An Update from Human Resources Image

County Labor Relations Bargaining Update - August 2025

Author: Human Resources
Date: 8/13/2025 12:38 PM

Please see below for an update on the current County Labor Relations Bargaining process as of August 13, 2025.

This is a follow-up to our June 2025 update on the status of negotiations. In that update, we noted that despite significant projected budget shortfalls, the Board of Supervisors remains committed to negotiating wages that are competitive with our revised list of comparator employers that better reflects our community’s cost of living and compensation expectations. The Board emphasized the importance of achieving market-level compensation across all classifications, including those that have fallen significantly behind the market.

These goals were achieved in our negotiations with all employee organizations we have reached agreements with to date. An update on SLOCEA negotiations is further below.

Market-Based Approach
 
  • The County understands the importance of providing wages and benefits that are competitive with those offered in our ‘labor market’ (similar jobs at similar organizations).
  • Recent wage increases implemented by the County’s comparable employers, which followed a period of high-price inflation, brought many of our jobs behind market in wages.
  • Similarly, our employee costs for health insurance premiums increased above market levels following a spike in medical care costs.
  • Despite knowing that we were already entering this round of negotiations behind market, the County re-evaluated its labor market to ensure we compare our compensation with counties and other employers who are similar, especially in cost of living. The outcome is an updated group of counties/employers that on average pay about 3.5% more than the old group, placing our jobs even further behind the market and increasing the County’s target to get employees to market.

Summary of Agreements to Date

We are happy to say that the County and most employee organizations have already reached agreements which are consistent with our overall goals.
  • For a comprehensive overview of the agreements reached, click  here.
  • The estimated additional investment in employee compensation following these agreements, plus the recent increases for unrepresented employees and the value of the County’s proposal for SLOCEA (which is described in more detail below), is approximately $71 million annually after three years. 
  • More information about completed agreements with unions can be found in the June update, here.
  • Effective July 15, 2025, the Board of Supervisors approved compensation changes for unrepresented employees, which are also aligned with our overall goals. The resolution describing the changes can be found here, and a list of the specific across the board and equity increases for individual classifications can be found here.
  • For all of these employee groups, we’ve had notable success in implementing changes that will bring employees very close to market median-level wages by using a variety of tools:
    • Modest across-the-board wage increases.
    • Equity increases (market equity and internal equity) – wage increases targeting individual classifications whose wages were behind market median or out of alignment internally.
    • New salary steps
      • Addition of a 7th step, 5% above the current step 6, and
      • An ‘add step/drop step’, where the total number of steps remains at 7, but the bottom step increases by 5% and the top step increases by 5%. The steps in between are reduced by one level, but the pay remains the same (e.g. step 1 is eliminated, step 2 becomes step 1 but the pay remains the same, step 3 becomes step 2 but the pay remains the same, and so on).
  • Much progress has also been made in addressing the impact of rising pension and healthcare costs on employees’ compensation:
    • Employees will not experience any pension rate increases during the term of their MOUs, and in most cases Tier 3 members will see reductions to their pension rates.
    • Cafeteria contributions for healthcare costs have also been increased for most employees to significantly mitigate the impacts of recent medical premium increases.
    • Premium cost-sharing mechanisms have been put in place to protect employees from any large medical premium increases during the term of the MOUs.

Our success in negotiations to date is due to the strong collaboration between the County and employee associations.

But we’re not yet finished with negotiations.
  • We are preparing to start negotiations with DSA in September.
  • Negotiations with SLOCEA are ongoing and have reached a critical stage.

UPDATE ON SLOCEA NEGOTIATIONS

The County and SLOCEA have met 9 times since negotiations started at the end of April. The last meeting was on August 7th, and the next meeting is scheduled for September 5th. SLOCEA presented the County with their financial proposals on July 1, and the County presented SLOCEA with our financial proposals at the next meeting on July 16.

County Proposals

The County’s economic proposals are consistent with the agreements reached with all employee organizations to date and described above, and would cost the County about $33.4 million, or about 17.9% of SLOCEA members’ payroll, over three years. Here is a summary of the County’s proposals.

Wages:
Year 1
  • A 2% across the board wage increase plus an additional $7.18 million allocated to varying equity increases (for market equity and internal equity) for classifications that are below market median in base wages. Details of the equity increase proposal by classification can be seen here.
Year 2
  • A new step 7, paid at 5% above the current step 6, effective July 2026.
  • Here’s how a new step 7 would work:
    • Employees who have been at step 6 for a year or more and have a current successful or higher performance evaluation would immediately move to step 7 and get an additional 5% increase.
    • Employees who have been at step 6 for less than a year would be eligible to move to step 7 sometime later that fiscal year after their annual performance evaluation.
    • All employees would continue to be eligible for 5% step increases based on their annual performance evaluations until they reach the new top step.
  • We estimate that this added step would impact a little over half (about 52%) of SLOCEA represented members in fiscal year 2026/27 (about 40% immediately, and an additional 12% later in the year).   
Year 3 
  • An ‘add step/drop step’ (where the top and bottom steps are increased by 5%, but the total number of steps remains the same), effective July 2027.
  • Here’s how the add step/drop step works:
    • Employees who are at step 1 or have been at the new step 7 for a year or more with a current successful or higher performance evaluation would immediately get this additional 5% step increase. 
    • Employees who have been at step 7 for less than a year would move to step 6 (same pay rate) and would be eligible for the new step 7 sometime later that fiscal year after their annual performance evaluation.
    • Employees who are not yet at step 7 will not have a change to their pay and annual evaluation dates.
    • All employees would continue to be eligible for 5% step increases based on their annual performance evaluations until they reach the new top step.
  • We estimate that this added step would impact even more (about 59%) of SLOCEA represented members in fiscal year 2027/28 (about 47% immediately, and an additional 12% later in the year).

Pension:
  • Employees would not receive any pension rate increase during the term of the MOU.

Healthcare:                                                                                                             
  • Cafeteria contributions would be increased for all coverages (employee only, employee+1, and employee+2) in January 2026, January 2027, and January 2028, and premium cost-sharing mechanisms would protect employees from any large medical premium increases during the term of the MOUs.

Other items:  
  • The County has also proposed increases to the County’s Health Savings Account contribution for employees enrolled in the High Deductible Health Plan, increases to uniform and boot allowances, increases to the education reimbursement amount, a new wellness reimbursement, increases to tool allowances for Airport Maintenance Workers, an increase to the EMT differential for Park Rangers, and a new Arborist differential for Public Works employees. The County and SLOCEA have reached agreements on a number of these items.

In presenting our proposal at the July 16th meeting, we were clear: rather than engaging in “incremental” bargaining, we relayed the authority we had received from the Board and emphasized that the economic items were consistent with the Board’s goals of getting all classifications at, or as close to, market median as possible and rectifying the pay inequities that exist for over 72% of SLOCEA members. Our proposal, based on our projections for wage increases on our labor market, would also place the SLOCEA bargaining unit on average 1.4% above market median in wages at the end of the term of the MOU – a higher market position than attained for any other bargaining unit.

At our most recent meeting on August 7, SLOCEA presented a number of important concerns relating to the County’s current proposal. Those concerns and the County’s response to those concerns are below.

SLOCEA Concern: There are members who would not get equity increases.

County Response: Classifications that are not scheduled to receive an equity increase in the County’s proposal are already paid at market median or would be at market after the other proposed increases without an additional equity increase. The equity increases are intended to bring the classifications that are below market median up to as close to market median as we can.

SLOCEA Concern: There are members who would not see the benefit of the added steps in the County’s proposal.

County Response: The step adjustments in years two and three would benefit all employees over time. Employees who have been at top step for a year or more as of July 2026 and again at July 2027 for a year would see an immediate benefit (provided they also have a current successful annual evaluation), and those who do not immediately benefit from the step adjustments would be eligible for a 5% step increases upon successful annual performance evaluations. This means that all employees would be eligible for an additional 10% over time. The County views this as a long-term win for all employees.

SLOCEA Concern: The County’s proposal would not make a meaningful difference in take-home pay.

County Response: Take-home pay is influenced by many factors, including gross pay, healthcare plan selection and tier (i.e. employee only, employee +1 or employee + 2), tax rates and withholding, and retirement contributions. In addition to bringing all classifications close to or above market median, the County’s proposal would also significantly mitigate the impact of rising healthcare premium costs and eliminates pension rate increases for the term of the MOU.  

SLOCEA Concern: We want to be treated equally with other employee associations.

County Response: The County’s approach to negotiations is consistent across all associations, with the goal of bringing employees as close to the market median as possible. The differences seen in the inputs, or actual dollar amount, allocated to each bargaining unit occur based on union priorities and variations in their units’ market position at the onset of negotiations, but the overall method and objectives remain the same. Equity increases vary since some units or classifications started further below market than others. Likewise, the starting position of cafeteria amounts and employee share of pension costs varies between units.

Noneconomic Issues: The County and SLOCEA have reached tentative agreements on non-economic matters in a variety of areas.  Here’s a link to a list of all of the tentative agreements reached to date. However, the parties have not reached agreement on many other non-economic issues.   

SLOCEA’s Approach

SLOCEA has acknowledged that they are attempting an “incremental” approach in these negotiations. With that approach, each party starts with an unrealistic position and the parties each make movement in the other’s direction, eventually reaching a compromise – usually an extended process.

SLOCEA’s opening economic proposal carried an estimated cost increase of $84 million in annual ongoing costs after three years, nearly 45% above the previous year, and well over double the cost of the County’s proposal. The County expressed concern about this unrealistic proposal. 

SLOCEA’s next economic proposal carried an estimated cost increase of about $72.8 million after three years, or about 39.1% of SLOCEA members’ payroll, over three years.

SLOCEA also completely opposes the County’s market equity proposals, insisting that money the County allocates to curing inequities be redirected toward across the board increases. This would result in nearly all SLOCEA represented classifications being above market median, and as much as 30% above median.

The County has emphasized that the slow, incremental approach of bargaining would serve no useful purpose, and the resulting delays disadvantage employees whose well-deserved wage increases would be held up, for months potentially. 

For a comparison of the County’s and SLOCEA’s current proposals, and the costs associated with each, click here.

Next steps

We remain hopeful that SLOCEA and the County will reach timely agreements on financial components that will have significant positive impacts to employee compensation and bring SLOCEA-represented classifications very close to market median. Our next meeting is scheduled for September 5.

Stay tuned for future updates as bargaining progresses.

Deputy Sheriff’s Association (DSA) Upcoming Negotiations

We are preparing to start negotiations with the Deputy Sheriff’s Association (DSA) whose current contract expires December 31, 2025. The first meeting is scheduled for September 4, and we look forward to productive discussions ahead.