Supervisor Sean Elsbernd.
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Hope Johnson
January 26, 2010
District 7 Supervisor Sean Elsbernd is mad as hell that a city charter amendment he urged voters pass in 2007 is not as fiscally responsible as previously hoped. He’s made it clear someone is going to pay for his mistake and it damn well better not be him.
Elsbernd appears prepared to throw Muni operators under the bus in a quest to change his own error.
Only several years ago the supervisor urged voters to pass Prop A, a transit reform measure he assured was “a comprehensive reform plan” creating “stronger accountability” and bringing “employees back to the bargaining table.” Instead, Prop A hampered San Francisco’s ability to negotiate compensation with Muni drivers by purposefully changing the maximum the City was required to pay operators into the bare minimum it was allowed to offer.
The inconvenient truth for Elsbernd is he knew Muni operator wages and benefits were already based on the highest salaries in the country when he advocated the City place this restriction on itself.
Now Elsbernd is prepared to change the error of his ways but has chosen to portray Muni operators as the bad actors. In an attempt to garner public support for and ramrod through an amendment measure by February 8th for the June ballot, he has stirred up public ire by focusing not on operator wages but on a potentially controversial benefit tied to those wages. The union claims Muni operators receive less in health benefits than other city workers and the yearly monetary benefit in question is intended to make up for that disparity.
Elsbernd admitted to the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee during a review of his ballot proposal last week that the status of the health benefits was still at issue and required additional investigation. Appallingly, he nonetheless referred in the press to the potential health benefit of these average workers as a “Christmas bonus,” leaving the public with the impression drivers are receiving undeserved compensation. Equally deplorable, local mainstream media has followed Elsbernd’s lead and implied blame on Muni operators, failing to disclose Elsbernd’s support of Prop A or explain that wages and benefits at issue were imposed on the City by itself through no fault of the union (see examples here, here, and here).
Despite drawing media attention to the controversy of the benefit, Elsbernd also admitted to the Rules Committee that he was more interested in changing the way the City negotiates wages than amending the health care benefit, stating, “The health care issue is a very small part of the issue.”
One can only respond to that with Senator Barney Frank’s question: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Health care is never a very “small part” of any worker’s benefit package, at least, not to the worker. And it’s outrageous to suggest otherwise in light of the health care debate in Congress.
Clearly, an amendment to change wage and benefit negotiations is not ready for the June ballot. The last thing we need is another politician meddling in health care benefits by imposing unnecessary deadlines. If the union’s health benefit claim is deemed to be unwarranted after investigation, an amendment can be sent before the voters in November. The Rules Committee is scheduled to hear the proposal again on Thursday and should aim for a more comprehensive amendment measure to be placed on the ballot in November.
Waiting until November will not damage efforts to reduce the looming $70 million budget deficit faced by the Municipal Transportation Authority (MTA), the body responsible for managing Muni. Changing to bargaining for compensation would have no positive fiscal impact on the massive deficit coming up in July, whether the change is approved in June or November.
In fact, Elsbernd’s proposal distracts from the fact the MTA Board of Directors have done a terrible job of pursuing new forms of revenue for cash-strapped Muni, even removing from their proposed budget extended parking meter hours that would have already brought in $4.5 million had it been enacted with the budget.
Increased Muni fares and service cuts became effective December 5th but the MTA still seeks additional increased fares and cuts to overcome the huge budget deficit. Many are now left wondering if the MTA Directors have limited their revenue options to only those acceptable by the Mayor, who currently appoints all Directors to the MTA Board. Revenue measures unpopular with the Mayor and his allies are routinely dismissed as viable options. When that concern was mentioned at public comment during the MTA Board meeting on January 19th, it elicited an immediate defensive reaction from MTA Executive Director Nathaniel Ford and other Board members.
San Francisco is the only city in the country where public transit ridership increased this year. People here want to use public transit! It’s time to admit the MTA Board needs to be held accountable to more than just one person.
All available revenue options need to be up for consideration at a time when the MTA has declared a fiscal emergency, not simply those that will make the Mayor popular or his allies happy. Prop E created the MTA in 1999 and section 8A.109 sets forth that “the Agency diligently shall seek to develop new sources of funding.” Removal of the extended parking meter hours from the budget and this latest attack on the reputation of Muni drivers by a mayoral ally are further evidence the time has come for the voting public to have more sway over the MTA Board of Directors.
In addition to a measure revising operator wage and benefit compensation formulas, the November ballot needs a measure providing the Board of Supervisors power to appoint some members of the MTA’s Board.
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