Candidate for
Member, City Council; City of El Segundo

My position on some tough issues:

The cost of city services is a tough issue. El Segundo has roughly 17,000 residents and our city employee direct compensation is about $32 Million a year. As a point of reference, Manhattan Beach has over 36,000 residents and provides comparable services for $26 million a year. Both cities have excellent police, fire, paramedics, parks and recreation however Manhattan Beach patrol and protect 20% more area than we do and they do it for 20% less cost. We also pay 30% more than Manhattan Beach into CALPERS for our city employees. Our cost of services is an issue that our city council needs to address. I will help our city manager and our department heads look into how Manhattan Beach is able to provide more cost effective services to their residents. If we can learn how they do it and implement those lessons learned in El Segundo we can lower our cost of services.

Our city medical benefits is an area that needs attention. Part time elected officials receive fully paid medical benefits and those receiving benefits become vested in fully paid lifetime benefits after 5 years of service. I am not aware of any part time individuals receiving fully paid medical benefits and I'm not sure that the city council can remain objective in negotiating things like medical benefits with city employee unions when they receive the same fully paid benefits themselves. We need to make sure that we are providing the right benefits and spending our money wisely. We currently set aside $2 million per year into an endowment fund to help cover our future medical costs. This takes working capital, potentially out of today's infrastructure maintenance or new pools or who knows what, and funds a high cost benefit that needs to be challenged. I'll work to eliminate medical benefits for part time service and extend vesting to more conventional lengths of service.

Employee Pensions is another tough issue. Pension reform is a huge opportunity to reduce government spending. This issue is much larger than El Segundo and Governor Brown is attempting to address pension reform with little success. This will take a long time to resolve but in the mean time we need to make sure that everything associated with the City of El Segundo pensions is administered properly. We pay 30% more than our neighbors in Manhattan Beach into CALPERS. (Police & Fire - 33.25% ES vs 25.82% & 23%, Misc 12.36% ES vs 9.44%)This is another example of our higher cost of services.

I believe that sick time is an insured benefit provided by an employer to assure that a sick or non-work related injured employee receives pay for some period of time while they recover. It is a benefit and it is not an entitlement. Like our personal auto insurance, we can't pay our premiums and later ask for them back because we didn't have any accidents. Sick pay should be handled the same way. This is a great opportunity to save money because it will reduce tax payer costs without changing employee benefits.

I believe that vacation time is a fully funded benefit and an entitlement that is accrued in a calendar year and should be taken in the same calendar year that it was earned. If an employee desires pay instead of vacation I'm OK with that as long as it occurs in the same year that it was accrued. It should not be banked and used in later years at some higher rate.