The bill was a classic special interest sponsored bill, sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO.

What does SB 7 do?

SB 7 compels charter cities to require prevailing wages on local projects they construct with local funds by withholding all state contracting funds from non-compliant cities. The result could mean that local governments simply forgo important infrastructure projects because they cannot afford to fund them.

SB 7, however, is arguably unconstitutional. In 2012, the California Supreme court confirmed, in State Building and Construction Trades Council of California AFL-CIO vs. City of Vista, that California charter cities would be able to maintain the autonomy to decide whether to pay prevailing wages for local construction projects. It was a step in the direction of the free market for local governments.

What is going on in California if the Legislature and governor ignore the constitution?

According to Russell Johnson, Associated Building and Contractors, Inc., the California Supreme Court decision meant that charter cities can operate as they see fit. “The Court said, 'Autonomy with regard to the expenditure of public funds lies at the heart of what it means to be an independent governmental entity.’ We can think of nothing that is of greater municipal concern than how a city’s tax dollars will be spent; nor anything which could be of less interest to taxpayers of other jurisdictions,” Johnson told me in June.

“Whether a charter city pays prevailing wage with local funds is up to each city and not the Legislature,”  Johnson said.

Charter Cities

Of the 482 cities in California, 121 are charter cities; the rest are “general law cities” over which the Legislature exercises more control. But not all charter cities avail themselves of the prevailing wage exemption. There are 70 cities with no exemption, 10 cities with a partial exemption, and 41 charter cities with full exemption, according to the California Construction Compliance Group.

“In recent years, city councils have proposed charters and voters have approved charters in order to circumvent costly and unnecessary state mandates imposed by the California State Legislature on local governments,” Kevin Dayton wrote yesterday in the Flash Report. “Many of these mandates are pushed into state law by union lobbyists.”

“To stifle this little local rebellion, State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Republican Senator Anthony Cannella introduced a bill in 2013 sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California,” Dayton said. “Senate Bill 7 cuts off state construction funding for charter cities that set contracting policies that deviate from state-mandated prevailing wage laws.”

“Supporters of Senate Bill 7 say it 'encourages' charter cities to abide by state prevailing wage law” Dayton said. “Others suggest that the term 'encourages' is somewhat Orwellian, as the term 'punishes' would be more accurate.”

Gov. Jerry Brown just signed SB 743, “easing environmental regulations for developments in California cities, including a new basketball arena in downtown Sacramento,” the Los Angeles Times said.

In March I predicted Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento would jam legislation through exempting the Sacramento Kings new arena plan from the restrictions of the  California Environmental Quality Act, in order to meet a dubious deadline imposed by the NBA.

March 30, after Steinberg’s office told me he did not plan on authoring legislation to streamline or bypass the required environmental process for the proposed Sacramento NBA arena, I predicted they weren’t being straight with me.

Steinberg’s office denied any plan to do this. But the reason I wrote the story and asked about this was I knew this was the next step in scamming the public with the publicly subsidized arena.

The need to bypass California’s absurdly strict environmental guidelines and restrictions prevent most large scale projects from ever taking place without legislative intervention. And Sacramento officials shoved the latest iteration of an arena deal through at breakneck speed for a reason.

But even Steinberg couldn’t get his original bill, SB 731 through the committee process. His colleagues weren’t comfortable with Steinberg’s intended claims of reforming the entire CEQA process, when really his bill was just a conduit for the Sacramento arena deal.

SB 731 was shelved and the new conduit became a gut-and-amend bill. SB 743 rose from the ashes like a Phoenix. (Poor choice of words for the Sacramento Kings…)

Steinberg’s latest bill was introduced at the very end the legislative session, without notice, public debate or any real scrutiny by media. Nearly all of the Sacramento local media — radio, television, newspapers and magazines — are backing the arena project, and providing the cheerleading.

Yet Steinberg’s bill is even worse than previous stadium legislation. It also would allow the City of Sacramento greater eminent domain powers to seize the downtown property currently in the way of building the project.

More shameful, is what media claims the bill will do, rather than highlight what abuses of power it will allow, and gifts of public property to the arena developers.

According to the LA Times provisions of SB 743 will (in bold):

–Remove parking and aesthetics standards as grounds for legal challenges against developments in urban infill areas near transit stops.

Among the assets being “gifted” to the arena deal are the city’s parking garages and meters, which currently generate about $9 million a year for the general fund. The city has proposed diverting all of the city parking revenues to pay the arena bond payments. This will blow a $9 million annual hole in the general fund.

City staff assigned zero value to the 3,700 parking garage spaces the city is giving to the developers, nearly 50 percent of all city-owned garage spaces. The garage spots actually have a fair market value of $58 million, based on the city’s own 2012 parking valuation study.

–Modernize the statewide measurements against which traffic impacts are assessed and resolved, allowing developers to offset the impacts by building near mass transit stations.

Not true. Steinberg’s CEQA exemption bill would allow arena construction to go ahead even with existing traffic backups in this part of downtown, and anticipated significant traffic impacts due to the arena. Then taxpayers will be on the hook when Caltrans decides to send a bill of $100 million-plus for freeway improvements — after arena construction is already underway.

–Expand an exemption from CEQA litigation for mixed residential/commercial projects located within transit priority areas where a full environmental impact review has already been completed.

For the Sacramento arena project, the bill prevents certain lawsuits stopping the project unless a judge finds a danger to public health and safety, and allows the government to force the sale of properties through eminent domain concurrently with the environmental review process.

Even if there are violations to the CEQA laws, mitigation doesn’t have to be addressed until the end of the first basketball season with an official NBA team actually playing in the arena.

“This bill sets a terrible precedent by eliminating any realistic chance of halting construction if the arena is approved illegally,” Kevin Bundy, Senior Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press statement, in a story I recently wrote. “This is a wink and a nod to public officials that they can ignore California’s most important environmental law with impunity.”

The truth is the City of Sacramento is giving assets to the arena developers, which city officials say have a value of $46 million. However, Eye on Sacramento, a public policy watchdog group, estimated the real value of these assets is at least $139 million, making the total taxpayer subsidy $350 million — not the $257 million as represented by the city.

Another area of substantial discrepancy is between the subsidy numbers provided by the city and EOS’s subsidy calculations.

City staff also assigned zero value to the six digital billboard sites the city is giving away as part of the arena deal. But EOS found the sites are worth $18 million based on values established in a deal the city cut with Clear Channel Outboard just last year.

The remaining discrepancies are due to the city staff’s gross under-valuation of the six land parcels the city is also giving away to the developers. EOS found two of the six parcels to be worth four to six times the values assigned by staff.

Opposition

Because of the lack of public debate about the arena deal, as well as the highly dubious numbers put out by the city over the growing public subsidy, groups are joining efforts to oppose the arena in Sacramento for the Kings pro basketball team unless it is first put before voters for a vote.

A recent poll by the opposition group Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork found 78 percent of the respondents favor a public vote on taxpayer subsidies for the arena. Yet Steinberg and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player, have forged ahead as if it’s already a done deal.

And despite the Steinberg fast-tracked legislation now signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, I suspect the effort to put an initiative on the ballot will heat up.

A recent poll by the opposition group Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork found 78 percent of the respondents favor a public vote on taxpayer subsidies for the arena. Yet Steinberg and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player, are forging ahead as if it’s already a done deal.

But the deal is not done even though Steinberg is fast-tracking legislation to give the arena an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. The exemption is needed to meet an NBA-imposed deadline for quick construction.

Steinberg’s bill, a gut-and-amend job on another bill, will be introduced Friday. It will be similar to recent bills granting CEQA exemptions for a proposed stadium in downtown Los Angeles for a pro football team; and for a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara.

No debate

Steinberg’s latest bill is also being introduced at the very end the legislative session, without notice, public debate or any real scrutiny by media. Nearly all of the Sacramento local media — radio, television, newspapers and magazines — are backing the arena project.

Yet Steinberg’s bill is even worse than previous stadium legislation. It also would allow the City of Sacramento greater eminent domain powers to seize the downtown property currently in the way of building the project.

“When it comes to infill projects, when it comes to high wage, big job-opportunity projects, we ought to do all that is reasonable to expedite the process,” Steinberg said in a press conference Aug. 30.

The “reasonable, high wage, big job-opportunities” he is referring to will fall under a Community Workforce and Training Agreement in Sacramento, which requires most of the constructions workers hired for the arena project to be unionized.

Flexing union muscle

“Labor unions and the firm signed to lead construction of a new Kings arena in Sacramento have come to an agreement over the use of unionized labor in the construction of the project, a move that assures peace with the unions but will likely trigger a new source of opposition to the proposed public subsidy for the arena,” the Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.

But that only enraged and energized the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, a 15-year-old California-based organization dedicated to opposing Project Labor Agreements, which guarantee contracts to unionized firms. The CFEC called the arena PLA “a waste of taxpayer money and a payoff to unions to avoid baseless complaints and lawsuits under the California Environmental Quality Act.”

“Steinberg needs union lobbyists and Democrats to push through his special [California Environmental Quality Act] exemption bill,” said Eric Christen, CEFC Executive Director. “Requiring construction companies to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions locks up majority support in the legislature for this special interest bill.”

Opposition to the arena deal process

“This is not a hospital, emergency response center, or even a school,” Abigail Okrent told me in an interview discussing Steinberg's gut-and-amend legislation; she's the legislative director for the Planning and Conservation League. “If this is such an urgent issue, why not for other issues? It’s a basketball stadium, not a hospital.”

The rushed bill will allow only a limited public comment period during the CEQA process, according to Okrent. Even more egregiously, she said that, even if there are violations to the CEQA laws, “mitigation doesn’t have to be addressed until the end of the first basketball season with an official NBA team actually playing in the arena. This is a contentious issue which requires more discussion.”

The Planning and Conservation League has taken no position on the arena, but is objecting to the rushed,  gut-and-amend bill, and to the lack of proper public vetting.

“This bill sets a terrible precedent by eliminating any realistic chance of halting construction if the arena is approved illegally,” Kevin Bundy, Senior Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press statement. “This is a wink and a nod to public officials that they can ignore California’s most important environmental law with impunity.”

Gifts of assets

The City of Sacramento is giving assets to the arena developers, which city officials say have a value of $46 million. However, Eye on Sacramento, a public policy watchdog group, estimated the real value of these assets is at least $139 million, making the total taxpayer subsidy $350 million — not the $257 million as represented by the city.

Among the assets being gifted to the arena deal are the city’s parking garages and meters, which currently generate about $9 million a year for the general fund. The city has proposed diverting all of the city parking revenues to pay the arena bond payments. But according to EOS, this will blow a $9 million annual hole in the general fund.

Sacramento is already running a $9 million deficit; another $9 million would double that to $18 million.

Another area of substantial discrepancy is between the subsidy numbers provided by the city and EOS's subsidy calculations.

According to EOS, a large portion of the discrepancy can be attributed to city staff assigning zero value to the 3,700 parking garage spaces the city is giving to the developers, nearly 50 percent of all city-owned garage spaces. EOS calculates the garage spots actually have a fair market value of $58 million, based on the city's own 2012 parking valuation study.

City staff also assigned zero value to the six digital billboard sites the city is giving away as part of the arena deal. But EOS found the sites are worth $18 million based on values established in a deal the city cut with Clear Channel Outboard just last year.

The remaining discrepancies are due to the city staff's gross under-valuation of the six land parcels the city is also giving away to the developers. EOS found two of the six parcels to be worth four to six times the values assigned by staff.

And EOS warns Steinberg's CEQA exemption bill would allow arena construction to go ahead even with anticipated traffic impacts. Then taxpayers will be on the hook when Caltrans decides to send a bill of $100 million-plus for freeway improvements — after arena construction is already underway.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers have reversed course on the sneaky attempt to reduce access to public records, as mandated by the Public Records Act. The act provides Californians the ability to obtain documents about state and local government actions.

Instead, according to the Los Angeles Times, Legislative leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown are looking at a constitutional amendment that would force local governments to pay for a state mandate that always has been picked up by the state. The result will be even more pressure on local budgets. So much for all of the feel-good political rhetoric about support for local governments.

Here’s what happened. On June 14,  AB 76  was passed by both houses of the Legislature and sent to the governor. It would gut the state Public Records Act at the local level. The last-minute trailer bill language would remove local governments’ current requirements to respond within 10 days to public records act requests, or to assist those requesting documents.

But opposition to the bill was immense from outraged members of the public and the media.

So on June 20, the Assembly passed SB 71, which is the same as AB 76, but with the the language threatening the Records Act removed.

Blame Brown

Blame was cast on Brown, who put the requirement to suspend the California Public Records Act in his January budget proposal. On the Assembly floor Thursday in a session I attended, Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Los Angeles, said passing AB 76 was merely to save money. He said, “The governor, wanting to save money, put in the provision.”

Then Blumenfield, clearly on the defense, added a knock on the press itself for not noticing what was in the budget. “Six months ago, there was not a peep out of the press or anyone in public,” he said.

Assemblywoman Kristen Olsen, R-Modesto, pointed out that her bill, ACA 4, which would require all bills to be in print for 72 hours before being voted on, would have prevented the mess Democratic lawmakers found themselves in over attempting to strip the Public Records Act.

As I wrote in May, Democrats killed her bill even before it could be heard in the Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6, which is led by Blumenfield.

Blumenfield did not back down. “Those arguments have nothing to do with this bill,” he said in response to Olsen. But ACA 4 would have assured that AB 76 had 72 hours to be scrutinized carefully; instead, it was subjected to a quick vote with almost no scrutiny of what was in it, leading to the ongoing crisis.

“The governor’s proposal was in place six months ago,” Blumenfield said again, even though both the Assembly and Senate slipped the provision into budget trailer bills at the eleventh hour. Nothing in a budget proposal by any governor is automatic, but must be written up into a bill by the Legislature.

Additionally, under increasing pressure this week, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, released a joint statement Thursday admitting, “[T]here needs to be both an immediate fix to ensure local entities comply with the California Public Records Act and a long term solution so the California Public Records Act is not considered a reimbursable mandate.”

Public Records Act provisions

Assemblywoman Olsen called her legislative colleagues “hypocritical” for  reversing course on gutting the Public Records Act, while still opposing her ACA 4 requiring bills to be in print for 72 hours before a vote.

“I find it interesting the same folks who didn’t want to release their office budgets two years ago are falling all over themselves now to get SB 71 passed,” Olsen said.

Olsen was referring to a big dust-up in August 2011, when  the Assembly refused to comply with the state-required performance audit of Assembly administrative offices.

I wrote back then, “The Standing Rules of the Assembly call for an annual performance audit of the Assembly. But the Assembly had never actually complied with this rule,” prior to August 2011.

A political about-face

Both Blumenfield and Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, maintained that the trailer bill measures were meant to save the state millions of dollars in reimbursement to local governments for fulfilling Public Records requests. And both of the lawmakers claimed the budget bills would not make records unavailable.

However, every local government Public Records Act request I’ve made already comes with a hefty charge by the agency for reproducing the documents.

Brown, Steinberg and Perez announced a plan to introduce a constitutional amendment to go before voters next June, making changes to the California Public Records Act.

After a closed-door meeting of the Senate Democratic Caucus, a joint statement was released by Steinberg and Perez, which said that, as the Senate constitutional amendment progresses, the Assembly and Senate will work together “to give voters the chance to make clear that good government shouldn’t come with an extra price tag.”

Steinberg and Perez said, “We agree there needs to be both an immediate fix to ensure local entities comply with the California Public Records Act and a long-term solution so the California Public Records Act is not considered a reimbursable mandate.”

If the change ends up becoming law, then local governments will have pick up the tab for what until now has been a state mandate paid for out of state general-fund revenues. This would be on top of all the other mandates the state imposes on local governments, including the mandated pension spiking a dozen years ago and the recent shifting of state prisoners into local jails.

This also is a reason why, as Dave Roberts reported on CalWatchdog.com, the Legislature is trying to make it easier for local governments to raise parcel taxes, which then would pay for shifting the cost of honest government from the state to the local levels.

By Katy Grimes

While reports of an improving California economy abound, many in the state aren’t buying it — particularly given how many anti-business bills are working through the Legislature.

Of particular interest is Senate Bill 7, by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres. SB 7 would deprive charter cities of state funding and financial assistance for projects simply because some city charters do not require paying the prevailing wage.

The bill is sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO.

“Continuing California’s economic growth depends on creating more middle class jobs, especially in the construction industry that was hit so hard during the Great Recession,” said Steinberg on his website. “Low wage contractors cut costs by cutting corners, but the data shows that they’re not saving public money. We can’t afford to shortchange workers and taxpayers by ignoring the economic net benefit of California’s prevailing wage law.”

What does SB 7 do?

SB 7 seeks to compel charter cities to require prevailing wages on local projects they construct with local funds by withholding all state contracting funds from non-compliant cities. The result could mean that local governments simply forgo important infrastructure projects because they cannot afford to fund them.

SB 7, however, is arguably unconstitutional. In 2012, the California Supreme court confirmed, in State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, AFL-CIO vs. City of Vista, that California charter cities would be able to maintain the autonomy to decide whether to pay prevailing wages for local construction projects. It was a step in the direction of the free market for local governments, as I wrote last September in “Push for charter cities enrages unions.”

“Whether a charter city pays prevailing wage with local funds is up to each city and not the Legislature,” said Russell Johnson, Associated Building and Contractors, Inc., California Government Affairs Director. “In this decision the court said, ‘Autonomy with regard to the expenditure of public funds lies at the heart of what it means to be an independent governmental entity.’ We can think of nothing that is of greater municipal concern than how a city’s tax dollars will be spent; nor anything which could be of less interest to taxpayers of other jurisdictions.”

According to Johnson, the ruling means charter cities now have a clear path to continue to operate as they see fit.

What is a California charter city?

In California, charter cities are under a unique protection in the State Constitution, and are allowed autonomy from the state when it comes to “municipal affairs.” This means when local dollars are used, charter cities get to make local decisions.

“In the Vista case, the California Supreme Court unambiguously upheld the right of charter cities to establish their own contracting policies for public works projects paid for with local funds,” Russell explained. “Local projects built with local funds are not subject to prevailing wage.”

The bill

Passage of SB 7 would establish a disturbing road map for future state intrusion on charter city laws and policies by withholding state funds as leverage to attempt to force changes to voter-approved city charters and ordinances.

“Cities recognize that exercising the power of a charter can free their municipal affairs from the grip of the state legislature and the special interest groups entrenched at the capitol,” Kevin Dayton, CEO of Dayton Public Policy Institute, said in a recent op ed on UnionWatch.org.

Dayton wrote:

“A staff report about city charters to the Murrieta City Council for its October 2, 2012 meeting was blunt about the need for cities to enact charters:

“‘…a knowledgeable, involved electorate should both propel and constrain the direction of its own city. Local control has always been a paramount matter of residents, businesses and the Murrieta City Council. Yet state legislators and previous gubernatorial administrations continue to impose far greater mandates, while at the same time hindering the ability of local governments to operate successfully. With little ability to protest, local governments have watched as the state government continues to balance its budget deficits on the backs of fiscally responsible local jurisdictions…The voice of cities in Sacramento has become mute due to a combination of special interest groups, influential political campaign contributions and tone-deaf lawmakers passing unfunded mandates. This process has left cities with little ability to petition the state government…’”

Of the 482 cities in California, 121 are charter cities; the rest are “general law cities” over which the Legislature exercises more control. But not all charter cities avail themselves of the prevailing wage exemption. There are currently 70 cities with no exemption, 10 cities with a partial exemption, and 41 charter cities with full exemption, according to the California Construction Compliance Group.

“But there are aggressive opponents who regard cities’ exercise of their charter authority to be an attack on their hegemony,” Dayton said. “In 2011 and 2012, unions spent jaw-dropping amounts per voter on campaigns to convince voters to reject reasonable proposed charters.”

Charter cities and Project Labor Agreements

This isn’t the first time unions have been at the dance to crush charter city authority. The unions backed SB 922 in 2011 and SB 829 in 2012, both by former state Sen. Michael Rubio. These two laws cut off state money to charter cities that adopt policies prohibiting those cities from requiring construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions as a condition of work. Both bills were signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

“SB 7 just adopts the same concept of overpowering charter city authority,” Dayton said.

Dayton anticipates the Democratic legislative supermajority and Brown, also a Democrat, will advance even more union-backed efforts to chip away at Article XI, Section 3 of the California Constitution, which allows cities to govern their own municipal affairs under a charter.

Dayton said, “It would be an effective way to eliminate another one of the diminishing number of checks and balances that interfere with utopian schemes planned under the benevolent and enlightened one-party state.”

By Katy Grimes

In a shocking turn of events yesterday, a controversial labor union bill authored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, was killed by an Assembly committee today.

SB 25, sponsored by the United Farm Workers, proposed to make numerous and dramatic changes to the mandatory mediation process added to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 2002.

As Senate President, Steinberg does not usually present his own bills. One of his staff members presented SB 25 to the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee , but it clearly didn’t go as planned.

What the current mediation process is…

The current mandatory mediation process was enacted by two bills in 2002 —  SB 1156 by Sen. John Burton, and AB 2596 by Assemblyman Herb Wesson —  “would impose binding arbitration when growers refuse to agree to union contracts,” according to the United Farm Workers.

Currently, an agricultural employer or a labor union can ask for the mandatory mediation process if the parties have failed to reach agreement, or if the employer has committed an unfair labor pBut ractice, or if the parties have not previously had a binding contract between them.

Steinberg’s bill, would create a perpetual contract mediation process, taking out the need to negotiate, according to the bill’s opponents.

“Opponents contend that this bill expands mandatory mediation under the ALRA to all future contract negotiations, and allows for mediator-created collective bargaining agreements, the bill analysis says. “They argue that this will disenfranchise agricultural workers by unionizing workers, years or even decades after a union abandoned negotiations. Opponents argue that this bill will impose union membership on these workers along with the obligation to support the union financially regardless of whether those workers chose union representation.”

SB 25 would permit an agricultural union to serve upon an agriculture employer a request for mandatory mediation to demand bargaining immediately and forego existing requirements in the law as a prelude to invoking the mandatory mediation process.

The vote

The surprising vote was 3-1 with two Democrats abstaining. Steinberg’s representative couldn’t get enough votes to pass SB 25 out of the committee. However Committee Chairman Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, D-West Covina, granted reconsideration of the bill.

But opponents of SB 653 warned of potential consequences which could result in regions and cities in the state pitted against each other in a tax war, ultimately resulting in statewide non-cooperation.

“What kind of community services do you want in your communities?” asked several supporters of the bill, largely labor unions, and school districts. “Would you like to pay to keep your sheriffs, schools and public safety?” asked Senate President pro Tem Steinberg.

Steinberg talked of “local options,” and “raising the revenues locally” as the driving need for transferring the ability to increase taxes from the state to local governments to pay for the services people want and need.

“Public safety is very much threatened,” said Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza, testifying in support of Steinberg’s bill. “It’s starting to look like a third world country.”

Calling Steinberg’s statements “scare tactics,” Sen. Bob Huff  said, “We’ve been bleeding jobs. It’s time we as a state find a way to incentivize jobs rather than taxing.”

Huff said the bill creates lopsided taxation, and was not the answer to address city and county services. “As a city, we contracted out public safety, buildings services and parks services,” Huff said. He explained that contracting out allowed the city flexibility, based on need and finances available.

Huff said that he was reminded of a Harvard Study which found that during recessions, cuts to budgets were far more effective at recovery than tax increases.

The California Taxpayers Association is adamantly opposed to SB 653 and states, “SB 653 seeks to dramatically alter California’s tax structure by significantly expanding new taxing authority to counties.”  The bill would allow increases in local personal income taxes, excise taxes, sales and use taxes, vehicle taxes and taxes on oil.

Despite sound talk about basic economic principals in opposition to the bill, SB 653 passed the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance on a party-line vote, 6-2, with only Huff and Sen. Doug LaMalfa (R-Butte) voting against it.

MAY 4, 2011

The vote was 26-14, along party lines – except for one Republican vote from Sen. Sam Blakeslee (San Luis Obispo) – to ratify the six union contracts, which includes four new contracts with California Correctional Peace Officers. Only one more Republican vote is needed to pass Correa’s bill.

With one hour left in the day to lobby Senate Republicans, the CCPOA, which has given a great deal of money to both parties, will no doubt be reminding Republican Senators where some of their bread is buttered during the campaign season, in order to gain the additional vote needed for the correctional union contracts.

Sen. Pres. Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (Sacramento) described some debates in the like Senate like being in Alice In Wonderland and then proceeded to pummel Republicans. “Where is the commitment to actually reform something?” asked Steinberg.

But Republicans were not just critical of the union contracts for increasing in size by another $50 billion in the next five years – several Senators asked for a finalized budget first, and then agreed to sit down and negotiate union contracts.

Diamond Bar Republican Sen. Bob Huff commented that the deal scores little savings this year, then will hit hard down the road with massive increases. Huff said that the union contract increases would mean cuts to schools. “Why don’t you deliver this message to the schools – that this contract is more important than schools,” said Huff.

“This feels like a take-it-or-leave-it deal. I don’t feel negotiated with,” said Sen. Doug La Malfa (R-Butte). La Malfa said that the union contracts would leave the state $200 million short, but Steinberg challenged that amount and said the budget shortfall would only be $12 million, and added that “collective bargaining is under attack throughout the country.”

Former Governor Gray Davis gave the California Correctional Peace Officers Association — California’s prison guards — management control over the state’s prison system through the contracts he negotiated, and approved by the Legislature. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger  undid much of what Davis put into play, but now Gov. Jerry Brown may just reverse Schwarzeneger’s reforms and hand the keys to the state’s checkbook back to the correctional officers.

While many legislators would not mind richly remunerating actual public safety jobs, the list of jobs included in the “safety classes” is 41 pages long and includes such dangerous jobs as fingerprint specialists, mental health workers, parks and recreation employees, civil engineers, forestry and fish and game employees, and even the “shoemaking” and “culinary” instructors at the Youth Authority.

Included in the contracts is more vacation time for correctional officers, which adds up to nearly 19 weeks of accumulated leave time. The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that the current vacation time is valued at $600 million.

The six union deals need two Senate Republican votes… we will update the story after 4:15 p.m. Watch it live on The California Channel.

UPDATE: Sen. Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres) flipped his “no” vote late this afternoon and ended up voting in favor of SB 151. Jessica Hsiang, Cannella’s communications director provided Cannella’s statement about his vote:

“The contracts ratified today were negotiated at the bargaining table, and they do represent concessions from the unions involved and significant savings to the state. However, our state’s massive unfunded liabilities demand swift action to address the long-term sustainability of our state’s public pension system.

“Clearly, real pension reform will not be achieved at the bargaining table; it must be achieved through statute or by a vote of the people. That’s the reason I joined my colleagues in proposing a package of much-needed reforms that includes implementing 401K-style pension plans, capping final pension payouts, ensuring employees contribute their fair share to health care coverage and ending pension-spiking practices.

“Today, I received assurances from public-employee union leaders that they will engage in an earnest conversation about real pension reform, and I remain committed to finding agreement on a long-term solution to the multibillion-dollar unfunded pension liability California today faces.”

If the pension reform assurances from the public-employee unions are so earnest, why didn’t the entire Senate Republican caucus vote to ratify the contracts?

Katy Grimes

MAY 2, 2011