As the city of Culver City falls deeper into debt with each passing month, city staff is still evaluating and reporting back to the City Council things that we have known for years.
The reports should say, “Nothing new to report.” We are still losing money. But some very high-paid managers in unnecessary positions should be retiring soon.
This can’t happen in Culver City, though.
City staff would not report to the City Council the need to hire personnel for the sole benefit of certain individuals and of no benefit to the taxpayers of Culver City.
Sorry to burst your bubble, taxpayers. You have been duped, not just once but many times.
On a recent Sunday, the Los Angeles Times published a story about the County audit that uncovereda problem: the County CEO’s top deputy had helped a family member get a job with the County Fire Dept. (She since has lost her job.)
A Noted Case
This couldn’t happen in Culver City?
Sorry, Culver City taxpayers.
It did, and you still are paying for it.
In 2005, despite Culver City’s civil service rules regarding nepotism, the Chief Administrative Officer helped a family member become a Culver City police officer.
This would not be an easy task.
Everyone in city government would have to be on board — Human Resources, the Police Dept., the City Attorney, the Civil Service Commission and the City Council.
The only problem was, the CAO had just imposed a city-wide hiring freeze, and the Police Dept. did not have any openings.
As luck would have it, there was a probationary police officer only out of the Police Academy a few weeks, and he did not meet Police Dept. standards. His employment was terminated.
The CAO’s family member was hired, and entered the Academy. Two weeks after graduating, the family member resigned from the Police Dept. and accepted employment as an Academy- trained police officer in San Bernardino County.
Silence Instead of Answers
As in the Los Angeles County case, everyone involved will remain silent. They will fall back on the old wheeze, “It’s a personnel matter, and we cannot discuss it.”
As to the termination of the probationary officer, I can only speak in generalities as to how he was terminated.
Usually a probationary police officer is given more than a few weeks to learn the profession. They are not terminated so quickly unless there is an obvious liability issue.
We will never know because the city will always say “it’s a secret personnel issue.”
I would have to assume that there were major deficiencies in this probationary officer’s performance that warranted his swift departure — except that he was hired a week later as a reserve police officer for the city of Culver City.
I guess he was good enough to serve the citizens of Culver City for free, but not good enough to be paid.
What did this cost the taxpayers of Culver City?
Approximately $65,000 to send a police officer to the Police Academy, including salary, benefits and training costs. This means it cost $65,000 for the terminated officer, $65,000 for the family member and $65,000 for the new police officer replacing the family member who resigned — or a total of $195,000 for the year for one position.
What did it cost the lucky San Bernardino County city for Police Academy training for the police officer they hired?
$0.
As this was occurring in 2005, the city was struggling with its 2005-2006 budget. The Assistant Police Chief position that handled these personnel actions was set to be eliminated at a $250,000 per year savings to the city.
Instead, necessary police positions were eliminated. This position is still there at a cost of $1.5 million over the last 5 years.
Numerous other management positions were added in Human Resources, City Administration, and the City Attorney’s office in that time period at a cost of over $5 million over the past five years.
What are the taxpayers being told now by city staff in these tough financial times?
How about this one?
As soon as this city management employee retires, we will eliminate the position, and the duties will be performed by someone else.
Why did the city need the position to begin with?
So one individual can receive a larger retirement at Culver City taxpayers’ expense.
How about contracting our city employees out to other cities because we don’t have enough work here to justify the numbers we have.
Why did we create these positions to begin with?
City staff is quick to state, “We do not want anyone to lose their job because of layoffs.”
They misuse the term “layoff.”
When an unnecessary management position is eliminated, the person reverts to his/her last lower-paid position.
The person will receive less pay.
But, hey, these are hard economic times. All of us have to sacrifice.
These reductions sometimes will result in experienced personnel being placed in positions that require less experience, and this is an asset to the city.
Sometimes reductions in positions require the elimination of a new employee at the bottom or not hiring someone in an open position.
The city already has shown its willingness to terminate new probationary employees to satisfy the city’s personnel needs.
City Manager Mark Scott and the citizens of Culver City should really look closely at all city staff reports and ask the hard questions:
“Why?”
“Do we need it?”
“How did we get here?”
This needs to be done now because time and money are a wasting.
A retired police officer, Mr. Smith may be contacted at scsinternationalinvestigations.com
