5. Salaries and Benefits
(1) Compensation for employees of the City and County of San Francisco is generally determined based on negotiations between City and County management and labor representatives. By policy, the City and County surveys jurisdictions for most employee classifications. However, Charter Section A8.404 requires that:
- The salaries of Platform Operators be set at the average of the two highest paid properties in the United States which serve a population of 500,000 or more;
- The benefits for Platform Operators be set at the average of the two highest benefit packages at properties in the United States which serve a population of 500,000 or more.
The properties used in the salary and benefit surveys can be different, so that a maximum of four properties can be compared to set the salaries and benefits of Platform Operators. There are no legal requirements for non-Platform Operator employee surveys.
We reviewed the Civil Service salary surveys for MUNI employees and determined that the survey prepared for Platform Operators is consistent with the City Charter. Other salary surveys made appropriate comparisons for use by City and County managers during negotiations.
(2) The scope of this management audit, as determined by the funding level designated in the Proposition J text, limited our ability to conduct an extensive, independent salary and benefit survey.
In order to provide increased management flexibility for negotiating salary and benefit levels for Platform Operators, the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco would need to be modified. For all other classifications, salary and benefit setting is largely a policy matter and is subject to negotiation between management and labor. We therefore make no recommendations on salary and benefit setting in this report.
However, we believe it is important to comment on Platform Operator Work Rules and how they impact services and costs of the Municipal Railway. Although issues related to Work Rules are also subject to negotiation with labor, there are real efficiencies in scheduling which can be gained by modifying some MOU provisions.
Section 5.1 of this report therefore examines MOU provisions and Work Rules which we believe are efficiency rather than straight compensation issues for MUNI and the Platform Operators. The results of changing MOU provisions, as recommended in this report, would result in annual savings of approximately $3.2 million per year and improve scheduling efficiency. By policy of the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors, these savings could be paid to Platform Operators on some other equitable basis that would not impact operating efficiency.
Our review of these issues and recommendations are included in Section 5.1, which follows.