By Daily Press staff
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures which appear on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past).
By Daily Press staff
CITY HALL— Elected leaders are expected tonight to spend nearly $500,000 to increase city employee pay, repair an unsettling landfill and to pay for unexpected costs attributed to the new Main Library.
The biggest ticket on the City Council’s agenda is the requested $301,000 to increase the wages and benefits of its employees.
City staff is requesting that the City Council authorize the City Manager to adopt and execute a new contract with the Administrative Team Associates (ATA), which include city professional and administrative employees. They are also requesting a new contract with the Management Team Associates (MTA), which are comprised of the city’s management, most of whom are division heads.
The $211,000 cost of the contract for ATA and the $90,000 cost for the MTA contract have been factored into the 2005-06 budget and no other method of securing funds is needed, according to city staff.
Both agreements are two-year contracts which last from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007.
For the ATA, the new contract will provide a cost of living increase of 4 percent for 2005-06 and another increase for 2006-07. The agreement also will increase tuition reimbursement for city employees and enable City Hall to offer a signing bonus for positions considered hard to fill.
For the MTA, the new contract will provide the same cost of living increase and tuition reimbursement benefits as the ATA, but also will provide increases in management incentive pay.
The current contract expired on June 30, 2005 and since then negotiations have commenced and resulted in new agreements that have been ratified by the ATA and the MTA.
A landfill of issues
The City Council is being asked to authorize to pay $100,000 to SCS Engineers to study and provide options for the handling of City Yards landfill issues.
The site, stretching approximately 12 acres, was used for the disposal of municipal waste until 1964. When the landfill closed, there was about 300,000 cubic yards of refuse. Today, the landfill has settlement issues, making it undermine effective use for public service, emergency response and public recreation at nearby Stewart Park. For example, some portions of the concrete slab foundation on the property have cracked and partially collapsed.
The study, in coordination with the solid waste study and master plan, will look at options for handling the issues so that the City Yards and contiguous areas can be used effectively by the City to service the community and emergency response.
Library costs soar
Another $30,510 will most likely be added to an existing contract with Engineering Economics, Inc. (EEI), a firm responsible for making sure the new construction of the $72 million Main Library meets all specifications.
EEI’s original contract was for $125,126. But because of delays, construction activities had to be resequenced by the design-builder and EEI had to increase the number of site inspections. The project has since been completed and the new library is open.
The project was originally scheduled to be completed on July 15, 2005, but the schedule was impacted by subsurface conditions during site excavation.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 10, 2006. Read the original PDF.