Editorial: In holding the line on pay, RT sets an example

Two shifts of Sacramento Regional Transit mechanics called in sick Wednesday, a job action meant to pressure RT managers to give a little in current contract negotiations. The mechanics have been working without a contract since October. According to their union Web site, they are asking for a 7 percent raise in the first year of a two-year deal and 5 percent for the second year.

RT management is offering no raise. That's right – nothing, zip, nada. The same salary and benefit freeze offer is on the table for RT supervisors, bus drivers and light-rail operators. When asked what enhancements RT employees will be offered in the agency's current round of contract negotiations, Mike Wiley, RT's interim general manager was blunt. "Continued employment," he told The Bee, and nothing more.

It's not just RT's hourly wage earners who are being asked to sacrifice. Wiley says his management team was set to get a 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment this year, same as its clerical staff will receive under contracts previously negotiated. To balance the agency's budget this year, RT managers were forced to give up those increases.

Other public agencies, including the state of California, need to pay attention. Caught in the grip of a worsening economy, RT is doing what most private companies have been forced to do already and what other public agencies should prepare for: freeze salaries and benefits to preserve public services.

Like every enterprise, government or private, RT is feeling the effects of a national housing market collapse and the consumer spending slowdown that has accompanied it. Local sales tax receipts, which account for two-thirds of RT's operating budget, had risen 5 percent to 7 percent per year over the last 10 years. But sales tax receipts have been flat for the last year and are expected to remain flat until at least 2009. In addition, the state, staggering under its own budget deficit, has cut support to local transit districts. RT lost $14 million in state gas tax revenues last year alone.

To balance its budget, RT eliminated all discretionary spending, stopped filling vacant positions, dropped consultants and even reduced janitorial service at its headquarters offices.

But that wasn't enough to close the gap. So beginning in January, the agency reduced service, eliminating or reducing the frequency of 20 routes to make up for the drop in sales tax revenues and cut in state support.

"There are no more dimes left to give anybody," Wiley said when asked about the salary freeze. "The only way we can offer any kind of enhancement to salaries or benefits to health and welfare packages is to do more service cuts, and I'm not going to recommend that."

California is in an economic downturn. No one knows how deep it will go. But it will inevitably squeeze every government and public agency.

Public-sector workers, who have been riding high with big pay and benefit increases in recent years, must lower their expectations. They enjoy job security and pension and health benefits more generous than most workers receive in the private sector.

To preserve service to the public, RT is trying to hold the line. That's fair. Other public agencies would be wise to follow RT's lead.