Before acting on the tentative police sergeants MOU the Menlo Park City Council would be wise to ask and answer these four questions:

1 - Has the public, who will pay the bill for the proposed MOU, been given reasonable opportunity to review and comment on the staff report and the entire MOU including all of its attachments/appendices?

2 - What is the proper comparison group for any salary survey? Is it just a small number of other entities and only for positions exactly like the ones covered by the MOU or should it take a larger perspective both geographically and with regard to job classifications? Why not look at all of the prevailing wage levels and salary increase trends in the community which is both being served by these officers and paying the bills for this MOU?

3 - What are the long term policy implications of committing to pay well above the average of whatever comparison group is utilized to determine the appropriate salary levels? If all of the agencies in the comparison pool follow they same policy of paying well above the average (all of whom could use the same rationale that they have to do it to retain their officers) then the average for the pool will rise exponentially.

4 - Can the current 3% at 50 retirement program for these and other officers be sustained, particularly with the large annual increases in base salary contained in this MOU, within the projected revenue streams of the City?

Peter Carpenter Received on Tue Jan 13 2009 - 08:00:13 PST