Los Gatos employees who’ve been working for months without a contract have come to a short-term labor deal with the Town—and they’re getting a 2% raise.
Most notably, under terms negotiated with the Town Employees’ Association (TEA), police dispatchers will receive an additional 5.4% pay increase (with the dispatcher lead Christine Crosson getting an extra 2.1% salary bump).
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve recently said it expected inflation to hit 4.2% for 2021 and stay at 2.2% in 2022.
Mayor Marico Sayoc told the Los Gatan the deal was a “compromise,” where the Town gave away a little more than it had hoped, given uncertainty during the pandemic.
“The Town supports our police dispatchers and all of our Town staff,” she said, adding Los Gatos wanted to make sure its dispatchers are paid around the same rate as those in nearby jurisdictions. “It was important to get (dispatchers) to median currently, to remain competitive.”
The Town had previously matched median salaries during the 2018 bargaining round, Sayoc said.
The new TEA contract, approved by Council during its regularly-scheduled Nov. 16 meeting, comes as the police dispatch center is operating at half-capacity due to difficulties hiring new staff, according to Los Gatos Police Officers’ Association President Bryan Paul.
Frustrations over police officer pay played into disruptions at Council meetings in recent weeks, after the POA used advocacy-software platform OneClickPolitics to generate a groundswell of concern about a “public safety crisis” from right-leaning community members.
Meanwhile, the Town hired two dispatch recruits, but things didn’t quite pan out as hoped, Paul said.
“One of our trainees made it, and the other one did not,” he said, adding salary increases are key to attracting talent. “This is a problem. I mean, it’s a very hard job.”
Both the TEA and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) contracts expired on June 30.
In August, Council approved an extension of the existing AFSCME agreement. Last week, Council voted to give that bargaining unit a 2% raise, too.
The POA’s last contract was up at the end of September, and the details of a deal with officers are still being worked out.
A mediator was brought in to make the TEA agreement happen.
The contract the parties developed will last until June 30, next year.
“Congratulations on a one-year contract,” Paul said, declining to comment about still-ongoing negotiations on behalf of his own members. “It doesn’t solve anything.”
While another dispatcher is scheduled to start training in December, Los Gatos needs to up their pay further in the next round of negotiations that will start in a few months’ time, he said.
“We took some duct tape and gave them a quick raise,” he said. “We’re just putting our fingers in the dam.”
Dispatcher and parks officer positions will get 4.25% holiday-in-lieu premium pay in exchange for their existing annual holiday bank of hours.
And TEA members will get a $1,500 tuition reimbursement increase.
The agreement also provides an eight-hour floating holiday (on a one-time basis; which must be used by June 30).
“What is the point of the town giving the dispatchers a floating holiday if they can’t take the holidays they already have because there’s nobody to work?” Paul said. “How are you going to take a vacation?”
Sayoc said the floating holiday would add “flexibility” for staff who want to take time off.
While the 2% raise was anticipated in Town budgeting, Council had to authorize staff to move $85,596 from the General Fund Capital/Special Projects Reserve to cover dispatcher and dispatcher lead pay increases in fiscal 2021/22.
The contracts have already been approved by the unions and went into effect Nov. 16, Sayoc said.
