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Margate Freezes City Worker Pay
• FPE and PBA face dry well
Wednesday,
April 21, 2010
The message was the same for Margate city workers represented by the Federation of Public Employees (FPE) and Margate police captains and lieutenants represented by the Broward County Police Benevolent Association:
“What you’re making today, you’re making tomorrow,” Margate City Manager, Frank Porcella, told union representatives in the first round of negotiations at City Hall Tuesday, essentially freezing wages for the second year in a row.
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In a year when Margate faces what could be a $4.5 million budgetary shortfall, Porcella explained to the two bargaining units that the city has no money to fund annual step raises or salary increases.
Employees currently receiving longevity bonuses will continue to receive them, said Porcella, but new hires effective October 1, 2010 will be exempt from the benefit. Longevity bonuses are what FPE employees receive after ten or more years of service with the city.
Also on the chopping block for city employees was comp time, “which was a nice thing to have,” said Porcella, “but it got away.”
Comp time is a benefit city employees receive in lieu of overtime. It sometimes isn’t paid out until the city owes an employee thousands of dollars and is a practice that must end, said Porcella, or the city will go broke.
Porcella proposed a 40 hour cap on comp time for city employees, with a stipulation that comp time over 40 hours be used inside of four months. Those currently owed comp time over 40 hours would have until September 30, 2011 to bring their comp time down to 40 hours.
There was no discussion regarding layoffs, however, for the second year in a row the city is looking at contacting out Margate City Transit to a private company, which will force Margate’s full-time and part-time bus drivers to decide whether they will work for the new company or find work elsewhere. Porcella said outsourcing the city’s bus service could save taxpayers in excess of $200,000 a year.
Bus drivers working for the new company would retain pension benefits, but might have to settle for a cut in pay, as the new company has agreed to pay at least $13 an hour, which is the Broward living wage. Most Margate Transit drivers make approximately $14 an hour.
Although FPE representatives didn’t seem shocked by the proposed pay freeze and amiable to Porcella’s proposals pending further discussion, Margate police captains and lieutenants weren’t as pleased. They want to get paid more.
Broward PBA General Counsel, Barbara Duffy, pointed to the most recent contact brokered by Margate’s rank and file officers (represented by the Fraternal Order of Police) which grants certain officers step raises this year and a one-time $500 bonus for some.
Duffy told city officials that she didn’t understand why Margate captains and lieutenants were exempt from pay raises, when the city agreed to give the rank and file theirs.
In hindsight, Porcella explained, the city would have never agreed to FOP raises when they negotiated their contract had it known the economy was going to be as bad as it turned out to be this year.
Lieutenant Andy Zettek with the Margate Police Department said he would like to see his pay at least equal to what other police departments are paying their captains and lieutenants. Margate’s are among the lowest paid in Broward County, said Zettek.
Inasmuch as the PBA represents just ten captains and lieutenants—compared with 200 FPE employees and more than 100 FOP rank and file officers—Duffy thinks the city should make an exception and raise the pay scale for Margate captains and lieutenants. She says it will help the city attract quality talent and because so few would get the raise taxpayers won’t feel it.
No agreements were reached with the FPE or PBA Tuesday. Second round talks are scheduled for May 5 and 6.
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