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No time for additional perks

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 6, 2009

During the worst recession in modern times, as workers were enduring pay cuts, losing benefits and being required to take furlough days, the city of Tampa's unions sacrificed ... nothing.

Their benefits remained robust. They retained generous leave policies, tuition reimbursements and even kept a "longevity" bonus that is given for simply staying on the job.

Yet the police and firefighter unions want more. They are fighting Mayor Pam Iorio's effort to freeze salaries and demanding additional perks, such as another holiday and more annual leave.

They should heed the words of special magistrate John McCollister, who largely sided with the city in reviewing the contract dispute between the city and the Police Benevolent Association. In a thoughtful and often wry analysis, he wrote:

"In contract negotiations, as with comedy, timing is everything. Three years ago, at a time when inflation and the value of real estate rose faster than a rocket from Cape Kennedy, employee raises were commonplace. Since then, nearly every community in the nation has slogged through several years of seismic economic changes, resulting in huge reductions in the workforce and per-capita income."

The local Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents more than 2,000 blue-collar, technical and clerical city workers, acknowledges the new economic reality. It accepted a contract with the city this week that contains no raises.

Now the city council, which has the final word on contract disputes, needs to give the recalcitrant unions a reality check.

Tampa, after all, faces a $51 million budget shortfall and the prospect of reduced revenues for years to come. Yet the police and firefighters want raises and perks that would cost the city another $12.6 million if distributed among all three unions.

For instance, the police union wants an additional "floating" holiday, which can be taken at an officer's discretion. (The police already get one floating and 11 official holidays.) It also wants additional annual leave. The magistrate rightly saw no logical justification for either perk.

If the city doesn't get a grip on the runaway salaries and benefits, then it will have no choice but to lay off more workers. It has already eliminated more than 500 positions - or about 10 percent of its workforce - over the last few years. Key services will be jeopardized.

The unions argue the city can take money from its reserves to fund their wish list. But the city took $31 million from reserves this year to balance the budget. To further deplete this fund - it has about $80 million set aside to deal with hurricanes or other emergencies - to fund an increase in its annual operating costs would be financial madness.

The police union, for its part, is willing to give up a cost-of-living raise but insists it be given step or merit raises, which apply to more than 50 percent of workers. Union officials fear that once the step raise is taken away, it will never return.

But Bonnie Wise, city budget chief, says the step increase will be considered status quo in future contract negotiations. The magistrate, noting the adverse reaction of citizens to government pay raises during these lean times, said a one-year only suspension of the step plan is in the interest of the police force and taxpayers.

New Police Chief Jane Castor points out officers have achieved record crime reductions, so she appreciates the union's case. But she also reminds officers that recent contracts have "been the best in my 25 years on the force," and nothing has been taken from them. They are simply being asked to make do with existing pay and benefits.

"Our hands are tied," Castor says. "We just don't have the money."

What police and other union members should remember is that "we" doesn't refer just to the administration but to Tampa's hard-pressed taxpayers, most of whom haven't seen any pay raises or additional benefits in a long time.

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