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<br />LIVING WAGE QUESTIONS <br />(FINANCE COMMITTEE - JANUARY 3, 2007) <br /> <br />1. Name and position of respondent? <br /> <br />B - Sharon Thygesen, General Services Mgr <br /> <br />H - Dolores Meermans, Purchasing and Services Mgr <br /> <br />o - Deborah Barnes, Contract, Compliance, and Employment Services Manager <br /> <br />R - Sal Vaca, Director of Employment and Training <br /> <br />2. Your experience working with the city's living wage ordinance - Any regrets - pros <br />and cons? <br /> <br />B - No major issues - perhaps some bidders not bidding due to the wage, but nothing <br />she could pin down. <br /> <br />H - Not written very clearly, ambiguous. Recommends be very clear and specific, also <br />recommends in house auditor/compliance person. <br /> <br />o - First 2 years lots of challenges in implementation, making sure contracts boilerplate <br />all updated to include ordinance. Training of city personnel. Averaged 3% higher costs <br />on contracts at beginning, now probably down to 2 or 2-1/2 %. Termed the ordinance <br />very aggressive and that they required lots of self reporting by the contractors such as <br />wage statements etc. <br /> <br />R - No regrets, feels they set the example for other cities, it did raise the salaries in the <br />city and they did that first to set the bar. <br /> <br />3. Was there a need for additional staff to administer program either in <br />finance/purchasing or a compliance officer with city manager/mayor - FTE's? <br /> <br />B - As part of an overall streamlining effort, the city hired a contract administrator with <br />oversight over all the contracts the city enters into. The person administers all service <br />contracts for the city. This position was not hired specifically for the living wage, but at <br />the same time as the living wage was adopted <br /> <br />H - None were hired, feels that there should have been some type - too much to hand <br />off to person already working there. <br /> <br />o -Added 1 FT and 1 PT to staff for the first 2 years. Since then the FT has taken on <br />some other tasks and projects and is probably spending ~ to 1/3 of their time on living <br />wage, the PT person has been reassigned to another dept. <br /> <br />R - No budget for one in the beginning, now there is a FT person working on the <br />compliance issues for the city, including living wage and contractors <br /> <br />B - City of Berkeley; H - City of Hayward; 0 - City of Oakland; R - City of <br />Richmond <br /> <br />1 <br />