Scrambled eggs and picket lines

Last week county workers and SEIU 1021 union reps picketed, protested and scrambled the State of Sonoma County Breakfast where 500 county government and business leaders gathered for a promised upbeat message about a strong and growing local economy.
The riotous wave of purple-clad unionists chanting “no contract, no peace” among the tables of bankers, bureaucrats and the bestowed offered a contrasting view of unfair wages and a lack of voice and influence.
It’s too bad the wrong picket line showed up.  Rank-and-file county employees may have a legitimate beef with their government superiors, but it is Sonoma County’s taxpayers who have a much bigger stake in the “state of the county” and where all their property, sales and income taxes are being spent.
While the local SEIU 1021 and county administration are near a labor contract impasse over the workers’ demand for an 11 percent pay raise, private wage earners, employers and taxpayers are waiting to see what will be in their next tax bills.
The reason taxpayers need a picket line too is because upcoming county budget talks and this year’s tax spending plans will again be held far from public view and absent any real citizen input — a repeat of last year’s performance.
Give credit to the SEIU members for grabbing the attention of county administrators and our five elected supervisors. Only the stingiest of taxpayers would deny these roads, public health, law enforcement and social workers a fair wage increase and continued health insurance benefits.
But the county’s $1.43 billion annual budget contains many more questions than just worker salaries. County administrators and department managers are now reviewing last year’s budget performance. Sometime in May or June a few hours of budget updates will be “daylighted” for the supervisors. Then, maybe a dozen public comments about more library hours, fewer potholes or runaway pensions will be belatedly recorded.
That is not how county government should work. That is not how taxpayer money should be spent and it is not why we elect county supervisors to represent our best interests.
But that is how it is. That is why the SEIU union leaders not only picketed last week’s annual breakfast; it is also why their organization is one of the biggest donors to local political campaigns.
County government employees earn 159 percent more than local public sector workers and small business owners. Skewed by top heavy management salaries, the average county salary is $86,067, compared to the overall county resident salary of just $51,430.
When do we get to talk about the $1 billion in unfunded pension obligations and future retiree health coverage? Last year, county taxpayers spent $120 million just on pension bond debt service.
If open budget hearings were held, instead of the closed-loop, managers-only version that we’re promised, what would taxpayers like to say about this unanswered debt?
Last June, voters trounced a supervisor-led ballot proposition (Measure A) to raise the sales tax to fund road repairs, even though the majority of county citizens list potholes as their number one public enemy.
Before we actually mount multiple taxpayer picket lines and protests, what if we held a survey or workshop series and collected citizen input on how to spend this year’s $1.5 billion county budget? After giving the county’s rank-and-file workers a decent raise, what would be the taxpayers’ next highest priorities?
The County of Sonoma’s 2015-16 budget is 327 pages. Right now, the only people who actually read it are the same people who wrote it — and get paid from it.
The preamble to the budget document calls for a “county organization that is accessible, transparent, fiscally responsible and accountable to the public.”
Taxpayers should do what the SEIU 1021 team should do. An impasse should be declared and someone should start scrambling some more eggs.
— Rollie Atkinson