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Home My WebLink AboutMINUTES - 03182008 - D.3 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS F - Contra FROM: Supervisors John Gioia and Federal Glover ___-- Costa DATE: March 18, 20089 ``° SUBJECT: Disclosure and Comparison of Employees' County Total Compensation SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION: DIRECT the County Administrator to develop a plan within thirty_(30) days that would achieve the following objectives with regard to calculating, comparing and disclosing "total compensation" costs and retiree health costs for all county employees: (1) .Fully calculate the "total compensation" costs and retiree health costs of each position classification and for each employee; (2) Disclose and publish on the County's web site the."total compensation" costs and retiree health costs of each position classification and for each employee; (3) Require the Human Resources Department to attempt to ascertain "total compensation" costs and retiree health costs fromother public agencies when it is conducting compensation surveys. AUTIIORIZE Contra Costa County's representatives to the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) (Supervisor Glover) and Urban Counties Caucus (UCC) (Supervisor Gioia) to advocate for the development of a standard practice under which all Counties calculate and publicly disclose "total compensation" costs for all their position classifications. BACKGROUND: It has been the practice of Contra Costa County to conduct salary surveys to compare salaries paid to Contra Costa County employees with salaries paid to employees in other comparable public agencies. These surveys generally do not include a comparison of the benefits paid to employees among public agencies and consider base salary only. The result of this practice has been to set salaries based upon"salary oily" comparisons. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES XX SIGNATURE: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------=--------------------------------------------- RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): L� ------------------ - - ---- - --- --------------- - --- - --- -ACTION OF BOARD ON APPROVE AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN UNANIMOUS(ABSENT ) AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE AYES: NOES: SHOWN. ABSENT: ABSTAIN: ATTESTED ! �! CONTACT: JOHN GIOIA (510)374-3231 JOHN CULLEN,CLERK OFHY E BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR CC: COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR COUNTY COUNSEL COUNTY REGISTRAR t BY DEPUTY "i otal compensation" includes salary and all benefits. The typical benefits included when calculating "total compensation" include: health and dental insurance; unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, retirement expense, FICA/Medicare, deferred compensation. supplemental pay, vacation, sick-leave, sabbatical leave, personal floating holiday, over-time comp time taken, holiday comp time taken, and administrative leave. According to numbers supplied by the County Administrator's Office, as of January 2008, the benefits listed above now comprise, on average, 96.1% of the salary of a general fund County employee (this includes safety and non-safety employees not in the Fire District, hospital and clinics, and airport). If actuarial "other post employment benefits" (retiree health care) costs are included, the benefits equal 106.5% for the same group of employees. The benefit ratio not including "leave" (meaning health and dental insurance, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation; retirement expense, FICA/Medicare, deferred compensation, and supplemental pay only) equal, on average, 66.9% of salary compared to 30.1% fourteen (14) years ago. These amounts represent the actual cost of the employee to the County and to the taxpayer. Employee benefits vary among public agencies and one does not get a true comparison of total compensation unless salary and benefits costs are calculated.and compared among agencies. The County has calculated benefits costs for its employees but has not been able to accurately ascertain similar benefits costs for employees at other public agencies. Under the current approach of comparing "salary only", the County establishes salary based on the labor market for salary only. •Having "total compensation" surveys would give Contra Costa County more complete and thorough information when conducting internal compensation comparisons and negotiating wage adjustments. Contra Costa County has been committed to paying its employees a fair and competitive salary. In order to get a true comparison of"total compensation" packages (salary and benefits) among agencies, the County should do surveys comparing the total costs of salary and benefits among comparable agencies. However, public agencies generally do not compile these numbers in any easily ascertainable manner even though such benefit costs can be calculated and published and are "public records" under the California Public Records Act. Implementing the recommendations in this Board Order will result in Contra Costa County leading the way among public agencies in calculating, comparing and disclosing "total compensation" costs.. The County already maintains a list of the salaries of each of its employee classifications and adding average benefit costs to this list is feasible. The County and the public's interest is served by following this practice since it will provide the Board of Supervisors more complete information in negotiating fair salary and benefits and it will provide the public more transparent information about the costs incurred by the County. ADDENDUM TO D.3 March 18, 2008 On this day the Board of Supervisors considered developing a plan to calculate, compare, and disclose total compensation costs for all County employees. Supervisor Gioia made a brief presentation noting that, in order to get a true comparison of total compensation packages (salary and benefits) among agencies, the County would need to conduct surveys comparing total salary costs and benefits among other comparable agencies. Supervisor Gioia pointed out total s compensation surveys would give the County complete information to conduct internal compensation comparisons and negotiate wage adjustments. Supervisor Gioia stated that this Board Order was derived from the following recommended Governors.' Other Post Employee Benefit Commission (OPEB) proposal, and suggested the County should adopt this recommendation: "Recommendation 12 With the exception of school districts and county offices of education, legislation should be enacted to amend.Government Code Section 7507 so that it also applies to the granting or changing of OPEB benefits. As with pension benefits, this statutory change would require that the future costs of the proposed benefit change be determined by an actuary and be made public at least two weeks prior to adoption. School districts and county offices of education shall comply with disclosure requirements pursuant to AB 1200.(Chapter 1213, Statutes of 1991) and AB 2756 (Chapter 52, Statutes of 2004)." Chair Glover said one of the key pieces is a process that would be utilized by Urban Counties Caucus(UCC)to develop a standard practice to disclose"total compensation" costs. He requested the Board to review and move this forward. Supervisor Uilkema observed that salary surveys can be manipulated to produce a desired outcome, and suggested that the County may want to consider legislation that would promote a standardized practice among counties to calculate and disclose compensation information so that it would be directly comparable, at least by size of city or county. Supervisor Bonilla reasoned that due to the many differences in benefits offered by different jurisdictions, it would be most helpful to get just a dollar amount from jurisdictions, stating this would be good information for the employees as well. She contended that the County has been moving as an organization in the direction of market rate salaries, and we need to expand to market rate compensation. The Chair called for public comment: • Chris Hunt, Executive Director, Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, reminded the Board that, two years ago, the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association requested a full compensation package and said this information would help in the negotiations and also would help the Addendum to D.3 Page 2 of 2 March 18, 2008 employees. She said that public employees wages and benefits are higher than the private sector. She said this would be an excellent move for the County to get back on track and provide information for everyone. Supervisor Bonilla asked if the proposal would compare County salaries and benefits with only public jurisdictions and not the private sector. Supervisor Gioia clarified that in some cases, the private sector is a relevant comparison, and cited hospitals as an example. He clarified that the County would continue its current practice, which is to look at comparable jobs in both the public and private sector. Supervisor Bonilla said there are differences in a public agency that go beyond dollar amounts, and suggested further discussion on this matter. Some jobs are only provided in the public sector, such as the welfare program. • Roland Katz, Business Agent, Local 1, informed the Board comparisons were not done for the Board's salary raise, the Human Resources Director's raise and went on to name a few other individuals. He said the Union is skeptical of this new plan, as negotiations would be coming up soon. Supervisor Gioia responded the information would be available about the members of the Board and every employee, and agreed this information should have been available years ago. He agreed with Supervisor Bonilla that while the detail of benefits costs would be useful, the dollar amount for total compensation would be the most useful data. He also stated that the one-time cost of studying compensation costs is exponentially less than the long-terns costs of potentially overcompensating employees, and that acquiring full compensation data is in everyone's best interests. By an unanimous vote,.with Supervisor Piepho absent, the Board took the following action: • DIRECTED the County Administrator to (1) Calculate total compensation costs and retiree.health costs of each position classification and for each employee; (2)Disclose and publish on the County's website total . compensation costs and retiree health costs of each position classification and for each employee; (3) REQUIRED the Human Resources Department to ascertain total compensation costs and retiree health costs from other comparable public and private agencies; and • AUTHORIZED County's representatives to the (CSAC) and (UCC) to advocate for development of a standard practice of calculating and publicly disclosing total compensation for all their job classifications. '._ REQUEST TO SPEAK FORM(3 Minute Limit) I wish to speak on Agenda Item #: D- -Complete -complete this,.form and place it in the upright box near the Date: speaker's podium, and wait to be called by the Chair. 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