Guards’ Raises Could Be Higher Than Expected

SACRAMENTO —  As state senators convene a hearing today into the controversial labor contract for California prison officers, newly released records show that pay raises for guards could soar beyond the highest previous estimate of 37%.

As a result, lawmakers could be forced to find another $210 million in this fiscal year and next, as California faces $17 billion in shortages.

The documents show that officials understated the cost of the contract in public statements, legislative testimony and an analysis provided to lawmakers who were considering approval of the contract in 2002.

A new Department of Finance estimate prepared for today’s hearing shows that, unless the deal is renegotiated, the contract could cost $2 billion over its five-year life -- a number much higher than past estimates.

Former Gov. Gray Davis negotiated the deal as he entered the 2002 election campaign. The prison officers union ultimately contributed more than $1 million to Davis’ reelection effort in 2002, after having spent more than $2 million to help elect him in 1998.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeking to trim state spending, has asked the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. to renegotiate the contract. The union has rebuffed his requests.

State Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), who will be co-chairwoman at today’s hearing with state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), said Wednesday that a review of internal documents had suggested that lawmakers might not have received full information before voting on the deal.

“I think we will be able to make a case that the Legislature was misled intentionally as to the cost of the contract,” said Speier who, along with Romero, voted for the pay package. “And based on the false information, the contract should be renegotiated.”

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) carried legislation to ratify the contract in 2002. One legislator, Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), voted against it.

In an interview, Romero appeared to be less critical than Speier of the contract -- though she said that, because of the state’s fiscal condition, the administration and the union should renegotiate.

“It is important to ... remember the buck stops with the legislative vote,” Romero said. “The vast majority voted for this contract. We voted for it with our eyes closed.”

Union representatives have defended the contract, saying that officers protect public safety by overseeing felons in the state’s 32 prisons. They added that California Highway Patrol officers had received a similar contract.

“Our officers work a tough law enforcement job, and they are deserving of competitive salaries with other major law enforcement entities,” said Lance Corcoran, the union’s executive vice president.

The Davis administration’s Department of Personnel Administration, which represented the then-governor in labor talks with the union, pegged the five-year cost of the contract at $658 million. Davis’ Department of Finance was more conservative, estimating the cost at $521 million. The Finance Department dated its report Jan. 10, 2002, the day the Assembly ratified the contract on a 79-0 vote. The Senate approved it four days later, 28 to 1.

Despite the Davis administration’s underestimates, an Assembly Appropriations Committee staff member prepared a public analysis that predicted that the contract’s price tag would be $1.3 billion.

The deal provides California’s 26,000-plus prison officers with pay increases that started last July and are scheduled to continue each July for the next three years. The raises are based on increases granted to the California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, and police in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco.

In preparation for today’s hearing, Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance prepared an analysis showing the $2-billion revised cost, brought about by hefty raises granted to local police in the last two years.

“Increases at the local level have dramatically outpaced anyone’s expectations,” spokesman H.D. Palmer said.

The prison officers’ first increase was 6.8% -- nearly twice that anticipated in an analysis by the Department of Personnel Administration dated Dec. 26, 2001. That was the day the state and the union reached tentative agreement on the labor pact. The Schwarzenegger administration released the analysis to The Times last week in response to a Public Records Act request.

In that analysis, the Department of Personnel Administration assumed that guards would receive 3.53% on July 1, 2003, 8.39% in July 2004, 8.54% in July 2005 and 9.82% in July 2006.

The document shows that the administration assumed that the cumulative pay hike would be about 37% over the life of the contract -- even as officials said in public statements and reported to legislators that the cost would be far less.

Even that internal estimate appears to be low.

The Department of Personnel Administration’s analysis for today’s hearing shows that the next scheduled raise, to be granted this summer, could be 11.3% -- not the 8.39% estimated in December 2001.

The department predicts that officers will get smaller raises in 2005 and 2006, the contract’s final two years, although spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said estimates for 2005 and 2006 were more speculative than the 11.3% estimate for July 2004.

Steve Maviglio, Davis’ press secretary, said officials had not intentionally downplayed the cost of the contract.

“The analysis was done by Department of Finance without regard to politics or policy,” Maviglio said.

In addition to the pay raises, the contract allows officers to take sick days more readily -- at a cost of $80 million over the life of the contract, according to the Schwarzenegger administration. The prison guards also won a richer pension under the contract and subsequent legislation.