rules. This is not fair. Private sector employees who get company
pensions see no reduction in their SS benefits.
The
Senate and House committees with jurisdiction on this issue have held
hearings on the Social Security Fairness Act (Senate
Bill 206/House Bill 82), the bill that would eliminate the GPO and
WEP. Call your Senators and House rep and tell them that this bill
will restore fairness to public sector workers by stopping the Windfall
Elimination Provision & Government Pension Offset.
(Ed
note: *The GPO reduces public employees' Social Security survivor
benefits (those benefits that result from a Social Security-eligible
spouse's death) by an amount equal to two-thirds of their public
pension. The GPO affects all government employees (federal, state
and local) if their job was not covered by Social Security.
**The
WEP reduces Social Security benefits of individuals who worked in both a
job that made them eligible for Social Security benefits and a
government job that made them eligible for a non-Social Security
pension. )
NO
Texas Senators have signed
on to the bill. Contact Senator
John Cornyn, 517 Hart Senate Office Bldg,
Washington
,
DC
20510
Main
: 202-224-2934 Fax: 202-228-2856 email http://cornyn.senate.gov/contact.html
Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison, LB 606, 10440 N. Central Expressway
Suite
1160
,
Dallas
,
Texas
75231 - Phone
214-361-3500, Fax
214-361-3502, email http://hutchison.senate.gov/contact.html
Texas House Reps who are
co-sponsors include (In Alpha Order) – Burgess, Michael C., Carter,
John R., Conaway, K. Michael, Cuellar, Henry, Doggett, Lloyd, Edwards,
Chet, Gohmert, Louie, Gonzalez, Charles A., Granger, Kay, Green, Gene,
Green, Al, Hall, Ralph M., Hinojosa, Ruben, Johnson, Eddie Bernice,
Jackson-Lee, Sheila, Lampson, Nick, Marchant, Kenny, McCaul, Michael T.,
Neugebauer, Randy, Ortiz, Solomon P., Paul, Ron, Poe, Ted, Reyes,
Silvestre, Rodriguez, Ciro D., Sessions, Pete, Rodriguez, Ciro D.,
Reyes, Silvestre
If
your House Rep is not here go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
to find out who they are and where to write or call them at.
Talk to the
City Manager???
As
we all know, the ‘Talk to the Manager’ meetings have mutated into a
lecture series. Which is fine if you want to be attend a lecture series,
but not so good if you actually want the opportunity to ask a question
and get it answered. This
meeting was supposed to be different! You would be able to actually talk
to the City Manager. Yeah us!
The
City Manager started off her meeting by expressing her pleasure that
City of
Dallas
had been invited to and honored at the
Press Conference supporting the Arts Programs of the area.
Making mention of the Mayor’s support and the money the city
had diverted to the
Dallas
Independent
School District
in support of the arts.
Okay,
got the P.R. stuff out of the way. Now we can ask some questions. Or
maybe not. It seemed that except for five questions from the floor, the
only ‘employees’ asking questions would be the people up on stage
with Mary Suhm. They gently lobbed Suhm pre-screened ‘questions’
that ‘employees’ had emailed or asked about in the past. Because as
we know there is nothing as refreshing as a good honest exchange of
pre-selected questions with your own pre-selected assistants.
Suhm’s
assistants stated that they were often contacted with complaints about
the “bell curve merits” and the cost of health benefits. Suhm
commented that she was aware that merits and health benefits were very
important to employees, and when employees were not satisfied with them
it caused a bad and stressful work environment.
At
this time there were a few questions from the audience. The first was
over how the city’s health benefits compared with other companies.
Suhm stated that in a study that had been completed (unknown time
of completion) that the City’s coverage was fairly equal to that of public
business, and somewhat less than that of other governmental
agencies. She stressed that
the city has not raised premiums in 4 years. And that there are
several plans to help offset the cost of health care, a free clinic that
will be housed at City Hall, for employees and covered dependents, the
well aware program, and all the help that can be found at the UHC web
site. (Ed.
Note: HMO premiums increased 35 to 65% two years ago. Suhm has been
‘reminded’ of this many, many, many times. Newsflash, just because
you keep giving out incorrect information that doesn’t make it true.)
Suhm
was asked why the sick leave bank was discontinued. This program allowed
employees to donate sick hours to the bank to be used by employees with
long term problems who had used all their vacation and sick time.
The City Manager stated that she thought the program had been
discontinued in 2002, however she could not remember why, that maybe she
should look into starting to plan again.
(Ed. Note: This is not
correct; the employees were only allowed to donate vacation hours.
Additionally the Sick Bank was discontinued shortly after the majority
of civilian employees stopped donating to it. This occurred shortly
after their request to have the civilian sick bank separated from the
uniformed sick bank was refused. Civilian employees were upset that they
donated most of the time, but their ‘co-workers in need’ had
difficulty getting assistance due to heavy use by uniformed employees. )
A
third floor question asked Shum about the cutting of the SIP. She stated
that it was done at the councils request and that although there had
been some minor discussions of reinstating it, at least part of it, that
this was doubtful due to the 13 to 14 million dollars that was saved the
first year.
The
fourth and fifth floor questions were Merit revisited:
(Bell Curve) Suhm’s response was that if employees are being
told that their performance reviews and/or merits were based on a curve
that they were being misinformed and that any manager saying this were
cowards and not well trained. That
the city was now in the process of training supervisors and managers on
how conducting the performance review and to answer questions without
relying on the “bell curve” answer. She said the reviews were in
fact based on performance and not just to fit a bell curve.
She acknowledged that the civilian employees had gone without
COLAs and Merit for four or five years. But she stated that she did not
believe non performing employees should be rewarded by receiving a COLA.
Stated that employees were to be given performance plans that
laid out what was expected from them and with goals set so the employees
could actually judge their process though the year.
That if duties and goals were not clear on the plans and the
employees could not get satisfaction from their supervisors then they
should go to HR then her. (Ed.
Note; Many early supervisor handouts DIRECTLY referenced bell curves.)
Then
back to pre-selected questions. Employees wanted to know about the Mayor
wanting no tax increase. Suhm confirmed that the mayor did not want a
tax increase. She said with
her first draft of the budget there was a 40 to 50 million short fall,
then stressed she did not want everyone going out worrying about such a
large short fall, that she was projecting 20 million in revenue from gas
drilling contracts, but that it might be as high as 33 million.
She also stressed that this years budget would be harder than the
budgets for the last few years.
Pre-selected
question on her 9% raise. Suhm said that she thought it was a good raise
and that she deserved it, however it had been a lump sum, and therefore
not as good and the employees whose raises were added to their current
salary.
There
was then a discussion on “equity adjustments” to positions, and the
steps that could be taken to fix them. Shum stated that the goals for
the city was to have the civilian employee wages at the 50% level and
that they had located some positions where this was not true, in those
cases they had added money to either ends of those positions to meet the
50% goal. She did admit that if an employee were in the middle of the
range they would not realize any wage enhancement from the shift, only
those at the very top of the pay scale and new employees at the bottom
would benefit from this shift.
Suhm
and her assistants then discussed; Porn being view on the internet at
the library, the Trinity project, the Well Aware program, possible
incentives for losing weight, what a great things were happening in Code
Enforcement, the fact that 311 was a customer base operations and 911
was emergency based that it made more sense to separate them and then
finally, just when did she intend to retire. Suhm stated that when she
took the position that her first goal was to be city manager for 5
years.
(Ed.
Note: There is nothing as wonderful as a no-holds-barred give and
take discussion. Hopefully one will happen soon.)
Grievances - Do Them Correctly!
Scott
and Dan would like to stress to all members the importance of contacting
the Local Union immediately after any disciplinary action is taken
against them or a situation has occurred that they need to grieve.
As
your representatives they only have ten days from the date the incident
happened to file a grievance. They are also experiencing a problem with
members notifying them too late with appeal hearing dates. Receiving
notice the day before the hearing is to be held is not acceptable; they
need time to prepare, or reschedule as they may have another hearing
scheduled for that day. So when you receive the notice in the mail, you
need to contact them immediately with the hearing date and time. Voice
214-760-7422, Fax 214-760-7423, email steel.workers@
no spam sbcglobal.net
(take out the 'no spam' and the extra spaces)
(Ed.
Note:
All grievances need to be reported immediately to the association
office. The best case in the world, will be lost if it is filed late, or
has incorrect paper work. Copies of ALL correspondence needs to be
immediately forwarded to the Grievance Reps. This is particularly
important when you have your final resolution. A copy of that needs to
go in your file incase there are problems later, or someone else has a
similar problem that this would have a bearing on.
Grievance tracking, especially of the final resolutions are VERY
important to improving our working conditions in the city.)
What
is House Bill 676?
It
is a bill that was proposed in 2005 to provide for comprehensive health
insurance coverage for all
United States
residents. It is currently in the House Subcommittee on Health.
United
States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved
Medicare for All Act) - Establishes the United States National Health
Insurance Program (the Program) to provide all individuals residing in
the United States and in U.S. territories with free health care that
includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and
prevention, prescription drugs, emergency care, and mental health
services.
It
will basically expand a Medicare-like program to cover all citizens
while still giving patients the freedom to choose from participating
physicians and institutions. Most of the money needed for this program
would be achieved by (1) by vastly reducing paperwork; (2) by requiring
a rational bulk procurement of medications; (3) from existing sources of
Government revenues for health care; (4) by increasing personal income
taxes on the top five percent income earners; (5) by instituting a
modest payroll tax; and (6) by instituting a small tax on stock and bond
transactions. Oh and it also gives first priority in retraining and job
placement to individuals whose jobs are eliminated due to reduced
administration. Did you know that over 30% of every healthcare dollar is
spent on administrative overhead in private insurance compared to just
3.2% in Medicare administrative costs?
For more info go to http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/
Snipletts!
Grievance
Evaluation Committee
Thursday,
February 7th, a committee met to discuss problems with the
current grievance system. It was amazing that the committee was composed
of mostly H.R. management and H.R. department reps. In fact nine of the
thirteen people in attendance were from H.R. Two were Steelworkers, M.
Frey from Streets and M. Hasan from the City Council Office.
But
at any rate, the discussion quickly got down to the nitty-gritty.
Several things we discussed among them the fact that grievances that
stop before leaving a department have a large possibility of problems.
Our own Scott and Dan report that almost half of the cases that they
work are reversed once they get past the department directors.
Additionally,
due to role changes over the years the H.R. department is no longer seen
as the place where employees can go to get meaningful changes enacted in
their departments. As many old timers know... Back in the day H.R. came
down on erring departments like the word of God. Lighting flew and
management was told to go and sin no more. And further, the word went
out to all other departments that they would be checked to make sure the
same problems did not exist there also. At that point in time H.R. did
not work for the departments, it worked for the city and made sure the
departments worked according to the charter, state and federal laws.
Now
that the departments are H.R. customers, many employees no longer trust
the Human Resource department when it comes to making sure grievances
are fair. Couple that with
the difficulty that some employees have when the matter stays internal
to their department and you see there is a bit of a problem.
Several
possible solutions were tossed around. Using an impartial ombudsman
system, sending
grievances to a committee made up of different departments, making sure
they had a peer on the grievance committee or channeling the grievances
thru the only independent department in the city, the Civil Service
department.
While
other solutions may be proposed, the merits and problems with these four
were discussed. Three more meetings are planned with recommendations
slated to go to City Manager Mary Suhm on March 3rd.
Bad
Surveys Part 2– Ms. Suhm again stated last Wednesday (
2-6-08
) that she is aware
that there are problems with the way surveys are conducted and she
intends to fix them. Honest. Really.
Of
course she has been saying the same thing for over two years and nothing
has changed yet. Also she continues to make use of data from these
flawed and unverifiable surveys. But hey what is a little mis/dis-information
among friends.
Twelve
hour shift workers shafted – Part
2 –The new assistant director of H.R. has been in talks
with the Steelworkers for the last few weeks about the complete lack of
progress on this problem. Last Thursday in a face to face meeting
various options were discussed to fix how the city reports the time to
the pension fund, how the employees earn time and how adjustments might
be made to fix the large amount of vacation and sick time that twelve
hour employees have to use compared to eight hour employees. H.R. took
away a clearer understanding of the problem and was scheduled to meet
with the pension board that afternoon.
Now
we have been promised an answer on this before, but this time we were
told that someone will be getting back with us, hopefully with at least
a partial solution in the next few weeks.
Hey, miracles occur every day don’t they? It could happen. ;)
The Time to Join is Now!
Don’t
forget about the 30 day waiting period on certain services for new
members. We don’t want anyone to miss out on assistance should they
need it. The time to join is now, so you will already be a member before
any problem that you need help with occurs.
Council
Meeting Audio Available
Did
you know that you can download city council meetings? Some interesting
stuff in there. Take a listen. http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/audio.shtm
End
of year raffle Remember at the last meeting of the year you get one
raffle chance for every meeting or work session you sign in for.
Make six meetings, get six chances. So congratulations to the
members who were present at the December meeting when their names were
drawn for the gift certificates from Target, Best Buy and Chili’s.
