Last week, a three-judge panel of the fourth state appellate court district unanimously rejected a 2015 PERB ruling that if upheld would have invalidated a successful 2012 San Diego ballot measure that gave newly hired city employees – except for police officers – 401(k)-style retirement benefits instead of defined-benefit pensions. The measure was meant to dig California’s second-biggest city out of a hole created by two City Council decisions to intentionally underfund the San Diego pension system, leading to a city fiscal crisis so severe that San Diego was dubbed “Enron-by-the-Sea” in 2004 by the New York Times.

PERB’s ruling was based on the view that any pension ballot measure that was promoted by elected city officials – in San Diego’s case, by then-Mayor Jerry Sanders and several City Council members – ran afoul of state requirements that local governments had to negotiate in the standard collective bargaining “meet and confer” process before they could change terms of employment.

This legal argument was tough to square with California’s history. Elected officials frequently have taken the lead in employing direct democracy to adopt new laws or modify existing ones – including those that affect terms of employment for public employees. In 2005, for example, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought to change teacher tenure rules in a special election. Schwarzenegger couldn’t sell the change to voters, but his attempt to do so was not seen as unlawful or unusual.

The appellate panel agreed with the city of San Diego’s argument that while elected officials helped lobby for the 2012 pension reform measure, it was crafted and placed on the ballot in keeping with standard practices for citizens’ initiatives, with petition committees, signature-gathering campaigns and other normal trappings of direct democracy. The ruling also noted that PERB had tried to use its official powers to block the ballot measure in early 2012 even before it reached the ballot, with the hint that appellate judges saw this decision as a sign of PERB abusing its authority.

PERB wanted collective bargaining to apply retroactively to older laws

PERB’s previous setback in asserting the sweeping powers of collective bargaining laws came in its response to a lawsuit filed in 2011. Parent activists sued the Los Angeles Unified School District for not considering student performance when formally evaluating teachers, as is required by the Stull Act, a far-reaching state education blueprint enacted in 1971.

PERB contended that before teachers were subject to such evaluations, the matter should be collectively bargained – even though the primary law establishing collective bargaining for teachers was approved in 1975, four years after the Stull Act took effect. The agency also held that it should have initial jurisdiction over the case – not state courts.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant’s 2012 decision categorically rejected PERB’s arguments, saying that LAUSD could not ignore the Stull Act’s requirements, that collective bargaining did not apply retroactively to older state laws and that parent activists were free to use the courts to challenge whether public schools were complying with state laws.

The Stull Act remains an area of contention for California public schools despite Chalfant’s ruling. In September, Contra County Superior Court Judge Barry P. Good rejected a lawsuit that said 13 Northern California school districts were breaking state law by refusing to consider student performance in evaluating teachers.

Good’s 40-page ruling held that the Stull Act’s requirements were not as “clear and unambiguous” as those who filed the lawsuit contended.

By Chris Reed

Last year, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power imposed an 11 percent rate hike — which it called a “rate change” — on its power customers, while water customers saw rates go up 5 percent.

Millions of Angelenos will no doubt be thrilled to know what this is paying for: $70,000 a year janitors. No wonder DWP unions want to keep pay data secret.

This is from the L.A. Times:

Average DWP pay: $101,237. It’s good to be DWPer

“Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant stared in disbelief Tuesday at a list of hundreds of Department of Water and Power employees who have asked that their names and salaries be withheld from the public, citing safety concerns.

“On the list were mechanics, typists and meter readers.

“‘This is frivolous on its face; I mean, these are DWP employees,’ Chalfant said, noting that the names of government employees are public and even undercover police officers have a hard time demonstrating they would be in danger if their names appeared on a list of department employees. …

“The average DWP employee, including everyone from the highest-paid engineers to the lowest-paid temps, made $101,237 in 2012, the data show.

“Among the job titles that saw the biggest average pay increases over the last five years were custodians, up 25%, from $56,060 to $69,995.

“Welders’ and machinists’ pay grew 18% on average to $132,548 and $142,562, respectively. Those figures represent full-time employees who worked entire years in 2008 and 2012.

“Employees seeking anonymity made $110,730 on average in 2012, 12.4% more than workers whose names were released.”

White House hearts federal employees

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the public employee gratification front, The Washington Post reports the Obama administration is seeking a raise in pay for all federal employees.

The raise may be small (1 percent), but the same “step” pay raise policies seen in California government are used in the federal government, so the claim that federal employees have gone years without pay hikes is simply wrong. And aren’t we supposed to see belt-tightening and shared sacrifice in this post-sequester era?

Instead of pragmatism, we get disinformation. “As the President stated in his [fiscal year] 2014 Budget, a permanent pay freeze is neither sustainable nor desirable,” a White House statement noted.

The myth of a ‘permanent pay freeze’

What “permanent pay freeze”? Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have gotten step raises in recent years.

And who says a pay freeze for government employees — with raises earned for performance, not for staying alive — “is neither sustainable nor desirable”? Turnover among federal employees is minuscule. That indicates compensation is far more than adequate.

Government employees aren’t just a protected class in California. It’s a federal phenomenon as well — a depressing one.