The General Membership Meeting on February 2, 2010 was held at the Italian American Heritage Hall because of the construction activity at our Hall. There were three items on our agenda: 1) President's Message, 2) Survey on changes to vacation bid, and 3) Survey on DA's Race. There were 202 members present, and the following is a synopsis of the meeting.
President George Beattie then spoke to the membership regarding the issues he expected to be brought up in contract negotiation later today. Our first contract negotiation meeting with the City is expected to revolve around setting up ground rules and scheduling future meetings. Then it will probably move on to the budget shortfall expected for the fiscal year 10/11. Many of you are aware that the police department has been asked to propose a plan to cut 7.5% from its operating budget for the next fiscal year (approximately $22.7 million). Fire has also been asked to find 7.5% in cuts. All other City departments have been requested to find 35% in cuts from their budgets. If all of these cuts were identified and implemented, it would close the City's expected $100 million dollar budget shortfall in fiscal year 10/11. These kinds of cuts would affect staffing levels.The City would like to off-set some of this by getting the eleven unions to agree to a 5% reduction in overall compensation. This could be achieved through a variety of ways including a combination of wage reductions and increases to health care cost. If it was only achieved through a wage reduction it would be the equivalent to roughly a 5.4% reduction in our salaries. The reduction of 5% of the POA overall compensation would save the City approximately $12.09 million. It is also no secret that the City also wants us to implement a 2-tier retirement system. Future employees would receive less in retirement then current employees. The firefighters are ahead of us in the negotiations process. They are currently in mediation; a step necessary before binding arbitration can begin. The City presented them with a laundry list of takeaways that we highlighted last year. It can be assumed that if we can not reach an agreement with the City regarding the 5% reduction of overall compensation and the 2-tier retirement plan by June 30th, we can expect to be given a similar list of takeaways.
Director Richard Benitez presented the problem that not all officers can bid one full week off for vacation during vacation call-in. The Board of Directors feels strongly that every officer needs to be able to bid vacation in full weeks! We will be putting this information on our website this week and taking a survey of the membership on ideas to improve our current vacation call-in procedures.
The last item that we discussed was the endorsement process for the District Attorney race. The Board of Directors wanted to get the input from the membership on this important race. We will be putting information from Carr and Rosen on our website this week. All members are being asked to take the membership survey on this issue.
Board of Directors' Meeting
At the Board of Directors' meeting that was held immediately after the Membership meeting, there were three items that we discussed which required voting.
q Motion was made by Director Franco Vado to approve minutes from January 5, 2010 Board Meeting. The motion was seconded by Director Keith Cottrell.
q Motion made by CFO Ricketts to temporarily suspend the investment policy with regards to our stock portfolio. The reason is that funds from the sale of the stocks will be used for the Hall renovation project. When our laddered certificates of deposits (CD) mature, those CD's will be used to re-purchase our stocks investments, which in time (approximately 18 months) will allow the stock investments to be returned to the proper levels; in accordance with the investment policy. The motion was seconded by Vice President Jim Unland. There was discussion on the renovation project costs, and then the motion passed unanimously.
q In executive session there was a discussion on Political Action matters and a vote was taken.
Director James Gonzales spoke about a Charitable Event that the POA along with Sacred Heart Church will hold on March 5th at Sacred Heart Church. We will be hosting a Family Photo Night for low income families. Then Director James Gonzales also spoke about protectsanjose.com and is pleased to report that it is now the Number 1 blog in the area. There are more updates and improvements coming to the blog soon.
The Association's investments continue to be sound and our financial statements and reports are up-to-date. The Board of Directors then went into Executive session to discuss confidential matters regarding upcoming contract negotiations and member legal matters.
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3rd Annual SJPOA Chaplaincy Golf Tournament
