Citizens question city’s administrative raises.

As the city of Seaside negotiates its next contract with unionized employees, administrators scramble to rectify top-heavy spending that has thrown the biannual budget out of whack.

Non-union managers have gotten hefty raises this year, contributing to the Administrative Services Department’s overspending by 30 percent in relation to the City’s 2007-08 budget. The city attorney has been paid 73 percent over budget and the Police and Fire Departments are close to maxing out their funds, while Resource Management and the City Council have cash to spare.

During the June 21 City Council meeting, Deputy City Manager Daphne Hodgson suggested shifting funds from under-budget departments to those in deficit. Citywide, she reported, revenue currently exceeds expenditures by about a quarter million dollars. “I think Seaside is in a fairly good position,” she said.

A related story in the >>Herald provoked several citizens to speak out at the meeting. “If you don’t have the money, you don’t pay [for administrative raises],” said Seaside resident Ann Marie Pagan. “There’s a lot more here that we’re not hearing about.”

The top seven Seaside managers earn between $126,000 and $169,400, salaries that Rubio says are comparable to other Peninsula cities’. “We try to keep our managers just around the middle of the pack,” he says.

Rubio will not discuss how the labor negotiations are going, but he says that the parties are hashing out the easy stuff before getting into the divisive details. He notes that during the last bargaining session the City was in deficit by $1.5 million, in contrast to the current surplus.

Rubio, a representative for the local Carpenters Union, is uniquely positioned to understand both sides of the negotiations. “I understand the issues and the strategies and so on, but my job as a mayor is to make sure that the city remains whole,” he says. “While the council in general has a favorable attitude toward the employees, we have to make sure we’re fiscally responsible.”

Employee union representative Derrick Stephens did not return calls.