Martinez Public Employees Lose Cars, But Get More Money

In exchange for losing one perk of the job, two of Martinez's city employees will get a salary increase, under a resolution on the agenda for Wednesday's Martinez City Council meeting.

On the consent calendar is a resolution to award a 5 percent raise to two City employees. The salary increase was negotiated with Local 324 in a memo of understanding and affects the park supervisor and maintenance supervisor positions.

The background on this salary increase is described in the information packet: "
In the early 1990’s, the City was experiencing significant fiscal challenges. Because of the budget issues, every effort was made to contain labor costs, including salaries. As a result of this, salaries were frozen, or limited increases were granted. This had an inadvertent impact on making it difficult to fill the Supervisor vacancies at the Corporation Yard because there was not a significant salary increase commensurate with the increase in workload. Therefore, to provide an incentive to fill the positions, Supervisors were allowed to take a City vehicle home."

The Contra Costa County Grand Jury in 2011 reviewed this practice and decided the maintenance and usage costs represented a significant financial burden on taxpayers.

In exchange for no longer being able to take home City vehicles, the two supervisor positions will receive a 5 percent salary bump. The expected total financial cost to the City will be $7,095.65.