San José lawmaker who criticized county bonuses approved them for city employees

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A San Jose council member who criticized county officials for giving COVID bonuses to government employees approved similar payments for city employees.

Earlier this summer, San Jose City Council approved a one-time pandemic bonus of $ 1,000 for each full-time employee in the municipal worker category of Unit 99a, which includes department heads and managers. senior officials, such as the chief of police, the head of the fire division, city manager, city attorney, budget manager and council aides. In August, the city approved identical bonuses for engineers, architects and legal workers in the city.

In total, the city approved bonuses totaling $ 2,769,250, according to public records.

Board member Matt Mahan, who joined his colleagues in approving these bonuses, recently berated the Santa Clara County Supervisory Board for granting a COVID risk bonus to 22,000 county workers. He created a website to show residents how the money could have been spent on roads, housing and other essential projects.

Mahan said he was not opposed to the risk premium for public sector workers who put their lives on linurs and other public health workers. But he objected to the county using $ 76 million in federal aid to pay bonuses of $ 2,500 to office workers, some of whom telecommuted during the pandemic and already earn high salaries.

Mahan told the San Jos Spotlight that it was not helpful to compare the two city and county bonuses because the county was using federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

It’s really important to point out that when a single bonus is negotiated as part of a union contract, it’s negotiated against a bunch of other considerations, including base pay and other benefits, Mahan said. It is often in fact advantageous for the city or an employer to give a one-time bonus rather than a base salary increase. And (ours) was not with the ARPA fees.

San José awarded bonuses to employees of Unit 99, the Association of Legal Professionals, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 101, the Association of Engineers and Architects and the City Association of Management Personnel, IFPTE, Local 21.

Tom Saggau, spokesperson for the San Jose Police Officers Association, told the San Jos Spotlight that Mahan is being hypocritical because San Jose’s general fund contains COVID-19 relief dollars.

The budget messages make it very clear that they are taking federal COVID aid and putting it into the general fund, Saggau said. Where does he think the contracts are paid from? The general fund. It is a truly appalling lack of understanding of how a municipal budget works.

San Jose received $ 212 million in federal COVID funding in March 2021 and is preparing next month to determine how to spend the remaining funds. Mahan said he wanted the city to use the dollars for various projects to improve San Jose, including creating jobs for the homeless, expanding access to child care services and l helping small businesses recover from the pandemic.

I will certainly not vote for a proposal to simply give a general bonus to everyone in the city, Mahan said.

Contact Eli Wolfe at [email protected] or @ EliWolfe4 on Twitter.

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