Item 34 (Council File 09-1320-S1) of the 12/11/09 City Council Meeting was the consideration of a motion relative to the impact of the Early Retirement Incentive Plan (ERIP) program and an instruction to the CAO and Personnel Department to determine the impact the ERIP program would have on City services.
The purpose of the City's ERIP is to remove, through incentivized early retirement, up to 2,400 City workers from City Service. The City is in the midst of a serious budget crisis and desperately needs to shed workers and payroll in order to keep the City's books (somewhat) balanced.
Due to the way the ERIP plan is structured the participants in the early retirement program generally will be the most senior and experienced City employees. So, clearly, when these experienced workers leave City service so do their years of institutional knowledge and expertise.
This simply fact seems to have only recently dawned on certain members of the City Council.
Here is a clip of Councilmember Jose Huizar (CD 14) asking for "real leadership" from City Department managers in order to ensure that essential services will continue to be provided to residents despite the hardships caused by the ERIP plan passed by the very same City Council he is a member of:
I love the fact that he is asking that the managers of City Departments not blame the "people who [made] the decisions" that will lead to a dramatic exodus of their experienced staff and personnel. If the City Council is not to blame for the impact the ERIP plan will have on City services then exactly who is?
*Hat tip to Ron Kaye LA for posting clips of this meeting at his blog.
2 comments:
I think he is saying that the department heads and council should work together to continue providing services to residents. He had put in a motion since June asking department heads to come up with a plan for more skilled workers to transfer knowldege to newer workers...I think he is asking where is that and why haven't they followed up with his request.
@Anon: In June the Department managers wouldn't have known who was leaving (in fact, they still don't know for sure) so how could they possibly have come up with a plan to do an orderly transfer of knowledge to new workers?
That said, it is the responsibility of the Council to lead; not the Department heads. If the Council wanted the City to have an orderly transition of knowledge then they should have asked the CAO to develop and implement a transition plan/procedure BEFORE they passed the ERIP. Waiting until the week before a holiday recess to ask what the transition plan is simply does not cut it.
The MO of this Council is to wait and do nothing and hope that a deus ex machina bails them out. Thats not leadership-- its foolishness.
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