Long Beach City Council members eye pay cut
Exempt employees, council asked to pay into their health care plans
The Long Beach City Council will vote on two resolutions at its meeting on Tuesday, one requiring exempt employees to pay a portion of their health care premiums, the other to cut council members’ salaries by 10 percent.
With the cash-strapped city in a “fiscal crisis,” and as city officials try to work with the unions to reach a number of concessions, members of the City Council are looking to reduce their compensation by 10 percent, effective immediately, through the end of fiscal year 2012-13. Council members earn just below $20,000 per year.
City Council Vice President Len Torres and Councilman John McLaughlin told the Herald last week that they were both backing the effort, at a time when the city is considering layoffs and asking union members to pay a portion of their health insurance premiums.
“Before we can ask anyone for anything we have to do the same thing,” McLaughlin said.
Additionally, City Manager Jack Schnirman held a meeting last week with all exempt management employees, where he announced that exempt employees would begin paying 10 percent of their health care costs starting in fiscal 2012-13.
According to the resolution, exempt employees “shall be entitled to the same maternity leave, hospitalization, major medical and prescription, dental and optical plans, life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment and disability insurance available to civil service employees pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement then in effect. Exempt employees shall be responsible for 10 percent of their annual health care premium, to be paid with pre-tax dollars, to be deducted from their bi-weekly paycheck.”
“We wouldn't ask the unions to do anything we wouldn't do ourselves,” Schnirman said. “We feel that the right thing to do is show some leadership before we ask for contributions from our labor partners that we’d be willing to do so ourselves.”
In addition to the roughly 23 exempt employees who would be affected, Schnirman said that members of the City Council would also begin paying a portion of their health care premiums effective July 1. The measure is expected to ultimately save the city roughly $40,000 per year, Schnirman said.
“At this point in time, given the inherited fiscal crisis, we feel this is simply the right thing to do,” City Council President Fran Adelson said in a statement.
“We all have to share the pain, and we feel that it is very important for management to lead by example,” Torres said in a statement.
