Councilman Bert Perello (Photo by Chris Frost)
Oxnard– The City Council, Tuesday, December 20, approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).
THE IAFF represents about 120 employees in the Fire Department, including Fire Fighters and Engineers, Captains, Investigators, and Inspectors.
“The issues addressed during this round of bargaining consist of medical plan contributions, cost of living adjustments, a change in the standby pay, ocean rescue, water rescue pay, as well as ad pay elimination,” Human Resources Director Steve Naveau said.
With the medical plan, he said they did what was similar to other bargaining units during contract negotiations during the past calendar year.
“The changes being recommended include an increase in the City’s contribution,” he said. “It’s a 15 percent contribution increase in the first year, then five percent of each subsequent year of the contract with the intent of providing a sufficient enough increase to cover a family plan and at least one of the medical plan options. This increase will help maintain a competitive position in the marketplace.”
He said changes made in the medical plan include the wave and the cashback options.
“A wave occurs when someone is enrolled in coverage outside the City, can provide proof of credible medical coverage, and receive the City contribution in cash rather than the health benefit,” he said. “Cashback occurs when an employee enrolls in a medical plan, but the premium of that particular plan is less than the City’s contribution.”
Naveau said the employee would receive the difference as cashback in this instance.
“Although the City is proposing to make increases in its contribution, it is decreasing these cashback and wave amounts,” he said. “To implement this change, we have created a two—–tier, two-level system and medical contributions that is intended to slowly wean the employees off the wave and cashback payments. New employees or employees who make changes in their medical plans are immediately moved to this level of coverage that does not have any cashback and where the wave is significantly reduced.”
In this instance, he said with the current bargaining unit, the wave is $1,243 per month, and it’s going to be reduced to $500 monthly.
“By us reducing these payments, reducing the payments from the wave, and eliminating the cashback, we take that money that employees were getting in their pocket and we put it back into the plan, which helps offset the increased contributions toward actual plan premiums who are taking medical coverage from the City,” Naveau said.
The cost of living adjustments (COLA) has two years in the contract where the City has five percent increases. The contract’s first year has a zero percent increase, followed by five percent increases in fiscal years 22-23 and 23-24.
“Then there is three percent in the fourth year of the contract, which would be fiscal year 24-25,” he said.
Employees receive standby pay when they are required to be available outside work hours to respond back to the worksite.
“An employee who is assigned to standby; they end their workday, they go home for the evening, but are available if a phone call comes in and they are required to return to the workplace to perform their job,” he said. “Employees who are placed on standby in this bargaining unit receive $2 per hour to do this. We’ve agreed with the bargaining to increase this $1 more an hour, so that will be $3 an hour.”
He said the City’s non-safety bargaining unit also uses a lot of standby for after-hours work.
“That came to Council earlier this year looking for the same increase,” he said. “This is an issue of parity between the two bargaining units whose employees within those bargaining units we do use for standby frequently.”
The City has employees trained in Ocean and Swift Water Rescue, he said, and they are required to have the physical and mental capacity to perform those tasks.
“Consequently, not every employee is capable of meeting the performance standards to be on this team,” he said. “The 2.5 percent incentive is intended to ensure the department maintains a consistent pipeline of qualified employees who are willing and able to perform this vital function.”
Naveau said the City has been focusing on ad pay elimination with its bargaining groups through the current round of contract negotiations.
“Ad pays are things such as longevity, pay, education pay, Hazardous Materials Team pay, and Emergency Medical Technician Team pay,” he said. “These are additional amounts of compensation that employees can receive for various things.”
“The bargaining units have agreed to eliminate these ad pays as they are known in the City,” he added. “A tradeoff on that is we’re going to provide a one percent pay increase the first full pay period following the Council approval in 2022. Then another one percent is going to occur in the first full pay period in July 2023.”
He said the ad pay will go away in January 2025, and the employees receiving ad pay money will be rolled into the employee’s regular pay rate.
“The top of the ranges will increase by these amounts,” he said. “The areas where this additional money has been placed, those categories will cease to exist in the contract.”
Naveau said the total estimated cost for the item is estimated at $2.796 million over a four-year period and 15.83 percent of total compensation or 3.96 percent per year. The money will come from the general fund and is budgeted.
The item passed unanimously.
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