Denver Charter Changes for the November 2003 Election
One of Mayor Hickenlooper's planks during the election, that he and Council are now aggressively pursuing, are charter changes to remove language that ties salary levels for Career Service employees and elected officials to surveys and mandates increases automatically. Currently Career Service surveys salary levels for similar postitions and then recommends increases each year. City Council has little choice, under the current charter language, but to approve the increases. This leads to a yearly increase in salary for almost all employees. When combined with merit increases, and increases in costs for other benefits such as health insurance, the result puts a lot of pressure on revenues. In boom times increases in revenues have been able to keep pace but as revenues have declined the Mayor and Council have determined that they need flexibility to limit increases or eliminate them completely. They want to change the charter in a way that eliminates the mechanical nature of these increases.
During the election the Mayor said he hopes to keep the increases in costs for compensation and benefits to 2% per year. I don't know if he has changed his mind on that figure. The upshot is that he and Council do not feel that the current charter language allows them the flexibility needed to manage city finances in times of flat or decreasing revenue. The important part of this is that compensation would still be determined by the City Council. They argue that the alternative to amending the charter to allow the flexibility would be a greater number of employee layoffs during budget shortfalls. With between 50% and 70% of the budget going to personnel costs it's very hard to argue that the Mayor and Council should not look at employee salary and benefits to drive down costs.
Employees of course are worried that they'll never see another raise and that there will be a large number of layoffs anyway. So far the overwhelming margin of victory the Mayor racked up has not translated automatically into trust of the administration by city employees. This is not to say that employees don't want the Mayor to succeed, it's just caution on their part. There has been a kind of tension between the recent past administration and employees and the new Mayor has recognized it and is reaching out to city workers in speech and deed. Cutting his own salary and the salaries of appointees was a first step. He said he would and he did.
The Rocky Mountain News [July 26, 2003, "A new course"] is running an interview with Mayor Hickenlooper on the subject of charter changes. He's done his homework. When asked about the accrual of leave he correcly identified the current policy as a Career Service rule, not a charter provision. From the interview, "the key is to provide flexibility in the system so that it actually works for city employees. What we are going to do is take out all the language that was added in the late 1970s that basically micromanages exactly how Career Services operates. What the charter doesn't do is address the issue of whether there is enough money in the budget to give everyone a raise; it just sets out about the system of how to determine what the raise is going to be. And then it also adds specific prohibitions against productivity incentives. So the idea is to take all this language directly out of the charter and immediately put it in an ordinance that can be changed by City Council."
The Rocky [July 26, 2003, "Hickenlooper hits ground running"] is also running an editorial in support of getting the charter changes on the ballot for this fall's election. From the editorial, "Because the current wage-survey system mandates a certain level of pay increase, the city has little alternative in economic downturns but to lay people off. When council sets the pay, it can keep staffing levels up by trimming the raises. That makes more sense to us."
The first public hearing on the proposed charter changes will be at 5:30PM Wednesday at the Webb Building. Coyote Gulch'll be there asking the tough questions if he get's a chance. I'm interested the the role of Career Service in the new City order. In the past this agency, independent of the Mayor and Council, has been charged with serving the interests of city employees similar to the role a union would have. Is that role going to change?
Here's a link to Friday's Coyote Gulch containing links to other articles on the subject an another link to Thursday's posts.
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