By Barbara Henry
North County Times
February 5, 2008
CARLSBAD
-- Nearly half of Carlsbad's 711 full-time employees have been
in their jobs for three years or less, after a 2004 change in
the city's retirement policy led to an exodus of city workers.
The shift has drained City Hall of some of its top leaders,
created training challenges and caused problems for one
department that handles the maintenance of city vehicles, but
most city services appear to have kept on track despite the
changes, city officials said last week.
In
fact, the city has continued to receive high rankings in its
annual residents' survey -- typically getting positive scores
of anywhere from 85 to 97 percent in the survey categories.
And an internal study of city operations produced by staff
members also contained mostly good results this year, staff
members told the City Council.
That's important given how much has happened, they added. In
the three-year period that followed the retirement policy
change, the city lost its city manager, assistant city
manager, library system director, planning director and public
works director. All five had worked for the city for more than
two decades.
"It's definitely not isolated to one department or one
service area of the city -- we're seeing this trend throughout
the city," Human Resource Director Julie Clark said as
she discussed the employee statistics showing that 46 percent
of employees are new to their jobs.
Those employees are either new hires who have never worked for
Carlsbad or folks who have worked for a while with the city
but are now in new positions.
Clark and others say the shift is a result of the change in
the city's retirement program.
The new guidelines, which went into effect Dec. 20, 2004,
state that retiring nonemergency service employees who are 60
years old can receive 3 percent of their current salary times
the number of years they worked for the city. Thus, a
60-year-old employee who has worked for 20 years could receive
an annual retirement package totaling 60 percent of his or her
salary for life.
A person who has worked longer can claim higher benefits. It's
possible to make more than 100 percent of a city salary in
retirement, depending on how long the person's employment
lasted, whether the person previously worked for any other
municipalities and whether the person has purchased extra
credits in the system.
Some cities have found themselves in financial trouble over
the new retirement benefit, but cash-flush Carlsbad planned
for the added expense, city finance employees have said.
Change at City Hall was immediate after the new policy took
effect. Both managers and rank-and-file employees left in
droves.
City human resources employees have called the recent wave of
retirements unprecedented. The library system alone lost five
employees immediately when the change took effect in December
2004, and more participated in the new retirement plan the
following year.
"Maintenance and operations in the water department was
one of the hardest hit (over the three-year period),"
Clark said late last week.
The challenge has been getting so many new employees trained
in a short time span, she said.
There have also been problems getting some internal city work
done quickly. A recently released report on Carlsbad's
effectiveness found that the department that handles
maintenance on city vehicles struggled to get its tasks done
last year.
Fleet department employees completed 58 percent of their
preventive maintenance work orders within 24 hours, it stated.
In explanation, it noted that many department employees are
new to their jobs.
-- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com
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