This
letter was sent to the Mayor, Council and City Manager after I spoke at the
December 3rd Budget meeting.
Thank
you for listening to me last Wednesday. While the contract will be voted on
today there are several items that may need to be ironed out before the
Employee Owned Cell Phone plan is put into place.
As
I mentioned my main concern the other day was not to try to derail this
plan, BUT that the employees achieve full cost recovery. There were several
items to be decided, since the current plans being discussed do not in any
way achieve this. In fact, the current reimbursement rates make the
employees pay at least $120.00** a year to maintain the phones needed for
city business. Much more of course for the employees who will be using them
heavily, such as code enforcement and service response agents.
During
the discussion at the end of last Wednesdays meeting Ms. Suhm was concerned
that paying the taxes that will be incurred by the employees for ‘phones
they own’ may run afoul of certain tax laws.
If this indeed be so, there are several other things to consider that
may may permit us in reaching a solution that benefits the city with out
penalizing the employee.
The
employees will be fronting the money for the cell phone charges each month,
and doing all of the administrative work that was formally done by the city.
In doing so, why should they not be given ten dollars (and perhaps seventeen
dollars for the fifty dollar plan) for taking over the upfront funding and
providing the payable functions
that the city would normally have to taken care of.
This would cover the taxes with out them coming into the discussion
at all.
While
Mr. Forest Taylor, Ms. Suhm and I were discussing this Wednesday afternoon,
Ms. Suhm made reference to what a good deal this would be for the employees,
because they could apply it to their current cell phones.
Perhaps after true cost recovery is achieved that may be the case for
some. But it is not realistic to assume that employees that have heavy
citizen contact will be able to do this.
When
I pointed out the difficulties of having citizens call you at night and on
the weekends, Ms. Suhm assured me that it would be the employees’ choice
of whether or not to turn off their phones when off duty.
I disagree; it really would make no sense to have a cell phone that
you could not use during your off time for fear of having citizen calls
beeping through. I can just see what will happen the first time an employee
is on the phone during their off day and trying to explain to the citizen
that, honest, they really can’t talk right now.
Also,
let us be realistic. Many people are moving to cell phones as their sole
phone. As a matter of fact many people with children use them as their sole
means of receiving calls, when the main lines of their house are tied up
with teenage chatters or family members on the internet.
And
finally, the employees with heavy citizen contact are the most at risk to go
over their minutes. So they will almost be forced to op for a plan that they
can use solely for city contacts. If only to make additional reimbursement
easier and less an invasion of their privacy. Even taking that precaution,
they still will have to jump through hoops, provide phone logs, case logs
and then wait for their money minus various tax deductions to be reimbursed.
This makes it doubly important that they at least have their base expenses
covered with out money coming out of their pocket every month.
While
there are other issues that may need to be tweaked, I am sure those can be
done as policy changes. Reimbursement however, is something that should be
fair and correct from the start.
Please
don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Thank
You,
M.
R. Frey
President
– NTAPE
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Cell
Phone Update!! -
December
12, 2003
Word
is from several people that they are thinking of increasing the
reimbursement rate for the cell phone plan. Unfortunately, most are saying
that it will not be increased enough to full cost recovery.
However…
Word is that questions are being raised on why the money will be given to
the employees in their paychecks since that puts more of a tax bite on the
money. So hopefully that will also be looked at as well. It is just possible
that if they increase the upfront money and do a separate reimbursement
check they might actually achieve something fair.
Changes
to the make up of the Mayor’s Retirement Review
Mayor
Miller started the briefing discussion by asking Mr. Benavides to see if he
can get the State Pension Review Board (PRB) to move their meeting, so that
the pension review committee would have more time to work on their
recommendation. She also announced that she has three good experienced
candidates who are of such stature that their opinions would have weight
with the State Pension Review Board.
Mr.
Chaney wondered why we were going through this exercise, since no matter
what the city’s review panel came up with, the city already knows it is
going to have to increase funding.
Benavides
went in to a total rif of things the review panel would look at including
the ever popular, at least from the mayors point of view, governance. It
should come as no surprise that certain people would love to change the
Employee Retirement Board’s (ERF) makeup. They would like it to be less
worried about the employees and more worried about the city’s bottom line.
After
Mr. Hill expressed concerned that there would be no diversity among Mayors
experts and Ms. Garcia recommended that a female be one of those experts,
they agreed to add another member to the review panel.
Ms.
Lill made an excellent request. She wanted the experts to be checked. She
does not want anyone on the panel who may have been involved with the recent
lobbing of the state and federal government to allow more leniency to
business in dealing with under funded pensions. Benavides will check on this
for her.
Then
Mr. Charles Griffith spoke. He pointed out that over 4500 retired employees
were NOT being represented by the current review panel make up. He would
like a member of the Retiree Association on the panel. He also told the
council that the items being reviewed were too important to decide in such a
hurry. He further reminded them that the State PRB doesn’t care about
these other issues…. They just want the funding shortage taken care of.
Debra
Dunn then spoke. She reminded the council of its previous agreement with the
employees which led to us increasing our share of the funding, in exchange
for their agreement to put the 1999 review panels funding solution to a
citizen vote. She then went on to suggest that rather than have a vote, the
city use BOTH employee pension board members, rather than one member and one
newly elected civilian employee. After all, she pointed out, the employees
had already voted for both board members and they were currently more
familiar with the problem than any other employee was likely to be.
After
various amendments and changes the recently advertised election is off. The
review panel will consist of seven people now, instead of five. Three
experts for the mayor, one expert decided on by Garcia and Hill, both
members of the employee pension board and one person chosen by the retirees
association. The mayor will choose the Chairman of the review panel and one
of our pension board members would be the vice chair.
While
we are of course delighted that both employee pension board members will be
on the review panel, we would like to thank our very own Steelworker George
Shaw from the Convention Center. George has fifteen years of experience as a
pension board member for I.A.T.S.E. Local # 127. He is very interested in
the work that the employee pension fund does, and had agreed to run for this
position to help protect our interests.
Unions join in MLK Parade
We
have been invited to participate with the Dallas AFL-CIO Central Labor
Council and other local unions in honoring Dr. Martin Luther King during the
MLK parade this January 17. If
you wish to participate please call our office so we can get a head count of
our members who will be marching. Also, as we come closer to January 15,
details will be firmed up and may be subject to some minor changes.
Generally what happens is that parade marchers park in a central
location at
Fair
Park
and take the provided
shuttle bus up to the
City
Plaza
. This way at the end of
the parade, you will be back at fair park and close to your car.
Since
the City Hall lobby will not be open, it gets a bit chilly standing in the
plaza waiting for the parade to start. So we have offered Mr. Lantz, “Jobs
with Justice” and our local unions gathering space in our building at 500
S. Ervay prior to the march. Mr. Lantz can be contacted at
labor@att.net
or 214-942-4236
Winners
of the Year End Raffle
Don't
forget attending meetings, workshops and events like the MLK parade earn you
chances at the huge year end name drawing!
There
were four door prizes left unclaimed, so they will be given away one a month
at the next 4 meetings.
The
winners of the $100.00 participation door prizes drawn at the December
meeting were...
C.
King - Block Buster, J. Sudbury - Target, W. Gowan - Block Buster, J.
Scantlin - Krogers, F. Orozco - Krogers, R. Horn - Best Buy. Our condolences
to members R. Miller, G. Shaw, J. Williams and a few others who picked a bad
day to miss a meeting. ;)
Retirement
Association Special Fund Raiser
As you know, the retirees were an enormous help in putting
pressure on the city to sweeten the deal on the health deduction
problem. Had we not teamed up with them, it is very possible that we would
have gotten the deductible increase WITHOUT the $500.00 stipend scheduled to
be paid to us this January.
Well, they have spent a lot of money this last year, both on
that and on assisting to get the State Pension Guarantee law passed. So I
urge all members to read, post and pass on the following letter from Mr.
Griffith and consider assisting them to rebuild their coffers for the next
time the public needs educated about the employee pension plan. After all,
with the way the charter currently reads. They can do stuff politically that
we currently are barred from doing. –
M. R. Frey
Charles
Griffth Writes...
The
DCREA executive committee decided to solicit donations from the entire DCREA
membership to replenish its funding reserves so that it remains prepared to
do whatever is necessary to protect our earned pensions and benefits.
In about two months this has raised almost $6,000.
Donations from DCREA members and future members will assure that
DCREA continues to have the ability to fight for the city retirement
benefits earned as active employees of the City of
Dallas
.
All funds collected from this effort will be deposited in a separate
"education" fund to be used exclusively for this purpose and we
will periodically provide updates on the fund-raising progress on our web
site (www.dcrea.org).
Your
support of this effort is definitely needed.
We expect to have to continue our fight for the medical insurance
benefits that were promised. Also,
the passage of the state constitutional amendment to protect our city
pensions (Proposition 15) was a big success; however, the City of
Dallas
could still void the new law as far as it is applicable to our pensions by
having a successful referendum election on
May
1, 2004
to overturn it for
Dallas
.
If the City Council decides to hold such an election, we must be
fully prepared to fight for its defeat to assure that our pensions are
protected from the possibility of arbitrary or malicious actions by the City
Council. In addition, we have
been seeking a referendum election to change the governing ordinance of our
pension plan to assure on-going adequacy of funding.
This action could be placed on the May ballot in 2004.
If so, it will take an active effort on our part to promote this with
the voters to assure that it passes and this too will be an extraordinary
expense for DCREA.
If
you want to help us help you, please make your check or money order donation
(not tax deductible) to the Dallas
City Retired Employees Association and mail it to the following address:
DCREA
P.O. Box
140264
Dallas
,
TX
75214
Please
indicate in the memo portion of your check or money order that it is for the
"Education Fund." Also,
please enclose on a separate piece of paper your name and address and note
your affiliation with the North Texas Association of Public Employees for
our records. Thank you.
Charles
Griffith, President
Dallas
City
Retired Employees Association
Creative Writing 101
Or
as the City of
Dallas
calls it, falsification
of documents. We have all heard
the horror stories of employees who have been strung up and hung out to dry
on charges of falsification of documents.
Like it or not, we are part of a governmental entity that is
accountable through the process of documentation.
Unlike privately held organizations, the City’s documents are open
records. Anyone can obtain
copies of our records, right down to the most trivial of forms.
If you have a pen and have been graced with the ability to read and
write, you are accountable, and more importantly responsible, for what you
choose to write. I know of
instances in which a manager informed a subordinate that a particular
document was unacceptable and ordered the employee to “find some more
numbers” and resubmit it, wink, wink.
When this exploded into a media feeding frenzy, who do you think was
held up as example of misconduct. Folks,
in any American governmental institution, falsification of documents is
right up there in the top three most heinous of crimes and this particular
employee is now subject to termination.
I don’t know if it will occur, but the threat has been vocalized by
management. If for some reason
you are requested to alter numbers, locations, actions, or any other data or
information on any city document, stand up and refuse.
City of
Dallas Personnel Rule
34-36(b)(8)(B) states
that dishonesty is exemplified by cheating, forging, or willful
falsification of official city reports
or records. If you find you
can’t refuse to alter something in a way you feel is inaccurate, put a
notation on the document with words to the effect that it was altered at the
order of supervisor xxxxxxx. Then
have the responsible person initial it and keep a copy for your files.
If they refuse to initial it or accept responsibility, alarms should
start ringing in your head. Mistakes
are made every day in the compilation of records and mistakes are a part of
life. The trouble comes
with willful falsification.
The bottom line is, do not willfully falsify any city document unless
you feel the need for more drama in your life. – Staff Rep. Scott Newland
Amusing Rumor
Just
a Thought
I
was standing outside having a cigarette with other employees and we were
discussing how beautiful the day was. I
made the statement that I loved spring and fall and even liked the winter,
except for the occasional ice days. In
fact the only time of the year I did not like was the summer when it is so
hot.
One
of the other employees commented that summer was the time of year that
everyone seemed to get so mean because they were so uncomfortable.
That’s
when the thought hit. We need to
change the fiscal year from October to May.
As it is now the council takes the month of July off, and when they
are forced to come back in the August heat, they have the budget to deal
with. They being only human are
hot, and tired and grumpy. So
maybe if the fiscal year started in May, they would be kinder because the
weather had been so pleasant.
WHAT’S
YOUR OPINION?
