This Week: Prop B Implementation Schedule Released
Prop B Implementation Schedule Released
Last week, Mayor Turner shared an open letter with Houstonians on the background and timeline of the controversial Prop B, the voter-approved ballot measure to mandate “pay parity” between Houston’s fire and police departments on the basis of job title/classification and seniority. On Thursday, March 7th, he shared his ongoing plans for the implementation of Prop B.
Per City Controller Chris Brown, the measure was estimated to cost $100,000,000.00 annually, the equivalent of approximately a 29% raise across the board.
Adding the cost of Prop B to our existing projected deficit, Mayor Turner and Council must now eliminate a deficit of $198,000,000.00 for FY2020, which begins July 1, 2019. This is the biggest deficit in the City of Houston’s history. Our city cannot raise property taxes or sales taxes to garner additional revenue due to voter- and State-imposed revenue caps. Council and the Mayor are legally obligated to balance the budget each year. Thus, unfortunately, Council’s only option to cover the deficit is by implementing steep layoffs and cuts to City services:
Fire Chief Pena has confirmed that approximately 400 firefighters are expected to be laid off.
Since the departments differ in terms of education requirements for leadership ranks, Chief Pena noted that, to receive pay parity, firefighters must meet education parity for equivalent ranks. Thus, for instance, if a bachelor’s degree is required for a certain rank in HPD, to receive the “Prop B raise,” a firefighter in the equivalent rank in HFD will also be required to have a bachelor’s degree.
In addition, Fire Department schedules will be converted from a 4-shift paradigm to 3-shifts.
These two changes, Chief Pena noted, allow him to reduce the cost of implementation of Prop B from $100M to approximately $80M. With the reduction in force of approximately 400 firefighters, the cost for Prop B implementation is reduced by $25M to $55M.
The Mayor has noted that the following layoffs and cuts will also be necessary:
An additional 100 municipal employees are expected to be laid off.
All departments must make a minimum of 3% budget cuts across the board.
Council will reduce our fund balance (the City’s emergency savings account), to 8%.We are legally required to maintain a 7.5% balance but cutting to the minimum may impact our credit rating.
Those three changes will balance the budget for the current FY2019, allowing Council to pay firefighters the Prop B raise from January 1st – June 30th, 2019.
However, because some of those cuts are one-time solutions rather than recurring cost savings, Council must still address a $75M deficit for FY2020, which begins July 1st, 2019.
Steep cuts to City services, including parks and libraries, are anticipated. The details are still being determined.
Over the next two months, the Houston Information Technology Department (HITS), the Human Resources Department (HR), and the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department (ARA) will be working together to update the City of Houston’s payroll systems to be able to incorporate the changes. The departments must complete a series of technical tasks including creating new HR classifications and wage structures, testing the new system configuration, migrating their changes to our SAP production environment, running a payroll testing simulation, auditing the results, and more.
Firefighters will see the Prop B increase in their paychecks, including retroactive pay from January 1st, beginning on May 9th, 2019.
Mayor Turner has stressed that a solution exists that would negate the above cuts:
If the Houston Professional Fire Fighters’ Association will agree to phase in the implementation of Prop B over five years, no layoffs will be necessary.
Mayor Pro Tem Cohen strongly supports this solution as a compromise that will implement the will of the voters without massive layoffs.
The annual District C CIP Meeting will take place on Thursday, March 28th at 6:30PMat the West Gray Metropolitan Multi-Service Center (1475 W. Gray St, 77019). Our annual meeting focuses on the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), the City’s master document that prioritizes infrastructure improvement projects that will take place city-wide over the next five years. Information tables and experts will be available before and after the meeting to answer specific questions and provide resources. For those unable to attend, the meeting will be archived online via HTV. We hope to see you there!