Home Uncategorized Antioch Furloughs End, City Re-Opens on Fridays

Antioch Furloughs End, City Re-Opens on Fridays

by ECT

For the first time in 5-years, the City of Antioch has ended its furlough Fridays and reopened on January 16, 2015.

The move to end the furloughs was voted on by the City Council in November and now residents go to City Hall and pay your water bill, get a business license, apply for a permit, and obtain many other services Monday – Friday. You can also get services at the Police Department lobby and Public Works Administration on Fridays.

Hours of service will be:

  • City Hall: Monday – Friday 8:30 am – 4:30 pm (except for Community Development) Community
  • Development: Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 11:30 am (2nd floor of City Hall)
  • Police Lobby: Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 1:00 pm
  • Public Works Lobby: Monday – Friday 7:00 am – 4:00 pm

In November, Antioch City Council voted unanimously Thursday to eliminate “Furlough Fridays” and restore city services to full-time status.  The actions by the council also provided staff with a 3% salary increase and will end the 36-hour work week and a 10 percent salary reduction beginning January 11. Staff will return to a 40-hour work week based on “trigger” language found in a January 11, 2011 agreement for the General Fund Revenues of the city reaching $38.4 million with a reserve maintained at 10%.

The move was triggered after Fiscal Year 2014 resulted in approximately $3.1 million more in fund balance at June 30,2015 than what was anticipated in the adopted budgets.

In November, Antioch City Manager Steve Duran spoke about “trigger language” and how the council had always intended to bring staff back to a 40-hr work week highlighting nothing was hidden from the public.

“The budget session highlighted that the City of Antioch was to get people off furloughs as soon as we reasonably could,” stated Duran. “So that is one of the things you are doing and in terms of Measure O, the council approved spending priorities on Sept. 23, 2014 where we were going to hire a person to collect business license tax, put the police onto the EBRCS system, third was get rid of the furloughs… and fourth for the future filling of budget holes.”

Duran highlighted that during public meetings the council stated the goal was to get people off furlough.

“In terms of keeping your word, people need to understand that was what your word,” said Duran. “Come January, we now have had employees on furlough for 5 ½ years since they took a 10% cut in their hours and pay. Management just got a cut in the pay, not the hours.”

Duran stated that if everyone had read Item 3 of the Agenda, that shows where the money is coming from which states for Police and Code Enforcement, there is an extra $398,689 that came in above budget projections from carry over in 2013/14—this is available for more police. The cops grant also allows us to up the number of police officers.

“The biggest part of the money to take of the triggers was the $1.277 million in property tax revenue above our projections for this year. So that would take care of the expenses of getting back off the furloughs. So that is why this is coming forward,” explained Duran. “The trigger excluded any Measure C funds, but that property tax getting so high that hit the trigger. With the trigger, the bargaining unit was entitled to get off furloughs.”

He also noted other trigger language for Local 1 and trying to finalize the agreement with Operating Engineers 3.

“We can’t not do the trigger because that is a binding contract,” explained Duran. “But secondly, the money is there and the reason the trigger is hit is because the money is there and I will leave it at that.”

Antioch City Budget Tidbits per November Staff Report:

General Fund

  • 17.81% increase in property assessed values by the County Assessor. A 5% increase was budgeted. This results in $1,276,916 more projected property tax revenue than budgeted.
  • $399,850 increase in other revenues for payments due under the Out of Agency Services and Project Agreement with NRG. These funds were budgeted to be received in fiscal year 2013-14 based on the annexation date, however, the reimbursement was not requested until September due to the time involved working with NRG to confirm all amounts to be paid.
  • Increase in revenues from other agencies of $121,060 for State Mandated Cost Reimbursements which were filed prior to 2004 that the State of California had previously suspended payment for that are now being released.
  • Increase in transfers in of $25,170 from the LLEBG/Byrne Grant Special Revenue Fund representing the balance remaining of the Byrne Grant at June 30, 2014. Monies are used to help fund staff time for the Police volunteer program. A budget amendment for the LLEBG/Byrne Grant Fund is included in Attachment B.
  • Increase in Community Development expenditures of $60,000 for replacement of the building permit system. Community Development collects a technology fee (2% of building permit fee) with each permit. This fee was established to keep up with technology related to issuance of permits, plan review, and public access. Approximately $75,000 has been collected since inception of the fee and $60,000 is needed to upgrade the building permit software. The current software is no longer supported. In addition, electronic plan submittal, permit issuance, internet inspection requests, and payment will be added capabilities. This will expedite many of the functions performed by Community Development and will increase public transparency and ability to easily access permit information on-line. The permit system is also used by the Planning and Code Enforcement Divisions and Public Works for encroachment and other permit tracking so efficiency improvements will not be limited to the Building Division. In addition, on-line payment capabilities will alleviate the cashier/water desk lines, to the extent that they are impacted by Community Development customers. Many contractors have complained about standing in the water payment line. This upgrade will accomplish Strategic Plan Strategy G-4, Streamline Entitlement and Permit Processes.
  • Increase in personnel expenditures of $220,820 in the General Fund and $95,111 across other funds of the City (see Attachment C for detail of other funds) related to elimination of furloughs and reinstatement of deferred compensation for the Management and Confidential Bargaining Units effective in January 2015. This assumes the items on the consent calendar for this evening for the Management and Confidential benefit documents are approved.
  • $538,628 in Police Department personnel expenditures and $124,655 in grant reimbursement for five additional Police Officers to be added to the budget under the 2014 COPS Hiring Grant. As City Council is aware, the Police Department just received a $625,000 grant award under the 2014 COPS Hiring Program to hire five additional Police Officers. The grant is for a three year period and requires a cash match of $1,937,316 (24.39% federal, 75.61% local of officer cost under grant). Measure C will be the source of match. This will bring the total funded Officers from 97 as in the adopted budget to 102. The amount of the amendments represents pro-rated projected costs and reimbursements through the end of the fiscal year. A revised Measure C table is presented on the next page (note that the revised budget includes other budget amendments for encumbrances outstanding outlined in Attachment A and other amendments as outlined in Attachment C) :

Another item affecting the budget but not being accounted for at this time relates to negotiated salary increases for the Police Department. The APOA and APSMA bargaining units were entitled to salary increases in September 2014 at a minimum of 2% and a maximum of 4.25% based upon the existing four-city formula (and CPI for non-sworn members). The budget assumed a 3% raise, however, for APOA the salary increase was 4.25% for sworn, 3% for nonsworn and for APSMA the salary increase was 2%. The cost differential in the projection is $142,830; however, we believe vacancy savings will be sufficient to cover the increase in the projections over the adopted budget.

The following are the most significant factors contributing to the variances from budget:

REVENUES

  • Approximately $400,000 more in Measure C sales tax revenue than projected. The amount of Measure C funds received for the April through June collection period ($898,689) have been committed in the ending fund balance for Police Services for use in future budget years. An additional $50,902 was received and allocated to the Vehicle Replacement Fund for the purchase of two Police Vehicles as approved by the City Council in the adopted budget.
  • Approximately $216,000 more in Property Tax received in the final June payment from the County.
  • Approximately $109,000 more in plan checking and inspection fees than projected.

EXPENDITURES

  • Approximately $80,000 savings in Nondepartmental expenditures resulting from paying less in claims liabilities than projected for.
  • Approximately $139,000 in savings in Legislative & Administrative due mainly to contractual savings. Of this amount $32,528 is for an encumbrance being re-appropriated into the current year (see Attachment A).
  • Approximately $756,000 savings in Public Works expenditures. $122,907 is for projects and encumbrances being re-appropriated into the current fiscal year as projects were not completed by year end (see Attachments A & B). $37,000 in savings was realized in subsidy transfers to street light and landscape districts. The majority of remaining savings resulted from spending less in contractual services for street, signal and parks maintenance than projected.
  • Approximately $574,000 savings in Police Department expenditures. Of this amount, $51,295 is for encumbrances being re-appropriated into the current fiscal year as projects were not completed by year end (see Attachment A). $496,500 is attributable to salary savings due to unexpected vacancies and despite ongoing recruitment, with the remainder of savings coming from various expenditure line items throughout the department.
  • The remainder of General Fund savings ($87,000) is due to various accounts coming in slightly under budget.

The net impact of the fiscal year 2014 surplus and budget amendments to this fiscal year results in approximately $3.1M more in fund balance at June 30, 2015 than anticipated in the adopted budget. While this is positive news, we cannot let it overshadow the fact that $988,008 of this is committed Measure C funds at June 30, 2015 to be spent on Police services in the next fiscal year and we are projecting deficit spending in outlying fiscal years (updated projections will be provided when we begin the next budget cycle).

It is imperative that the City strive to continue to balance the budget each fiscal year and build reserves so that the City cannot only begin to restore all services to pre-recession levels, but begin to pay down significant unfunded pension related liabilities and put the City in better financial footing should we again face a severe recession so that the impact is not as devastating.

Even with the tremendous property tax increase the City experienced, revenues are still short approximately $2M from pre-recession levels. We also cannot forget that revenue numbers include Measure C projections that will expire in seven years. If the measure is not extended, the

General Fund will lose approximately $5M in revenue annually which could cause cuts to the Police Department if other revenue sources or reserves are not sufficient to cover Police Department expenditures that had previously been funded with Measure C.

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1 comment

julio Jan 19, 2015 - 11:26 am

All offices, including the police lobby, should be open full time. There is no reason not to be. The city can buy all new vehicles, police cars, really expensive ones, and maintain full staff do it for 8 hours a day. You certainly gave them all enough raises to work full time. We are looking at bankruptcy STILL with the unfunded liabilities we have so DO NOT throw caution to the wind.

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