The City Council unanimously approved an agreement with the Avalon Harbor Employees at last week’s council meeting. The agreement covers the period from July 1, 2025, to June 39, 2028.
The previous memorandum of understanding expired on June 30 of this year, according to the staff report by City Manager David Maistros.
Maistros told the council during the Nov. 18 meeting that most of the four months spent negotiating the agreement were not about wages compared to quality of life issues.
Maistros had nothing but positive things to say about the negotiators for the Avalon Harbor Employees Association.
Negotiations with SEIU Local 721 began in early July, according to Maistros’ written report.
The agreement, according to the staff report, includes several amendments, including:
- Converting the position of senior administrative assistant to senior harbor operations assistant. (During the meeting, Maistros described this as a reclassification of an existing position.)
•Set minimum staffing levels at the current full time staffing levels in the Harbor Department.
- Changed the education reimbursement to allow part-time Harbor Patrol officers participate if funds are available after the full-time Harbor Patrol officers have participated.
- “Established an allowance for part-time Harbor Patrol Officers that work a minimum of 500 hours in a year to be eligible for one commuter book,” the report said.
- Put the mobile phone stipend at $35 a month.
- Eliminated “cost of living” language from the agreement and put a 2.5% COLA into the wage schedules.
- Decreased the vacation time limit to 360 hours. (The previous cap was 480.)
- Eliminated language about sick time cash outs.
- Reduced sick time cash out retirement to 240 hours. (The previous calculation was 480 hours.)
- Adopted a new wage schedule with a 10-step 2.55 progression with a COLA of 2.5% a year.
•Effective New Year’s Day, insurance plan offerings are increasing to 13.6% depending on the selected plan. “The MOU provides for the city to increase its share of Health Insurance premium by 13.6%,” the report said.
- “Provides for an additional increase to the city’s health insurance cap of 2.5% in 2027 and 2028 with ‘safety net’ language to allow for re-opening the health insurance language should the premiums increase 8.0% or more in 2027 or a combined 1% in 2027 and 2028,” the report said.
According to the report, the fiscal “implications” were integrated into the current budget. “A budget amendment will be required for health insurance after all MOUs are adopted,” the report said.
