Furlough days result in lower teacher pay

Teachers returning to Placentia-Yorba Linda’s public school classrooms this year will give up a bit more than $3.5 million in salary and benefits for a near four percent drop in compensation under a new contract that includes five furlough days.

And the teachers face further reductions with the possible addition of up to four more furlough days depending on the outcome of Prop. 30, the temporary tax increase measure on the Nov. 6 ballot, according to a pact approved by the unified school district’s trustees.

Here are the specifics for the detail-minded:  five furlough days will save $2,197,137 (a 2.7 percent cut), an eight-month delay in anniversary or “step” increases will save $976,503 (a 1.2 percent cut) and $394,485 more will be saved on statutory benefits.

Further reductions are probable should Prop. 30 lose, with the number of additional furlough days based on the average daily attendance money received from the state.

For example, one furlough day will be added if the dollars received for average daily attendance fall below $5,180, sliding up to four days if the dollars fall below $5,030, with wages refigured if the district receives less than the latter figure.

A beginning teacher loses about $250 and a veteran up to $500 in pay per furlough day.

Salaries for classified staff, including secretaries, aides, custodians, food service workers and bus drivers, haven’t been approved yet, but certificated and classified administrators and managers will see the same percentage reduction as teachers, saving $578,000. And trustees will get a similar cut in their $750 monthly stipends, saving $1,215.

The district now expects to spend more than $193 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, with income a bit above $185 million and reserve funds dipping to $6.6 million or 3.23 percent, which meets the state-required minimum.

Last year’s teacher salary schedule, which included four furlough days for a total 181-day work year, ranged from $44,693 for a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree plus 30 units to $92,516 for a veteran with 30 or more years and a master’s degree or a bachelor’s plus 75 units.

Salary schedules are arranged in columns and steps, with columns representing education through degrees and college-level units and steps representing years of service.  Currently, nearly all beginning teachers are fully credentialed which takes 30 units past a bachelor’s, so they usually start on the first step of the third column.

Moving to a new column results in salary increases in the $2,500 to $5,500 range, while years of service--the “steps”--give increases in the $2,500 range.  Teachers receive step increases in each of the first 13 years and thereafter at four- or five-year intervals until reaching the top step at 30 years in the fifth column.

This year’s contract delays any step increase until the eighth month, so they’ll only earn step increases for two months.  Teachers are paid 10 times each year, beginning on Sept. 28 and ending on June 28 for the 2012-13 school year, although they have the option of spreading the same pay over a 12-month period.

Redevelopment wind down will take years

 This city’s Redevelopment Agency didn’t quite reach its 29th birthday before being axed by the state, but it will take close to 29 more years before the debts and other obligations of the dissolved agency are paid off or fulfilled.

“About 2040” was the answer to the question of when the former agency’s affairs would wind-down, information imparted at the Aug. 13 meeting of the pithily named Oversight Board of the Successor Agency to the Yorba Linda Redevelopment Agency.

The Oversight Board is a seven-person panel representing city, county and school interests, and the Successor Agency is the City Council. They’re charged with an imposing effort to wrap up redevelopment issues, with additional oversight by the county auditor, the state Department of Finance and the state Controller’s Office.

Yorba Linda’s former Redevelopment Agency began life in 1983 with a project area of 2,640 acres that included Savi Ranch and other land to the eastern city limits and a wide swath of property now occupied by Hidden Hills homes to the city’s northern boundary.

The project area was amended in 1990 to add 328 acres that included Old Town as well as properties along Eureka, Casa Loma and Valley View avenues between Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway and parcels along Imperial to Wabash Avenue.

The agency’s income of $21 million annually in recent years came from the increase in property taxes collected within project areas since the agency was created and has been spent on infrastructure, public facilities and affordable housing ventures.

More than a dozen other taxing agencies that would have received large portions of that tax revenue were granted “pass-through” payments. These groups included three school districts, various county agencies, water and library districts and the county fire authority.

Total pass-through payments due for the 2012-13 fiscal year that began July 1 is $4.2 million, with close to half going to the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.

No pass-through dollars came to the city’s general fund to finance police and other services, which grew due to more housing and businesses in project areas, although some administrative costs were recouped. (Redevelopment theory holds that operating budgets would benefit from increased sales taxes.)

However, with the Redevelopment Agency’s Feb. 1 demise, all property tax revenue will return to the original authorized parties--once the agency’s debts and obligations are paid, including bonds totaling $122 million with termination dates 2023 to 2032.

Until then, the former agency’s income--an estimated $22 million this fiscal year-- goes into a county-administered Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund for the wind-down period.

One or even two or three 500-word columns aren’t enough to summarize the complexity of the redevelopment dissolution. But this city’s attorneys appear to be guided by a very detailed 31-page report.

You can access the document--if you don’t mind wading through the lawyer language --at goldfarblipman.com (click “library” at top of page, then scroll to “June 29, 2012”).

Youth weigh in on city's General Plan

Some of the most interesting results from the initial efforts undertaken to develop Yorba Linda’s new General Plan involve what middle school-aged youth think are the city’s “treasures, challenges and visions,” based on student comments at a recent workshop.

The activities at Yorba Linda Middle School were the first in what is anticipated to be a multi-faceted series of events involving residents of all ages and interests in the process of updating this city’s General Plan adopted in 1971 and first revised in 1993.

A General Plan is “the Constitution for land-use decisions at the local level,” according to the League of California Cities, with a written document addressing seven state-mandated elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety.

Completion of a new plan is expected September 2013, according to RBF Consulting, working under a City Council-approved $549,402 contract to update both the General Plan and the city’s 1982 Master Plan of Parks and Recreation.

Top priority for youth in their early teen years was a skate park, followed by “hangouts” and more “food and businesses.” Others included the elimination of “creepy places,” an amusement park and fireworks.

Treasures named by students: fireworks, bike trails, horses, schools, parks and sports, concerts, library, people, holiday activities, food and businesses and houses/character.

Challenges included: animals (“dead animals everywhere” and “coyotes”), graffiti and crime, more museums and a zoo, more hangouts, school budget cuts and more schools, police (“own police department” and “police station”) more restaurants and stores (“need an In-N-Out”) and parks (“skate,” “dog” and “areas for bikes, scooters and skateboards”).

And among items seen as visions by students: more trees, police department, new sidewalks, a Heritage Fair with rides and games, “more ways to help less fortunate people,” sports park, skate park, “stricter schools with drugs,” more pools, arcade, theme park, more recycling, allow fireworks, movie theater, a mall, candy shop and less houses.

Also earlier this summer, adult residents were involved in three “community walks,” two workshops and a “visioning charrette,” where participants identified treasures, challenges and visions, all to be outlined in a future column dealing with the General Plan process.

All of this will be perused by a council-appointed General Plan Advisory Committee, chaired by Jim Pickel, renamed to the Parks and Recreation Commission late last year after prior service on that body 1993-1996 and the Planning Commission (1996-2011).

Eventually, voters will weigh in on the update, since 2006’s Measure B requires a public vote on changes to land-use documents, which could come in June or November of 2014.

The parks and recreation update, covering 26 park sites and four recreation buildings, began with interviews with various indoor and outdoor youth and adult sports groups, middle school Teen Advisory Committee, Equestrian Special Committee, Senior Club and YMCA.

Visit yorbalindaconnects.com to leave input for either plan.

Bid process valuable for bottom-line

Valuable lessons for Yorba Linda’s future economic viability can be learned from recent actions surrounding the change in the agency that will provide police services to this city.

First, a competitive bidding process turned out to be a boon for the municipal budget as suggested in my Dec. 29, 2011, column that stated seeking bids on the law enforcement contract was one of the City Council’s best decisions in 2011.

A similar process requesting bids from qualified companies for the contract to administer the city’s financially challenged Black Gold Golf Club is a “no brainer” when the current contract with Kemper Sports Management expires in 2015.

And bids again might be in order when the Sheriff’s Department contract expires in 2018, although two years written notice to terminate is required, instead of the 18 months called for in the Brea pact, and if separate agencies still exist to bid.

Both Brea and the county Sheriff presented bids substantially less than the approximate $11.5 million costs for police services listed in the 2012-13 fiscal year budget approved June 19, although partisans still dispute which agency’s bid was the better deal.

Second, Sheriff’s personnel, with experience gained from contracts with 12 other cities, clearly bested Brea staffers in submitting numbers for first-year cost estimates, showing prospective contractors seeking city business that well-honed bids are a key requirement.

Brea presented two bids at different service levels, $10.7 million and $10.3 million, both less than the $11.5 million cost projected for the end of the 2011-12 fiscal year. The bids might have been influenced by an informal Sheriff’s proposal offered Nov. 1, 2011.

On that date, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens appeared before the council and outlined a price of about $10.1 million, with a bit more than $1.5 million in start-up costs. Final Sheriff’s bid was about $9.6 million, with a city-hired consultant listing the city’s first-year budget allocation as $10.55 million for Brea and $10.49 million for the Sheriff’s Department.

Then, the Sheriff reduced costs some $665,000 by sharing six deputies with local county islands and agreed to a final $9.3 million, including start-up costs. Brea’s late-appearing offer was $8.9 million, with liability and contract-length issues to be determined, leaving an understandable suspicion of past over-charges in prior contracts with Brea.

Third, a non-economic and often over-looked lesson involves the consistent application of open-government policies, including those regarding public input at council meetings.

For example, individuals addressing the council are not permitted to single out specific members, but must talk to the panel as a body. Yet, speakers who name and praise members are allowed to proceed, while those who name and criticize members are hushed, unless they’re hammering at Jim Winder, charging a “conflict of interest.”

Setting reasonable hours for public input--not from midnight to 3 a.m. as for the police issue--and fairly applying rules for speakers are crucial tasks for elected bodies valuing transparency.

Police partisans call each other 'liar,' 'unethical' but other Yorba Linda issues are also important

The contentious debate surrounding this city’s police services contract continues to swirl with passionate partisans on both sides tossing around the terms “liar” and “unethical” at City Council meetings and on numerous websites, blogs and Facebook pages.

Soon, thoughtful Yorba Lindans who are not part of the pro-Brea police or pro-Sheriff cliques will tire of the negativism and look for independent-thinking candidates for the three council slots on the Nov. 6 ballot. (Filing at City Hall ends Aug. 10.)

Meanwhile, other issues merit attention from residents interested in better governing practices rather than the low-level of political discourse exhibited on the police issue.

First is the Friends Christian High School matter. Deadline for substantial action by the school in meeting past-due lease payments totaling more than $630,000 for the city’s 32 acres of Bastanchury Road property planned for a 1,200-student campus is approaching.

The last of four required reports from school officials is slated for an Aug. 21 council session, which marks the end of a 120-day delay granted on a 3-2 council vote before acting on a default notice sent to lease-holder Yorba Linda Friends Church in April.

School officials paid the city $50,000 in April, which, when added to $50,000 already on deposit, met council’s condition for a quick $100,000 payment to forestall action to terminate the 99-year lease. The last regular payment was made in October 2011.

According to the third report presented at the July 17 council meeting, “Negotiations on the amount, terms and timing of project financing have begun and will continue over the coming weeks.” The report noted the church is working with three lenders, not identified.

Also, “Review of the ground lease is underway by lenders” and “additional review is also continuing by counsel for Yorba Linda Friends Church….” At a previous meeting, school officials indicated financing could be difficult to obtain due to current lease terms.

Second is an issue similar to the development matters that led to a number of attempts to incorporate Yorba Linda in the 1950s-60s and the successful 1967 incorporation election.

Many early residents opposed the county’s development standards vis-a-vis lot size and too many service stations along Yorba Linda Boulevard, once labeled “gasoline alley.”

Now, some residents near proposed 486-home developments in the Urban Wildland Interface region of unincorporated Yorba Linda near San Antonio Road worry about county conditions for projects that probably will be annexed to the city.

The Sage/Cielo Vista and Yorba Linda Estates projects are within the Yorba Linda Water District, so some residents seek water infrastructure that would double the minimum fire-flow requirement listed in the state’s fire code.

A Final Note: An era ends with Ric Collett’s retirement from the company that hauls away this city’s trash. Collett’s father founded Yorba Linda Disposal in 1959, and Ric, one of my first Valencia High students, worked his way from the trucks to an executive office. He was elected a water district director in 2004.