BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Good morning, everybody. I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the San Barbara County Board of Supervisors of January 24th, 2012. Mr. Allen would you call the roll please?

Ms. Gray? Mr. Labagnino? Mr Carbajal? Here. Ms. Wolfe?

Here.

Ms Farr?

Here Would you

Madam Chair, we have three requests to speak starting with Maria Long here in Santa Barbara to be followed by Anthony Calles.

Ms. Long? Good morning. Thank you for seeing me and thank you Supervisor Farr. I just wanted to update you on the status of the Freedom Warming Centers and what's going on in Lompoc. So my name is Maria Long, I'm the County Coordinator for Freedom Warming Centers and my purpose is to update you on current status. I want to thank you for your foresight in funding this critical program We are the only program in the county that solely focuses on providing emergency accommodations. Monitoring the weather pattern has been difficult this year, to say the least.

So I'm now monitoring three patterns. We activate based on rain and severe weather conditions of 35 degrees or lower Last year we served in 33 nights, 1,736 individuals. At this point in time having activated at Thanksgiving in only 16 nights, 944 individuals have been served. We just got off a one week run. Last night alone in Santa Barbara County we served 81 and 2 shelters. Currently we have 9 active churches, the newest being the Unity Church and First Congregational on State. New collaborative partners are Doctors Without Walls that appear and treat for any kind of severe medical conditions, make referrals. We also have a psychiatric social worker onsite. Mostly we are seeing Men, seniors, a few couples, several severely disabled guests that are wheelchair bound and about 10% are veterans.

I want to give you a Lompoc update. With the closing of Bridge House, the Freedom Warming Centers will be open at the New Life Christian Church until a solution is reached and I must commend Pastor Doug Connolly and his congregation in Sylvia Bernard from Good Sam for stepping in to help us with this situation so we are prepared to support them in any way we can. The Lompoc Center is averaging about 15 people per night and overflow at Good Sam is averaging about 20 per night. So again, the numbers aren't completely current because we just got off this last seven-day run.

New announcement is Mark's House will be open again for business under new management tomorrow Wednesday of Good Samaritan Shelter. A press conference will be held Wednesday at 2 o'clock at Mark's House located at 203 North Street. This location, which once housed homeless women and children will now be a place where the homeless families can provide emergency shelter. It has the capacity of 19 beds and the program provides emergency food and services.

I want to give also special thanks to Nancy Madsen and Sharon Frederickson and yourselves for your support and guidance as we relieve suffering and save lives for our unsheltered neighbors. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Thank you for that report, really appreciate it. Really appreciate all of the churches and particularly the one in Lompoc for stepping in to make sure that people have shelter particularly right now when the weather is so bad. Thank you. All right next speaker Mr. Allen?

Madam Chair our next speaker is Anthony Calles to be followed by Dr. Robert Johns who's our final speaker for public comment.

Welcome.

Good morning. My name is Anthony Kias, I live in Billton and I am a co-author of the legislation that was presented to you for the Child Abuse Laws Reform due to the death of my four year old grandson Diego Kias. I've had the assistance of Jerry McBeth And the backing of DA Joyce Dudley also in this matter. And this was presented to you I guess a week or two ago, and I just wanted to step up this morning and come in to thank each one of you for considering this legislation of the changes. I've been in contact with Doss Williams' office also and with Kacho Occasion's office from North.

And right now we're going through a bunch of emails and trying to get this passed in different ways. But your backing was something that was very big on my behalf, and it just felt good to know that somebody in the political arena is gonna step forward to help issue these changes. Um, there was something at the end of with new law as we wanted to go after people who wouldn't report child abuse.

And I just felt that maybe to reconsider that because of the fact that people who don't report they tend to hide Then we find out through the investigation that they didn't know what was going on next door or in the apartment above, or the apartment next door. As far as after the fact of the investigation they finally stepped forward and we found that out also just recently that there were several neighbors who lived in a motel at the time of my grandson's death who knew what was going on but did not want to come forward and we felt that that was really wrong Friends of my son You know, so all I wanted to say this morning was thank you very much for coming For helping us out as we begin to issue these changes. I'm trying to get this baby head for public ballot Which might be the case?

Now we're getting a little bit of response from Dallas Williams's office not too good Conscious like I said seems to be on board with this as a whole but once again Thank you very much

Very welcome and thank you for being here with us today.

Our final speaker is Dr. Robert Jones.

Good morning.

Morning, Madam Chair. Good morning Mayor of Montecito. You're in conflict of interest especially in the Bagdasarian which is going to be coming up later on this afternoon. You're a staunch environmentalist and I'm hoping that you resolve this case in favor of Bagdasarian however You need to recuse yourself from the bacteria issue. You also need to reconstitute the Montecito Planning Commission.

It is fraught with environmentalists and stacked with environmentalist, Nelanie Schwartz who is the ex- Supervisor here, before my time. You need to reconstitute that commission and any other commission that is in your district. That's racism and it's discriminatory. And I will be writing letters concerning this to Sacramento. You run all of your environmentalist programs through these commissions, and then you'll say the Montecito Planet. And then you say to people in the county, the North County, well, Montecito?

It was okay by people in Montecito, then it's okay. It is okay to have this particular environmental, so you've gotta stop this This support, you've got to stop this support. And the Montecito Planning Commission has to be reconstituted. Can't be all environmentalists and you keep presenting like last week and I just have 54 seconds. Last week you presented a trash program here

Trash,

Madam

Chair.

Yes, I would advise you that the speaker has become repetitive repeating the same matters at least three times so you might caution him to move on or forfeit his time on this particular item.

Dr. Johns you've heard the caution?

I'm not going to comment on that at all, but so you must reconstitute that commission. It is totally environmentalist.

Okay actually Dr. Dunn this is the comment that County Council cautioned you

about.

So if you have nothing further to say why don't you step

away from the mic? Yes I do last week a multiple million dollar project which was a bamboozle. You're trying to get money for an environmental project A multi-million dollar project, which you're trying to bamboozle us. That was last week and that's not going to go through. Got it? Okay

All right, that was our last public speaker. We'll go ahead and we'll move on to the administrative agenda. We just have two items. Is there anything that a board member wants to pull?

Supervisor Wolff?

above 10% on promotion up to 25% within the band is within the discretion of the CEO. And how much is that?

Supervisor Carbajal in our staff report it says they brought Ms. Taylor's salary to $144,969 which is below the average department head salary and the

market Well, if we're concerned about pension costs and we're concerned about amending or not amending the leadership but we want to give more money it doesn't make sense. Are we concerned about pension costs or not? So I would say let's just continue this. Keep what the current leadership allows and we don't deal with pension concerns that we are all expressing because how can we be concerned about pension costs And say, well we're concerned about modifying that but it's okay. I want to pay a lot more. I just don't understand the logic so if we're concerned let's just not even deal with this item and then Ms. Waller can continue what the current ordinance allows which is a lot less than we're proposing to vote for today. I just don't understand either we're concerned about pension costs or not or it's something else

Supervisor Levin, you know.

Thank

you Madam Chair and that's an issue we can vote on. What I want to see though is when we get to a situation like this is that in the fiscal analysis what we look at we are only looking at what this does to our current year budget and next years budget But we don't look at, and I don't see on here anywhere where it tells us how this does affect us 10 years down the road.

Which is very significant so what I'm looking for is When we have these one-offs where somebody gets a, I mean, shoot. I haven't seen anybody get a 3% raise since I've been here so to talk about this is a different situation where someone's getting a considerable increase because their job title is changing and their duties are changing to an extreme manner.

So it would be nice for me to see something in the fiscal analysis that talks about the pensions.

All right. And Supervisor Gray? Thank you. I think this is such a critical issue, I'm following what Supervisor Carbajal has said, is if we need in fact to approve Ms. Taylor's salary, approve it but let's spend some serious time with discussion on the resolution and because I want to know in depth what Supervisor Wolf's objection is also discussion on what Supervisor Labonino has said and this just isn't the time. I'm not ready to do that today

Thank you, Supervisor Gray. Why don't we go ahead and hear from the public? And then we'll bring it back and decide what to do.

Madam Chair, we have three requests to speak. We'll start with Dr. Robert Jones to be followed by Bridget Shea.

Well, now when those district attorneys, those public, those district attorneys were retired two years ago. No one considered it. You just retired them, you got them out of the system and they walked away with no consideration about I'm trying not to be repetitive, counselor. What we need to do here is Let me interject just a little bit of my own thought here.

And so we began to, and you know I don't even know Ms. Taylor so it can't be biased thought, but I think there's a tinge of discrimination here It's the tinge of discrimination that a woman, discrimination. That a person so well qualified we want to begin to look at our rules and our regulations and this well-qualified ethnic American. We've got to start throwing the curtains you see? So I'm interjecting another thought here Your budget concerns?

I don't even know Ms. Taylor, but I know the thought and I know the hearing and I've heard it before. And counselor you're listening to racism right now. Why don't you rule on this board right now about racism, discrimination, and your points, your percentages.

Dr.

Jones,

bring it back to the item at hand.

So what we really need to do is talk about 721, the local 721 here. You refuse to renegotiate with-

Dr. Johns, we're not talking about that. We're talking about item A1.

Yes. Well, that is item A1 you refuse to negotiate with the best, the hardest working, the people who bring in the most money in this county and that's racism counselor rule on it.

Next public speaker, Mr. Allen.

Our next speaker is Bridget Shea to be followed by Mr. Caldwell in Santa Maria who's our final speaker

Welcome Ms. Shea Thank you

So good morning honorable Board of Supervisors. On December 13th, four out of five of the board decided to impose concessions on our members that resulted in hundreds of dollars taken out of their paychecks. This has resulted in your workers struggling to cover car payments and their children's needs and I know this because I'm their worksite organizer who hear these stories every day and are witness to the anguish that they struggled with.

In your decision to impose, you likened these professionals—these adults who know their worth and responsibility—to children who need to take concessions like all your other children. You cited yourselves as watching over Santa Barbara County's ongoing structural deficit. So why is this agenda item even before you today? Why are you looking to increase the salary of someone who makes well over $100,000 a year and to someone who's only been employed for a short time.

I see that market value is stated and there is a mention of fairness however this apparently was not in your consideration on December 13th. So SEIU 721 is calling on you to do the right thing if we are your children be the adults and set the example. Otherwise, it further brings into question your decision to take out of the pockets of a majority apparently for the sake of a minority who already make an amount that our workers will never see. Thank you Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have a question. Thank you. Counsel, would you explain to the rest of us why you felt this was a promotion and not a hire? Because if we'd hired a probation officer from out of the county, this discussion wouldn't be coming up today.

The promotion, and I've discussed this with the HR director. Promotion applies to an employee in a lower level class that is advanced to a higher level class invoking the promotion rules. And promotion rules are different than they are for people entering the county from outside which of course is one of the reasons for the modification of the plan to allow your board the discretion make subsequent salary advancement commensurate with what someone could get coming from the outside.

I think that's about the best explanation I can give.

Counsel, let me just follow up on that and ask the fact that the chief probation officer is appointed by the presiding judge. Does that change the situation at all? It's not like it's our HR department or department head here that's making a promotion or even the board.

The distinction is Interesting. I've looked at it over the years, and I think the important dichotomy is that although the courts appoint the chief probation officer, the law is very clear that they are a county employee subject to all county employment rules and regulations. And I think that implies to the leadership program or whatever salary mechanism has been established to compensate county employees

Thank you. Mr. Caldwell, thank you for

waiting. I'm glad you're having this discussion and we actually wish that you would have this discussion in reference to all of your employees. What Supervisor Laving-Nino brought up is akin to spiking. This is not spiking and we don't begrudge what you're proposing to give Ms. Taylor in her position, but this issue of people getting a promotion one year two years or three years before they retire and then being able to carry that into retirement via their pension payout does beg the question, well how do we pay for that? Because neither the employee or their county have been paying into that at that level during the course of that person's career.

What we think a solution would be here is that you revamp the pension plan, and I know this would be an accounting nightmare but I'm sure with the computers we have nowadays we could do it. And that is when somebody is making $20,000 a year then the pension that they accumulate based on that $20k salary is carried forward. Once they make $40k a year you recalculate it. But they don't make pension on $170,000 when for 30 years they were working for 100,000.

In other words there should be an incremental prorated increase based on what their pension would have been based on their salary and the number of years that they were in that particular classification. And then that eliminates this thing that's akin to spiking in terms of your costs And the payouts that you're required to make. Because it simply doesn't make sense that if somebody worked for 30 years at $45,000 and then they became department head for one year at 150 that they're going to get paid based on 150 for the rest of their lives?

You know right now, for instance, you're paying out $225,000 a year to Tom Sneddon How many years did Tom Sneddon make $225,000 a year? I think you should use that as a case in point not to pick on Tom Sneddon but because he's your highest paid retiree. Let's bring out the chart, let's do the math. How much would you have to have in an account today to pay out $225,000 a year? We think it's in nearly five million dollars. Do you think the county set aside five million dollars in an account with Tom Sneddon's name?

No. Thank you Mr. Caldwell. Supervisor Carbajal.

You know I hate to say this but I think Mr. Caldwell raises a very good point is that this is something that would have to occur with state legislation. Because certainly the way we've been informed, it's, we can't just change the system all over overnight or

you can't be more entitled to the system they have in place. But what he just talked about makes total sense. You work 10 years for 100,000, those 10 years are calculated on the plan. With incremental wages and then you go make 160,000? Those church connectors are getting captivated at that time. That's the way a good, reasonable man would dictate a compensation that would be fair. So from that standpoint, it makes sense and perhaps we ought to look at legislation to modify that so that in keeping with

what some of our

labor employees say today I think it would be completely appropriate but I just want to tell Mr. Caldwell that you can't do It sounds like a reasonable concept, but we can't do that unless legislation is initiated.

Thank you, Supervisor Carball. Supervisor Wolfe and then we need to kind

of... Yes I'm ready to make a motion on this. I appreciate everyone's comments the fact is Bev Taylor is working in this position she's a chief probation officer that appointment has been made and I am going to move item 2

Okay, again I'm confused because my understanding was is that we couldn't do B without doing A.

If it's the board's desire you can have a vote on amending the resolution and if that fails then under the leadership program you're done But if that passes and then the next action would be granting, exercising your discretion to grant the 8.6% above

the 25. Okay I think actually based on the discussion we've had Supervisor Wolf and Gray it seems to me we have a very thin staff report here considering all the questions that have been raised And so, and the information that we've had from county council that is not a part of the record. So I think whatever we do on this, we should have a more robust staff report and record to discuss and talk about based on all the discussion and questions that have been brought up by the board and members of the public. So I personally think that we should continue this item and ask staff to come back with more information justifying both the brief information that's in the staff report as to the salary increase for it, as well as the management resolution and why It needs to be amended in this particular way, if there are other options for that.

And also the more in-depth analysis that County Council has given for the reasons for calling it a promotion and not an appointment.

Madam

Chair, I think

that's a great idea. I will say that I just don't see it as having it both ways not moving to modify the ordinance but yet giving more compensation than the current ordinance allows so I would be happy if this matter doesn't even come back to us.

Supervisor Wolf?

Well I think you have...I'm not going to speak for Supervisor Gray but I think You know, when I spoke to Mr. Marshall, I think that a case could be made in looking at this as an appointment and honestly, I think it would be insulting as a public safety officer working with the sheriff, the district attorney, charge of the entire probation department to not move forward with this race. It's not even comparable to those other, um, department heads and to keep Bev Taylor at the, at the salary that she said, I think it's unconscionable and, and I think we have to be intelligent about, um.

The actions that we take. And, um... That's why I made the motion because I think we need to move forward on this. And then I you know if we need to have County Council come back with more information, he can do that. But I feel secure that we can move forward on this. At least let's take a vote on this motion. We have a motion and a second. The motion is item number two just to approve item number two at this time if anyone wants to make the motion for one they can do All right.

Well, anyway I think Supervisor Carbajal we have Supervisor Wolf's motion it's just to approve B. We have a second from Supervisor Gray so Supervisor Gray?

Quickly, Supervisor Wolf do you suppose that we could just make a motion to pay Bev Taylor $157,434 a year as the probation director and forget the promotional thing?

That I would amend my motion. Leave

out the word promotion.

Absolutely, that is perfectly fine. I amend my motion.

Madam Chair, what we've been talking about is accomplishing this within the leadership program. What I hear the board saying now is they're really moving outside and would want to set a separate salary for the chief probation officer outside

And the reason why I can live with that is because we don't, the judge appoints the chief probation officer. So I feel like our control pretty much is our hands are tied from the very beginning anyway. Not that I would have picked anybody else. I think Ms. Taylor's a perfect choice for the job. But having said that, I think it's. It makes sense that maybe she's outside the regular leadership.

Okay, so I'm going to amend my motion per Supervisor Gray's suggestion.

Second

agrees

and I call for the question. Okay, Supervisor Carbajal one more comment

before we

vote?

You know, I was ready to vote for this today because I thought it might be fair and appropriate but you know as I'm reminded by our employees who spoke today And as my two colleagues raised the issues of retirement, it sounds like we're just trying to find a loophole by which we approve this so that we can and not deal with the retirement discussion we just had.

The fact of the matter is that this does what we were talking about. This does provide huge retirement pension issues and I'm not going to vote for it at this point in time. I was hoping we could come back, we could have a more robust discussion but a lot of the issues that have been raised and the concerns about retirement, I'm not going down that road

And let me just comment that the leadership resolution is much worse. Until you tackle that leadership resolution, all of the issues that you just brought up will never go away. That is really the elephant in the room. So let's just, I hate to use this position as a scapegoat for retirement, the leadership. I think this issue is something that stands on its own and we should just move forward with it.

All right, let's call for the question here. Let's have a roll call vote.

Ms. Gray? Aye. Mr. Lavagnino? Mr. Carbajal? No. Ms. Wolfe?

Aye.

Ms Farr?

Aye because I think that taking it out of the leadership is appropriate because it's an appointment.

Passes 3-1-1

All right. Are we done with this item? If so, then let's I'll entertain a motion for the rest of the administrative agenda. Madam Chair,

can I just have something in the record that the reason for the abstention is I'd like to see that item come back for more discussion.

All right. Well, I think that a lot of issues were raised that should come back for more discussion. All right, a motion on the rest of the administrative calendar. Do we have any people to speak on A2?

No request to speak on A2.

Okay. Motion to approve A2 Anybody?

I have a comment on A2 and this is something that I had talked to Ms. Waller about because we were going to be using other funding sources for this clinic but it looks like there are, that there's a balance in funds that can expand the hours of operation for this. I think that is definitely a good thing to expand the hours of operation But I would like to know where the other money is located and situated so we have that information for us because that was not what we had originally intended. The funding for this item as it's written is not what we originally intended, so I would like to know where that other $600,000 is sitting.

Chairwoman Supervisor, Thank you for the question. I think that this is actually a good news story to bring forward. Initially, we determined or your board determined that you'd like to see an expansion in the clinic to provide it to additional individuals. Specifically those that are 18 and above that are under our current plan. So I think that's certainly good. Originally we had asked your board to consider use of savings that we had budgeted in medical insurance, so specifically we had anticipated that medical insurance would increase by 15% this budget year Due to the fact that we had very good experience in previous years, it actually turned out that we only needed to have a 7% increase. So that was our original thought to use those savings.

When we actually went back and looked at the account, we determined that there were excess funds in the health clinic account itself mainly because during its startup it had been less capacity than we had anticipated. So our request for you today is to bring forward those savings that are already in the health care clinic and use those as one-time funds to expand this year.

Those savings that are in the health insurance accounts are actually in each department's budget currently, and any of those dollars that remain unexpended at the end of the year would be brought into your budget discussions for future year for your board to decide how you'd like to expend those funds.

Ms. Wall, you mentioned the age 18 but I think it's age 16?

Yes, excuse me for misspeaking. I just looked over at our human resources staff and they said it is age 16 so thank you for the clarification.

Well thank you and thank you Jerry for moving this forward You know, I think being a CENCAL member knowing the importance of getting adolescents into you know into a clinic into health care. You know this our clinics and I have to say I was a little ambivalent at the beginning but I think our HR folks have done a really good job and I the clinics must You know, must be doing a good job as well. So I appreciate that. I'm glad that they're being used and I'm really excited that we're lowering the age to 16 and that we're going to be providing flu shots. As you said this is really a good new situation and I hope we can continue to fund it in future years.

Thank you. Is that a motion? That's a motion. Do I have a second? Item A2, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All right we're going to go right into departmental agenda item number one I sincerely apologize to all of the applicants that are here waiting for this just goes to show that sometimes things on the administrative agenda take longer than we think So how we're going to proceed with this is that we have four applicants. We're going to invite each applicant to come forward in order of the agenda, they will have an opportunity to make a short presentation to highlight their background and experience and their reasons for applying And then we'll have questions from the board and then we will go on to the next applicant.