Ah, if only it were like the above. It’d be a lot more fun to write about.
After taking a quick look at the city’s newly released merit pay figures for 2007-11, we now know why the Leader has been taking so long in processing the information for us. There’s not much to talk about.
Disappointed though they probably are that there’s no evidence of rampant favoritism or “nepotism” in the ranks, what clearly comes out in these numbers is just how democratic the award process has been. Unlike Glendale, it’s not just the bigshots who have gotten all the goodies. Rather, the money seems to have been well-distributed among most of the rank and file employees over the years. Even people on the lowest of ladders got a nice chunk of change in their pay envelope every year or two.
And in most cases the amounts were not and are not excessive, although a steep escalation can be seen during the last three years, especially in the city attorney’s office and library, of all places. But it still doesn’t range much above $5,000 for even the most favored employees. For instance, Public Works people shared amounts ranging from $500 to $2,000, with the average being much, much lower.
Actually, if there’s anyone who should be annoyed it’s the police department, because contrary to what everyone thought would be the case, most of these guys averaged awards around the thousand-dollar mark. Many of them were even less. This is bound to provide a nice topic for conversation down at Ben’s. Parks and Rec seems to have done better on average for their cushier jobs.
The most revealing thing about these figures is that it’s a total joke for anyone to say that “merit pay” in Burbank is about exceptional performance. When so many employees get awards like this it only means that the bar has been set way too low for them to be celebrated as the cream of the crop. What’s really going on here is that the city has an annual or biennial bonus program for its employees.
While it’s an arguable point about whether bonuses are appropriate or not in this day and age, we don’t see any evidence that the program is being corruptly administered. But we’ll keep on looking.
As everyone wants to know the nitty-gritty about who got the most money, we’ll be listing some names very soon. It’s no real shocker, really, but at least they weren’t the only ones (basically, the biggest of bigshots get a 5 percent bonus on their salary each year). If you really wanted to clean up though, the place to be was Information Technology and not Community Development. They’ve been getting significantly bigger money, like $4,000 and $5,000 compared to $1,800 or $3,000. But most Burbank employees receive much less.
[Interesting update is that Dennis Barlow received no merit bonus during this five-year period, but both Bonnie Teaford and Sharon Cohen did very nicely. Teaford got upwards of $16,000 a year for several years running, and Cohen got $10,000 for one or two years each. The city clerk received no bonus, but she's an elected official and is not under the CM (supposedly). But no explanation for why the CA did not receive any merit money, while people in his office did.]
**UPDATE**
When we casually mentioned yesterday that we’d be going down to look at the bonus figures, we knew for sure that the Leader was going to rush their story today just to make sure that they weren’t scooped.
Which they did– you can tell it was orignally pegged for their weekend bonus issue on Sunday. But by doing so they screwed up the best, most juiciest part:
City Manager Mike Flad, whose contract does not allow for a bonus, approves merit payments for executives.
He may approve others, but he got one himself, at least in 2008, where “Flad, Michael S.” received “$11,500″ in the “Cty. Mgr. Ofc.” category.
It was hidden by a staple at the very top of page 10. So unless there’s another Mike Flad down there then he got a merit bonus too for 07-08. The next year he awarded himself $12,000 [after he was CM-- or someone did!].
What screwups– if the Leader didn’t notice Flad’s big money [in '09] then what else did they miss? And this was their own story, not ours.
**UPDATE #2**
We’ve been told that neither the CA nor CM are eligible for bonuses. This doesn’t explain why Flad got more money for half of the fiscal year 08-09 than he did for the entire year previous. He became CM in early January of 2009.
Also, even though the city has said that their police contract does not include merit pay, some uniformed officers are listed next to various awards. There were also many civilian employees in the department who received these bonuses, as well as management.
I read the online Burbank Leader story and was shocked. The title should have read PIGS AT THE TROUGH. The bigwig at Burbank Water and Power gets so much tha this bonus is single-handedly responsible for increasing our bills. How many household utility bills could be paid for a full year just to equal and pay for one man’s bonus, and that doesn’t even include his salary. The top people in this city are raping the poor if you ask me.
What happened to the City Treasury on Thursday–last Thursday?
Did she “find” more M-O-N-E-Y?
Would it add-up to cover the “Crossing Guard Problem”???
Sorry but I am disgusted by these people. Do they even appreciate how the average person sacrifices to pay all the damn taxes that these people get rich off of ??? It is time for a tax revolt!!!
I like how Joy Forbes gets 11,000 and her daughter gets Penny Forbes gets 3,000.00 highest in both their positions…..nepotism anyone?
I think it’s reversed. As to nepotism, I don’t think there’s any way that this could be determined without access to their personnel files. Maybe they deserved it.
I don’t see any evidence of favoritism, but maybe some people might. My objection is that bonuses are inappropriate right now and I’m not sure if it’s something public employers should be doing anyway.
On the other hand……..
Dearest semi,
The argument you just advanced is right out of juli scott’s brief AGAINST Public Disclosure of “funny & fuzzy pay”.
Public Disclosure also affords co-workers to make their OWN evaluation of the legitimacy of the payments.
Patterns can be reviewed and exposed to the light-of-day.
While many of us can agree that “spoils-of-the-system” can “spoil-the-system”., from a Public Policy perspective there should be no remuneration within “parts” of a legitimate Civil Service System.
Our Mother’s never taught us to agree ALL of the time.
Now, let’s scrutinize the information from the standpoint of “what” is there that a MAJORITY of the City Council AUTHORIZED the barlow to spend OUR money in a futile effort to HIDE from us???
If the follower “lays eggs”—let’s scramble ‘em!!!
Semi, I know you are definitely wrong about you believing there is no evidence of favoritism. You definitely have not worked for the city of Burbank. It is all about favoritism, the promotions, the hiring, the bonuses, the good evaluations to get the bonuses and promotions, they all are entirely based on favoritism. The employee who kisses the best ass is the employee that is favored and then gets the best evaluation and then gets promoted along with the bonuses. That is the entire Burbank city system and then nepotism comes into play even as mush as favoritism when it comes to who gets hired or who doesn’t.
I read a reply from someone in the Burbank leader that mentioned that city employees do not deserve bonuses simply for doing the job they get paid well to do. Exactly but favoritism in Burbank city allows this stupid thing to happen on the back of citizens tax dollars. There should be no bonuses paid to any employee for doing their job well, as that is what they are supposed to be doing to receive that salary and benefits. To give bonuses to an employee that does not bring in extra tax income like CEO of large companies do is a crime against the citizens of that city. I don’t agree with the large bonuses that certain CEO’s have received but some have earned them by making more money for their company and stockholders so the board rewards them. There is no city employee’s except the hated parking control and police officers that generate income for the cities they work in. Now that income is not well received by the citizens but those parking control and police officers do not and are not allowed to get bonuses.
The police management is allowed to get bonuses if they keep overtime down, but no police employee below I believe LT. is allowed to get bonuses. The citizens of Burbank are getting screwed by the current city management and city council but many of them don’t seem to care, except for the few that respond to this blog.
Again every city department, especially the police department revolves around favoritism. The city employee that kisses the best ass get’s the better evaluations, that lead to the promotion and bonuses. If an employee does not kiss ass and is not liked, because they voice their opinion when there is favoritism that than leads to more severe punishment if you are not a “Golden”. That is the entire Burbank city system and the only people who are going to be able to change is the citizens of Burbank. Good luck as I have moved away from that crappy city.
You’re probably right, and I wish people in the know would speak up. I just don’t know myself.
I agree with you about this bonus program in general. If it’s not for profit-making, then what is it?
Come on EVERYBODY, lets take over City Hall, Line starts behind Mike Nolan, David Piroli, and the red scooter of Esther Espinoza. Let’s REVOLT! Come on people….ahhhh its fading already …I am poo poo face now. Party poopers
I’m not against bonuses in principle. I’m just against them for public employees at this time and also against hiding the information. So, why the resistance to make this information public in the first place, Semi?
–Some of the cops are getting bonuses when they said they’re not– this news might cause a stir.
–Management qualified for huge 10 percent bonuses when everybody else maxed out at 5.
–There might be some controversy if and when people see what their coworkers got.
– it looks like more departments were eligible for these things than we’ve been told– almost all of the city’s employees were (at least from the departmental printouts), and so this brings up the question about why many of them did not receive any over the years.
Other than the large bonuses I don’t see any problems. I’m not talking about the 20 and 15K bonuses – but LOTS of folks got small amounts which I think is actually pretty good. Much better than at most corporations where only a few get bonuses altogether.
Hey al,
“..but.LOTS of folks got small amounts which I think is actually pretty good”.
It’s actually pretty BAD.
The program was ill conceived, poorly administered and needed SECRECY to continue.
The Burbank Leader has broken the “cycle”.
We, the Citizens of Burbank deserved to know, the fellow employees deserved to know and our Elected Officials of course NEEDED to know.
The CANCER of “secret” payments breeds more distrust.
Fair and equitable treatment for ALL employees should not be a “best practices” goal—-it should be PERIOD.
The Civil Service System has been sabotaged.
For once, the Leader got it RIGHT.
Now as for their Saturday Editorial……….
a subject for another semi POST.
What, are they blaming the unions again?
Think $Millions of Dollars,
Now think bureaucrats dreaming up various solutions,
Now think Crossing Guards!?!
Somewhat agree with you Al however, working for government should not be better bonus wise and pay better than private industry – ever.
The place I work for stop giving out bonuses 5 years ago.
At mine, it was only director and above – so I don’t know whether they were getting one or not.
Mike Flad was Asst City Manager in 2007-08 and part of 2008–09 fiscal years. Mary Alvord was City Manager. He would have been eligible, and didn’t pay himself.
Penny Forbes works in the Information Technology Department, Joy Forbes works in City Managers Office. One has no effect on the other’s eligibility.
Union Contracts that negotiated merit pay were negotiated in 2007/08 before the economic downturn and approved by City Council – a lot can change in 4 years.
Check your facts
My comment on 1JUL11 at 8:43 pm is still lost in space.
Mary (?) comments that “a lot can change in 4 years, then goes on….
to say “Check your facts”.
That’s EXACTLY what many, including the Burbank Leader and Los Angeles Times had in mind when this “controversy” first started.
When the information is available, as a matter-of-course, the idle speculation can be kept to a minimum
When juli scott and the barlow get involved all bets are OFF>
During the intervening 4 years lots has happened.
Because of the way the staff buried the costs of the “bonuses” in the Budget’s-
even the City Council Members were “unable” to add-up the various “pieces” that make up the “pot-o-gold”.
Whether by “accident” or “design” the result slaps the Public right in the face.
Mary (?) seems well informed, maybe she would care to explain the difference between the amounts paid out?
Maybe she (?) can explain the reason those “others” with great evaluations took home NOTHING?
Just check back to Mike Flad’s comments at a time when he BELIEVED the information would NOT be made Public.
Dixie, weren’t we told that the police department didn’t qualify for this bonus program because of their different contract?
If so, then why are there pages and pages of BPD awards listed? They aren’t all civilians either.
Civilians and management qualified for merit pay.
$12,000 is a lot of bonus for only a partial year’s work.
Flad became city manager in early January of 2009. His bonus amount of $12,000 was awarded for the entire 2008-09 fiscal year. So unless he got a huge bonus for the entire year but at least six months early, then he awarded it to himself.
And if he did get it early and it was awarded by someone else, why is that? To circumvent the rules?
Hey you twit, Semichorus. The only personnel at the police department that have received bonuses are management (chief and captains) and civilian employees at the department. NO POLICE OFFICERS receive any bonus. Once again you are a DORK!
Thanks for pointing out the obvious!!!
Now, thanks to the availability of “facts”, information can readily clear-up various misperceptions , misconceptions and even misinformation.
If only GOLFGATE and the POLICE MESS were handled with such dispatch!
Aren’t these management guys sworn police officers?
The original news article made it sound like the police department didn’t get bonuses. And the final listing shows that every department was eligible for merit pay in some way. They were not as restricted as the city made them out to be six months ago. Few employees were disqualified.
Dixie’s response to Mary is quite good. Thank you.
Completely off topic – did anyone know that the great indoors is closing at the empire center? I wonder if anything is moving in after it – or will it just sit empty for awhile?
Possibility of Vern’s Camper Shells.
They can still be “Highway Orientated” but located away from Cheap-condo’s-next-to-gas-stations.
You’re still covered by the topic: Much ado about nothing!!!
That’s been in the works for about 8 years. The writing was on the wall when that Starbucks closed down about 3 years ago.
Several years ago Sears was planning on moving in there, until the mall landlord basically bribed them to stay on for a lease renewal. Sears owns the Great Indoors so it’s no telling what will happen now.
If only Whole Foods could strike a deal there- huge building, ample parking and nowhere near horsies or kids. Never understood how that place stayed in business for so long.
Twit, there are 4 different bargainning units at the police department. The king of MISINFORMATION, DixieFlyer, has not told you this. Anyways, there are the BMA (Chief), Z group (captains) BPOA (Lts, Sgt, Detectives, and Officers), and BCEA (dispatchers, jailers, records etc,) All but BPOA are eligible for a bonus.
Dixieflyer, you are the voice for misperceptions , misconceptions and even misinformation. Continue your crusade. You pompous ass.
While we’re at it…….
Won’t it be fun to review the Bonu$ Buck$ “awarded” to “Command Staff” who were presiding as the POLICE MESS “occurred”???
How about those in the City Attorney’s Office and other City Management?
Read it and weep!
Nice work on BPOA’s part to get their employees screwed out of these bonus opportunities.
Even the fucking LIBRARY AIDES are pulling in $3,000 or $4,000 a year extra.
That’s the real issue, not that people are having a hard time figuring out who’s who in a haphazardly run program. Dixie’s right– it had to run on secrecy in order to function. That’s the way it was set up !!
I suspect too that one reason Burbank didn’t want these figures put out is because they knew damn well that the rank-and-file cops would freak as soon as they saw how much all these clerks everywhere were getting.
Crap, Al, all kidding aside, I liked the Russian coffee shop there. Also, lots of folks losing their jobs. Folks, fellow citizens, I fear we are headed for a “terrible shitstorm” as Stevie says in The Deerhunter. If we don’t see jobs coming in the next four months, our country might never be the same. Sorry, feeling down tonight. Na zdorov’ye!
That coffee shop (when it was Starbucks) was a godsend if you didn’t want to brave the parking and line at the one next to Sharky’s. You’ve gotta wonder when a Starbucks abandons a location…
……because they didn’t feel that their customer base generated sufficient dollar volume to justify the overhead.
Apparently, since the nearest City Facility was the Animal Shelter, there were insufficient Bonu$ Buck$ available to “spread around”.
Famous OLD line: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
I think that Starbucks was run by the store, and not Starbucks. Kind of like the markets, which are not run out of the regional office.
I don’t see jobs coming in the next four months or even the next 12 months but I see a whole lot more businesses closing and a whole lot more people losing their job. This is the worst economy in our lives and the best government can do is bail out golf courses.
“Nice work on BPOA’s part to get their employees screwed out of these bonus opportunities.
Even the fucking LIBRARY AIDES are pulling in $3,000 or $4,000 a year extra.”
Huh? If BPOA Members were getting “bonus” money you would be up in arms in a complete outrage! No bonus money for officers (including Det.’s, Sgt.’s and Lt.’s) and somehow you find a way to blame the BPOA for this? Members of the BPOA could care less about “bonus” money. The actual money in the check every two weeks (or total yearly wages) is all that matters. You can call it bonus money, hourly wages, uniform allowance, bilingual pay, mickey mouse dollars, monopoly money…. It does not matter.
Yeah, who wants that nice little extra $4,000 check anyway, right? The cops could care less.
You must be a BPOA guy– who has a lot of explaining to do about why you never negotiated a bonus-merit pay deal into your MOU.
And btw, I’d have no more objection to cops getting these bonuses than anyone else. If there’s gonna be a bonus program then everyone should share. When library aides get $4,000 and rank and file cops get nothing then that means there’s something wrong somewhere.
Again Semi… you must be carefuil when you use terms like “never”.. At one time there was merit pay at the BPOA.. The membership voted to do away with it so everyone got a little more rarher than a few gtting a lot more..
Why can’t they have both? I understand that’s what happened, but it doesn’t make any sense.
The fact that the rank-and-file cops can’t get merit pay blows this whole idea of its importance. What the city does for one group they should do for all the others– whether it’s merit pay opportunities or better salaries or both.
When were the MOST recent “payments” made?
Who got them?
How much $$$?
Where did the money come from???
Did you see any thing like this in there?
Brian Calle: Newport Beach cops get $5,600 to wash their motorcycles
July 08, 2011|By BRIAN CALLE
It pays well to wash your motorcycle if you are a cop in Newport Beach, where officers who patrol on motor bikes are paid an additional six hours of overtime every month simply for giving their cycles a wash. The special compensation equates to, on average, about a 5 percent pay hike for motorcycle officers, or about $5,600 a year in additional monies, according to an analysis of city documents and interviews with key city staff.
As alarming as that may seem, this is only one example of special pay that inflates salaries and is often hidden from public view because of the stealth nature of negotiations.
The sweet deal is part of the contract negotiated between the police union and the city – yet another creative example of public employee pay abuses at taxpayer expense.
Here’s how the payout is described in a 2010-2011 memorandum of understanding between the city of Newport Beach and the Newport Beach Police Association: “Assigned Motor Officers are responsible for keeping the motorcycle assigned to him/her cleaned and polished at all times. This work shall be performed outside of the regularly scheduled work hours; and compensated at the rate of six (6) additional hours overtime per month (six (6) hours at time and one half equals 9 hours compensation).”
One might assume that keeping equipment clean should be part of basic job functions, but in the world of public employees, where seemingly everything is negotiable, that is not the case.
Getting to the bottom of exactly the amount of money each motor officer is paid for washing his/her bike was problematic because the city only provided a broad look at motor officer salary information instead of specifics in salary, overtime and special pay for each of the eight motor officers and the one motor sergeant. Newport Beach ought to have this information at its fingertips and accessible online.
Nevertheless, if you take the average annual pay of a police officer in the traffic division at $109,139, then divide it by 2,080 work hours in a year, the hourly rate is $52. So overtime (related to cleaning motorcycles) would be $468 a month or $5,616 a year. That’s the equivalent of a 5.1 percent pay raise. There are a number of categories of special pay including: being bilingual, having a master’s degree, a commercial drivers license, fire mechanic certification, etc. (These special pays begin to add up.)
Come on… Who wouldn’t want an extra $4k in their check? Of course everyone would. However, you need to take that in the context of the overall benefit package. All I ask is that you look at the big picture before casting blame… Do a little research and digging….. What kind of pay and benefits has the BPOA negotiated for since, say, July 2000. You’ll find some pretty good pay increases and benefits in the last 10 years or so. I don’t think you’ll find many BPOA members up in arms about not receiving a “bonus.”
I’d want both, if everybody else was getting decent pay and benefits.