Shasta County Workers offer to pay 7% PERS

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

REDDING - The largest bargaining unit in Shasta County, Shasta County General Unit Members, made a formal concession this morning to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in open session. The members recently voted to pay the employee share (7%) of their retirement in exchange for a status quo contract and an extension to April 30, 2012. The SCGU contract expires on April 30, 2010. SCGU follows a list of other County unions who have agreed to do the same over a 12 month period. The unit was waiting to see what County elected and department heads were willing to do before sending the offer to the Board. Labor Relations Representative Cinamon Pitts presented the concession on behalf of Business Manager Chris Darker who was in the Monterey Bay area this week working on concession issues in the City of Monterey and attending various meetings.
“This was not an easy decision for the members, said Darker. This unit, like so many others, have given up salary and benefits to achieve and maintain 100% paid retirement over the years. In fact the County improved the retirement by dropping the 5 year PERS payment requirement by newly hired employees just 4 years ago. There was no concern then or as recently as two years ago about sustainability”, said Darker. Darker also said that it was cheaper and saved the tax payers money to pay the PERS rather than grant salary increases. In recent months, the media, and politicians looking for public approval ratings have been making a lot of hay about the golden public employee pensions even though the average pension is less than $24,000 a year and no Social Security benefits.
Even though the concession offer was just made at 9:15 am this morning, by 10:30 am, the County called UPEC and requested to meet with the UPEC negotiations team to begin negotiations for the SCGU next Wednesday, March 3rd. “At this time, we don’t know if that means that the generous concession by our members has been rejected by the Board or that a contingency plan has been staked out by County Administrators”, said Darker.