In a breakthrough that would avoid police layoffs for at least a year, San Jose officials Thursday said they would recommend accepting smaller concessions from police than the mayor and council had sought.
Employee Relations Director Alex Gurza said the city would recommend a San Jose Police Officers' Association offer made Wednesday to avoid laying off 70 officers even though the pay and benefit cuts were less than half what the council had sought and would mostly last just a year.
"We really sort of consider it a stopgap measure," Gurza said. "The city has a difficult choice to make. Do we let the layoffs go through or do we take what they're willing to offer? This allows us to keep them employed while we get back to the table and work on longer-term solutions with the POA."
George Beattie, president of the police union, said, "Obviously these are tough economic times for everybody.
"Every time you take money out of people's pockets, it's emotional," Beattie said. "This is something we think both sides will agree to. It avoids these young officers being laid off and impacting services we provide to citizens."
Assuming the officers ratify the offer, Gurza said he would recommend council approval on Aug. 3.
Mayor Chuck Reed and the City Council earlier this year asked all of San Jose's 11 employee unions to reduce pay and benefit costs by 10 percent to help close a record $118.5 million operating deficit while avoiding hundreds of layoffs. The city said at least half the concessions should be permanent because San Jose's nine-year run of red ink is projected to continue for years to come, driven chiefly by employee costs outpacing revenues.
Last month, six unions reached agreements with the city for 10 percent cuts and a seventh offered to do so. The council and executive management have agreed to similar pay reductions. But police, firefighters and workers in two American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees unions still covered by a contract for the current budget year have not agreed to a full 10 percent cut.
Reed said Thursday that "I'd certainly like to avoid laying off police officers," but talks with the officers must continue to deal with the city's budget imbalance.
Gurza said the officers' Wednesday offer would reduce their total compensation by just under 4 percent, with a little more than 0.5 percent of that from ongoing health benefit changes. The bulk of the concession would be from officers contributing an additional 5.25 percent of their pretax pay toward their retirement pensions for a year.
That's enough to at least delay for a year the layoff of 70 officers whose jobs would be eliminated in the budget approved last month, a significant benefit given the cost of recruiting and training officers. But Gurza said "we're still going to lose police services" because the concession isn't enough to restore an additional 92 now-vacant police positions cut from the current budget.
Beattie said that while the offer wasn't as much as the city had asked, the officers feel they already have given much. He noted the police were the first city union to offer a plan to fully cover their retirement health care costs, and that San Jose officers already contribute more toward their pensions than those in nearby cities.
Talks were continuing with firefighters, who had made an offer similar to the police. But because there are fewer fire department vacancies, the firefighters' proposal would not be enough to prevent all of the 53 layoffs that would result from the loss of 79 positions in the budget, Gurza said.
Reed said the binding arbitration rights that San Jose officers and firefighters enjoy limit the city's options by preventing the city leaders from imposing cuts, making "it necessary to take what we can get to avoid layoffs."
"But we'll start the negotiations again almost immediately trying to get ongoing concessions," Reed said, "because the problem is ongoing."
