SACRAMENTO — A San Diego state Senator this week helped kill legislation aimed at preventing public employees convicted of certain job-related felonies from collecting the taxpayer-funded portion of their pensions.

Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, said in an interview with The Watchdog that he opposes singling out public employees for such treatment and felt it would punish innocent spouses who need the pension payments.

“It’s not fair,” said Vargas, a former San Diego councilman.

The bill drew strong union opposition, including several labor groups that cumulatively contributed about $9,200 to Vargas’ campaign for Senate last year.

Senate Bill 115 died in the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee after receiving just two Republican votes. Vargas and fellow DemocratsGloria Negrete McLeod of Chino and Alex Padilla of Los Angeles abstained, leaving the bill one vote short of passage.

“Vargas could have put it out,” said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, who carried the bill.

Strickland said he will meet with Republican leaders to push a version of the restrictions as part of proposed pension reforms tied to state budget negotiations.

“I’m not going to let this go,” he declared.

Strickland also noted that Gov.Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has proposed a broader pension overhaul package that includes similar language.

Union groups that gave to Vargas and opposed the bill included theCalifornia Correctional Peace Officers Association, $3,900; theAmerican Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, $3,300; and the Association of California State Supervisors, $2,000.

In a letter opposing the legislation, the prison guard union said it “recognizes the public outrage when public employees are convicted of felonies and then retire and draw their pension. Nevertheless, we oppose this bill for two reasons.

“First, a similar standard is not imposed on employees in the private sector. Under existing laws, the justice system has adequate options for addressing any ill-gotten gains.

“More importantly, other persons, such as spouses, often have a property rights interest in an employee’s pension benefits. To deprive any person of their property rights because of some act of another party is simply wrong.”

Strickland said he wasn’t going to amend the bill to interfere with private sector retirement benefits.

“It’s public money we’re talking about,” he said. “It’s the people’s money.”

The measure grew out of the city of Bell scandal where public officials accused of taking outlandish salaries were in line for huge pensions as well.. Several Bell city employees are under criminal prosecution.

State law currently bars judges and elected officials from receiving public pensions if they are convicted of specified felonies.

Under Strickland’s bill, public employees would still receive their own money contributed for their pensiont, just not the taxpayer portion.

SACRAMENTO – California state senators who are upset with the prison system’s inspector general are proposing to do away with the watchdog office, splitting its duties in a way they say will improve investigators’ efficiency and independence.

The Office of Inspector General is perhaps best known in recent years for its scathing reports on parole agents’ improper supervision of convicted rapist Phillip Garrido, who pleaded guilty last week to holding Jaycee Dugard captive in a backyard compound for 18 years, and their failure to send molester John Albert Gardner III back to prison before he could murder two San Diego County teenagers.

It has exposed poor practices in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, investigated wrongdoing by employees and serves as one of the few checks on a federal court-appointed receiver who controls inmate medical care.

Critics in the Senate say it has also been slow to react and has grown too cozy with the department it oversees.

“You had some pretty bad things going on in CDCR, and the inspector general just missed them,” said Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance. “Maybe the inspector general’s office is just overwhelmed.”

Lieu is proposing legislation, SB 777, which would transfer prison audits to the Bureau of State Audits. A second bill by Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, would eliminate the inspector general position and create a new Office of Independent Correctional Oversight that would pick up many of the remaining functions. It would have a director instead of an inspector general, though it would still report to the governor and lawmakers.

Both bills have their first hearing Tuesday in the Senate Public Safety Committee. Both have the support of the Senate’s leader, President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. He said in a statement that the inspector general’s office “failed in its duty” to investigate employee malfeasance and needs to focus on its core duties of “rooting out waste, corruption and misconduct.”

Laura Hill, a spokeswoman for the office, said she couldn’t comment on the pending legislation. The office now has an acting inspector general, after previous Inspector David Shaw abruptly resigned in December, two years into his six-year term, after criticism from the Senate.

Hancock’s bill, SB 490, would strip the inspector general and his staff of their status as peace officers but grant them the power to make arrests and serve warrants. A Senate report released in November questioned why the employees carry guns, take state cars home at night and qualify for early peace officer retirement benefits, even though they rarely exercise police powers. None of the office’s investigators had fired a gun or made an arrest in at least five years, the Senate report said.

“Most of the work they do is the work of auditors and lawyers. They have desk jobs,” Hancock said. The office was created in 1994 and has been strengthened and assigned new duties over the years. It survived former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt in 2004 to merge the office into the department it oversees and was instead given new authority and a bigger budget.

By Don Thompson
Associated Press

Declaring “justice has been done,” President Obama announced late Sunday that Usama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, marking the end of the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001.

The president made the stunning announcement within hours of informing congressional leaders. He said bin Laden was killed Sunday, the culmination of years of intelligence gathering. The news drew a large crowd to the front of the White House, as well as in Times Square, as people chanted “USA. USA.”

Obama, in his address to the nation shortly before midnight, thanked the Americans who have toiled in pursuit of bin Laden and applauded those who carried out the successful mission in Pakistan. Describing that mission only briefly, he said its result “is a testament to the greatness of our country.”

“For over two decades, bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol,” Obama said. “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.”

The president traced the death of bin Laden to a tip received last August. He said he was briefed at the time on the “possible lead,” and that after months of intelligence work it was determined bin Laden was hiding in a compound “deep” inside Pakistan. Obama said, after determining the intelligence was sound, he authorized the operation to bring him to justice last week.

Usama Bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian–born leader of Al Qaeda is widely known as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, has been killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALS at a compound in Pakistan.

He said a “small team” of Americans went after bin Laden in Abbottabad on Sunday. “After a firefight, they killed Usama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” the president said.

Senior administration officials, in a briefing with reporters, afterward said the administration had determined by February that they would pursue the compound in Pakistan, described as a secluded residence on a large plot of land on the outskirts of town. This decision led to a series of national security meetings starting in March to develop a course of action. Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation on April 29, officials said.

No Americans were killed in the mission Sunday.  Officials said three adult men other than bin Laden were killed – one was believed to be bin Laden’s son, the others couriers. Two women were also injured, the officials said.

Officials said bin Laden’s body, which is in U.S. custody, will be handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.

In the wake of bin Laden’s death, authorities around the world are being urged to take security precautions. One source said officials are concerned bin Laden’s death could incite violence or terrorist acts against U.S. personnel overseas.

The State Department issued a travel alert for U.S. citizens abroad overnight, citing “the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan.”

Obama said Americans must continue to be “vigilant.” But he said the death of the architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil should be welcomed around the world.

“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Obama said. “So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

Sources said the vice president informed congressional leaders late Sunday night that the world’s most wanted man had been killed.

The announcement comes nearly a decade after the 2001 terror attacks which triggered the Afghanistan war and started a tireless hunt for the terrorist mastermind and Al Qaeda leader.

In recent years, that hunt had increasingly led U.S. intelligence across the border and into Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is thought to be concentrated.

Brown’s Countdown, Day 84: Governor’s shifting budget strategy now focused on cops

By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com Published: Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011 – 12:00 am | Page 3ALast Modified: Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011 – 8:23 am

The shifting focus of Gov. Jerry Brown’s campaign for taxes was nowhere plainer than in a budget speech to business leaders this week, when in his opening remarks he talked not about business but about public safety, his new offensive.

Brown once thought pressure from businesses could soften Republican opposition to higher taxes. But after months spent courting chambers of commerce and promoting their endorsements, the effort fell short.

So the Democratic governor is altering course, emphasizing ties to another traditionally conservative and influential constituency: law enforcement officials, particularly Republican officials in GOP districts.

Republican lawmakers, Brown said on a Los Angeles TV show Sunday, are “very concerned for the public safety. And as the legislators, even conservative ones, listen to their own police chief, they may have second thoughts.”

Brown brought to the Capitol on Wednesday a handful of law enforcement officials, including leaders of state sheriffs and police chiefs associations. They defended Brown’s plan to shift certain offenders from state prisons to county jails and to extend tax increases Brown proposes in part to fund the added local burden.

Without tax extensions, said Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin, president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, “We are facing financial amputation.”

The appearance was a bid by Brown to take over a position seized by Republican lawmakers who considered prison realignment a chief weakness of Brown’s budget plan. The law enforcement officials’ endorsement served to blunt Republican criticism that realignment would burden counties, causing prisoners to be released early from crowded county jails.

But for Brown, who needs at least two Republican votes in each house to advance his tax plan, the effect is uncertain.

Minutes after Brown spoke, Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, maintained that Brown’s realignment proposal would cause “mass victimization and a great injustice.”

“The blood will be on the streets,” he told reporters outside the room where Brown had addressed them.

One difficulty for Brown in his reliance on law enforcement is that many of the officials who endorse his tax plan are also sympathetic to Republican lawmakers’ demands for pension and other government changes.

“I guess I’m just frustrated at the whole process,” said one of them, San Bernardino County Sheriff Rod Hoops. “It’s going to take both sides to give up something.”

It was for similar reasons that some business groups qualified their endorsements of Brown’s tax plan, too.

“Republicans can be pro-business,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “But you know, they also have other considerations.”

Hoops was among a group of law enforcement officials who met privately with Brown in Riverside on Friday. He said Brown “wants us to, you know, try and help him get his program through.”

But Hoops said he has already talked to Republican legislators and that there is “not a lot” more to tell them.

“It’s not my position to call up these legislators and say, ‘Hey, this is what you should do,’” he said.

Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said Brown’s appeal makes some sense.

“Given the intensity of Republican opposition to tax extensions, I’m not sure it will work,” Pitney said. “But it’s as effective as anything he can try. … Republicans like cops.”

Brown said Wednesday that an agreement to resolve California’s now $15.4 billion budget deficit is “just a matter of time.”

“The only thing we can do is every day, keep pounding away,” he said.

Brown is making a series of statewide budget presentations to increase pressure on Republicans. Pazin said last week that he would join Brown at some of them.

“We’re just hoping that pragmatism overcomes the politics of it all,” he said. “This is really an epic battle that I’ve never seen. This is really some tough stuff.”

Brown had already secured the endorsement of the Bay Area Council when he went to San Francisco to address the group on Tuesday. For a few minutes, he talked about realignment.

“The Republicans said my realignment plan to transfer lower level offenders to local probation and jails would be some kind of a get-out-of- jail-free card, and the people better get guns and dogs,” he said. “But we’re not going to need that, because my plan for realignment is actually going to make California safer at a much better price.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/14/3551426/browns-countdown-day-84-governors.html#ixzz1IN6YLj1I

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

OFFICER DOWN

Correctional Officer Ronald E. Johnson

EOW: April 12, 2011South Dakota State Penitentiary

South Dakota Department of Corrections

Funeral Services:

Saturday, April 16, 2011

10:00 am

Best Western Plus Ramkota Hotel, Sioux Falls, SD
3200 W. Maple Street • Sioux Falls, SD 57107
Phone: (605) 336-0650

Any Questions please email:

Associate Warden Darin Young

Darin.Young@state.sd.us

South Dakota State Penitentiary

Courtesy of ACOIN ____________________________________________________________________

By Dirk Lammers

Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — One of the inmates suspected of killing a 63-year-old guard during a failed South Dakota prison break had escaped the state penitentiary two other times during his 27-year criminal history.

The state Department of Corrections says inmates Rodney Berget and Eric Robert, both 48, tried to escape shortly before 11 a.m.Tuesday, assaulting and killing officer Ronald Johnson in the process. The Corrections Department said the inmates were apprehended on the prison grounds and taken to a jail in Sioux Falls. They have not yet been charged in the guard’s killing.

Berget has been in and out of South Dakota’s prison system since the mid-1980s and is serving life sentences for attempted murder and kidnapping. He was convicted of escaping from the penitentiary in 1984 while serving time on a possession of stolen property charge. Then, in 1987, he and five other inmates broke out of the same facility on Memorial Day by cutting through bars in an auto shop. Berget was caught in mid-July of that year.

John Fitzgerald, Lawrence County state’s attorney, thought Berget would have no more opportunities to commit crimes after he pleaded guilty in Dec. 2003 to attempted first-degree murder for allegedly trying to kill his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.

“It’s shocking to me as a prosecuting attorney, but he’s a very violent person.” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said that on June 2, 2003, Berget waited outside a house in Lead for the boyfriend to show up. Before the boyfriend could open the front door, Berget shot through the door’s glass window, hitting the man in the stomach, then entered the house to try to kill him, Fitzgerald said.

According to Fitzgerald, Berget’s ex-girlfriend stopped Berget when she drew a gun from the bed stand.

“When he was captured, he confessed that his intent was to go in there and kill, murder the boyfriend,” Fitzgerald said. “And then he also said that his intent was to kidnap and torture the woman.

“Luckily she had a gun … otherwise, I think, he would have got the job done.”

Berget, of Aberdeen, also was convicted in Meade County for kidnapping a convenience store clerk in Sturgis. He was arrested and the clerk escaped after troopers used road spikes to stop the car near Midland.

Robert, the other suspect in Tuesday’s killing and attempted escape, is serving an 80-year sentence for a kidnapping conviction. In that case, an 18-year-old woman told police a man posing as a plainclothes police officer pulled over her car near Black Hawk, told her he needed to search it and then forced her into the trunk. She used her cell phone to call for help, and she was found unharmed.

Robert, of Piedmont, pleaded guilty to kidnapping in a 2005 plea bargain.

Johnson, who worked at the penitentiary for more than 23 years, was pronounced dead at a hospital, and a second guard suffered minor injuries in the incident. The department did not release the second guard’s name or further details about the escape attempt or attack.

Johnson, a father of two and grandfather of six, died on his birthday, said his son, Jesse Johnson.

“That’s kind of the gut-wrenching thing about it,” he told the Argus Leader newspaper.

Jesse Johnson said his father, known to friends and family as R.J., had lived through a riot at the penitentiary in 1993 and knew the danger of his job but never dwelled on it.

“He loved to relax and play with his grandkids,” the son said. “He never had a bad thing to say about anybody.”

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said the state Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating and more information would be released once the initial investigation and charging decisions are complete.

If the inmates are charged and convicted of murdering Johnson while trying to escape, prosecutors could seek the death penalty.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard said the state will act swiftly to bring the accused to justice and ensure the safety of prison staff.

“This incident is a somber reminder that our prison guards put themselves at risk, every day, to protect South Dakota from our worst criminals,” Daugaard said in a statement.

Before Tuesday’s incident, two corrections officers had been killed by inmates in the 130-year-history of the state penitentiary, the Argus Leader reported. Corrections records show that 72-year-old Warden Eugene Reiley was killed in 1936, and officer Edward Jaworski was killed in 1951.

Johnson is the first law enforcement official killed in the line of duty in South Dakota since the 2009 slaying of Turner County Sheriff’s Deputy Chad Mechels by 21-year-old Ethan Johns, who was sentenced to life.

Associated Press writer Chet Brokaw in Pierre contributed to this story.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/04/12/2994754/s-dakota-prison-guard-killed-amid.html#ixzz1JPVT4JEI

For months, Gov. Jerry Brown has been telling Californians deep budget cuts are necessary to eliminate the state’s $25.4 billion deficit.

Spending for health care, the environment and education has already been cut. And more cuts are on the way.

But the governor momentarily shelved his doom-and-gloom message Monday when he addressed a rally at the capitol organized by the state’s powerful prison guards’ union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, and Crime Victims United, a victims’ rights group.

“I hope you’ll tell some of your legislators that we’re going to need some money,” Brown said.

“You can’t run a prison … on hot air,” he said. “You’ve got to run it with real money.”

The remarks come less than a week after Brown’s administration negotiated a new contract with prison guards, which the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office said “would result in significantly lower savings” than had been budgeted.

Under the terms of the deal, prison guards would be required to take one unpaid day off every month — the equivalent to a 5 percent pay cut — and CCPOA members would be required to make additional contributions to their retirement.

But the state will pay more for the guards’ health care, dental and vision coverage, and the most senior guards will get a pay increase in July 2013.

The result is that the state will save $181.3 million less than the legislature anticipated, the LAO said, meaning lawmakers must either “reject some or all” of the labor agreements negotiated by Brown or ”authorize or require administrative actions, such as layoffs.”

State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who chairs the upper house’s budget committee, said the $181.3 million savings gap “was a cause for concern” but said he would withhold a final judgement on the pact until hearings on it are held in the state legislature.

Leno said he was heartened by Brown’s speech at the CCPOA rally.

Brown’s remarks, Leno said, were meant to remind prison guards and their supporters of the dangers of an “all-cuts budget,” which may be necessary if voters fail to approve any tax increases or extensions.

Leno said prison guards and crime victims represent one of the only interest groups potentially able to sway “the very few Republicans who may vote for additional revenue.”

“Hope springs eternal,” Leno said.

The CCPOA, which repeatedly clashed with Arnold Schwarzenegger during his tenure as governor, backed Brown during his succesful campaign against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman last year.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12fM6)

SB 9: CA Bill to Provide Reviews for Youth Sentenced to Life

Jerry Brown tells state workers to take Republicans to lunch

Gov. Jerry Brown said in a telephone town hall with state employees last night that partisan bickering is more rampant than it once was at the Capitol, and he suggested his tax plan might fare better if Service Employee International Union members plied the other side.

“If every SEIU member would take a Republican to lunch, maybe we would be in better shape,” Brown said in a telephone town hall that the union said reached thousands of employees.

Yvonne Walker, president of SEIU Local 1000, said the union’s membership is 30 percent Republican, and she told Brown, “We take a lot of Republicans to lunch.”

Brown’s own gastronomical efforts, which he described tonight in greater detail than before, fell short, with talks stalling last week. He said his budget talks involved about seven Republicans, four in “prolonged negotiations.”

Brown, who is seeking to extend higher tax rates on income, vehicles and sales, said the two sides “enjoyed some nice wine in my office, and the next night I took them over to my loft and we poured another couple bottles of wine.”

Later, an employee on the call asked Brown if he would proceed to furloughs or layoffs if the state budget remains unresolved in November.

“Wow,” Brown said. “You know what, I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s not good.”

He said, “All I can tell you at this point is I’m not taking anything off the table, but we just have to get those tax extensions, because the alternative is not pretty.”

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/04/jerry-brown-tells-state-worker.html#ixzz1IqM5vyCl

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

April 5, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento— Tens of thousands of felons convicted of nonviolent crimes would serve their time in county jails instead of state prisons under a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday evening.

The measure is designed to reduce the number of inmates in California’s chronically overcrowded state lockups and keep relatively low-level offenders closer to their homes, where drug treatment and mental health services are believed to be more effective.

Supporters hope to save taxpayers money by lowering the number of offenders who return to prison and by housing many parole violators in less expensive county jails.

“For too long, the state’s prison system has been a revolving door for lower-level offenders and parole violators who are released within months,” Brown said in a news release. “Cycling these offenders through state prisons wastes money, aggravates crowded conditions, thwarts rehabilitation and impedes local law enforcement supervision.”

But Brown said the program would not begin until the state has money — hundreds of millions of dollars — to transfer to local authorities to defray the costs.

Much of that funding was expected to come from the governor’s proposed renewal of several tax hikes that will have expired by the July 1 start of the new budget year. His attempts to get the taxes on a ballot for voter approval, as he promised while running for election, have so far been unsuccessful.

Opponents of the inmate plan, mostly Republican legislators, have referred to it as the “get a dog, buy a gun and install an alarm system” bill. They argue that some inmates will have to be freed from local jails early to make room for those who would otherwise have been shipped to prison.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matt Cate supports the measure, noting that the prison system took in 47,000 inmates last year who were parole violators sentenced to 90 days or less.

Despite those short terms, the prison system is required to perform a detailed physical examination and mental health screening, and an investigation of potential gang affiliation, for each inmate to determine where in the department’s sprawling, 33-prison complex they should be housed.

Cate said it makes no sense to go through the elaborate intake process, which takes an average of three months, for inmates who are going to spend only a few months behind bars.

“It’s a terrible waste of public safety resources that doesn’t have any public safety benefit,” Cate said.

Much of the reception process is required by federal courts following inmate lawsuits concerning the poor quality of healthcare in California prisons. County jails are not subject to the same court orders.

As a result, Cate said, “The state system is the most expensive in the free world. … You can’t do worse.”

But county jails are also crowded, said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, and were never designed to offer the same rehabilitation programs as state prisons.

“Public safety requires appropriate incarceration and deterrence … and both of those will suffer under the proposal,” Cooley said.

By Abi Shewtou – Published: March 26, 2011

I have waited patiently for an opportunity to view a copy of the signed tentative agreement for CCPOA. It has now been 12 days since Chuck Alexander, State Executive Vice President for CCPOA, released a letter to the CCPOA State Board of Directors with news of an agreement being reached. Please take a moment to note that the letter was not addressed to the BU6 membership at large.

The State Board meeting was held March 21st and March 22nd and yet still no copy of the signed tentative agreement (via hard copy or electronic copy) has been made available to the BU 6 membership at large. Will it ever be made available before the ratification vote? Who knows but I have commented here asking if it was an unreasonable expectation that CCPOA would post an electronic version of the signed tentative agreement on its website. I was chastised by another poster here for my “unreasonable expectation” and to “get back to grazin with the other sheeple”.

As far as being a part of the BU6 “sheeple”, I am not able to lay claim to that title. What I am able to claim is being the spouse of a BU6 dues paying member. So why am I here? I am tired of seeing the lack of moral turpitude displayed by the CCPOA Executive Council and CCPOA State Board of Directors towards its entire membership that includes my spouse as well as some near and dear friends.

Therefore, while I have not had the luxury of examining a signed tentative agreement, I have gleaned some information from the internet and am posting my view of it here. And yes, I have already heard the speech of submission from those that believe that while this tentative agreement is a bad deal it will lay the groundwork as a stepping-stone for the next time. Really?!?

So where do I think the heartburn lies in this tentative agreement? If I was a BU6 member I would be unhappy with the stoppage of earning holiday credits and the one-hour “donation” to the RTB. So let’s take a brief look at each of these take aways and see their impact to the bottom line.

HOLIDAY CREDITS

Current: If an employee works on a holiday, they earn 8.0 hours of straight pay, 4.0 hours of premium pay, and 8.0 hours of holiday leave credits for use at a later date. If an employee is on their RDO on a holiday, they earn 8.0 hours of holiday leave credits for use at a later date.

Proposed: If an employee works on a holiday, they earn 8.0 hours of straight pay and 8.0 hours of premium pay. If an employee is on their RDO on a holiday, they receive no additional compensation.

Take Away: For the employee that works on a holiday they lose 4.0 hours in compensation. For the employee that does not work on a holiday they lose 8.0 hours of compensation (i.e. holiday credits).

Bottom Line: Let’s do a little math! If we base our projections on a net loss of 4.0 hours of holiday credits on each of the 11 holidays approved each year and if it was to only affect 16,000 of the BU6 members paid at an hourly rate of $34 the total loss in compensation to the BU6 membership equals over $23 million dollars per year.

RELEASE TIME BANK

Current: No mandatory “donation” to the Release Time Bank (RTB). What is the RTB and what is it used for? Simply put it means that if CCPOA says they need a particular employee for a union related activity then the state “releases” that employee and the number of hours the employee is away from their regular post is charged to the RTB.

Proposed: A one-hour mandatory “donation” to the RTB by all BU6 members, dues paying or not.

Take Away: All BU6 members must “donate” 1.0 hours of leave credits that have a cash value attached to them each calendar year. You will not be allowed to “donate” non-cashable leave credits such as sick leave.

Bottom Line: It’s time for some more math! If we base our projections on a net loss of 1.0 hours of leave credits (that have a cash value) for all 32,000 of the BU6 members paid at an hourly rate of $34 the total loss in compensation to the BU6 membership equals over $1 million dollars per year.

So there you have it. My spin of why this Adjustable Rate Tentative Agreement is not a stepping-stone and should receive a NO vote for ratification.

On a side note, if I was a BU6 member, I would be drafting my letter to my personnel office informing them that they did not have my explicit permission to subtract any of my leave credits whether cashable or non-cashable for “donation” to the BU6 Release Time Bank.

____________________________________________________________

Update 3/28/2011

*****Click Here to read what CCPOA presented during the last talks.*****

I believe DPA mentions that an employee’s vested service credit cannot be taken or bargained away!

**Click here to read about the LBF history and the reason why we all got screwed.**

*****Lastly, click here to read the most current Tentative Agreement (TA).****

Update 3/29/2011

Take me to the DPA website to read the TA!