The city's internal auditor will look into changes made to labor contracts approved by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich and his administration after Assembly members unanimously approved the investigation during an Oct. 28 meeting.
The assembly wants to know if changes made to city labor contracts were minor tweaks or a blatant manipulation and an attempt to circumvent the Anchorage Assembly's authority by Mayor Mark Begich and his administration.
Assemblyman Bill Starr of Eagle River raised the issue after a constituent presented him with copies of city contracts obtained via the Freedom of Information Act public records request.
“He basically said, ÔBill here, this is something you need to look at,'” Starr said of how he first discovered the changes made to multiple contracts. “When you change the wording of these contracts, that violates city code.”
Starr said he presented those documents to the assembly and asked for the audit. The documents show there were several contract adjustments made by the Begich administration, he said.
“This is an issue of transparency and keeping with municipal code,” Starr said. “And finding out who knew what and when with these changes is vital as we debate the municipal budget and the Anchorage Police Department is pushing for a vote on a new contract.”
Begich and city manager Mike Abbott say the changes that have been made to the contracts are nothing new and they have happened frequently under previous administrations.
Begich said his office has nothing to hide, adding that the changes are routine and are minor clarifications.
“The tweaking that occurs on a contracts like this are clarifications, that's what you do on large contracts,” he said. “You always have some minor modifications just to make sure everyone understands the rules that they're operating under and that's the way it works.
“There's nothing unusual about this, but I think some people want to make it sound unusual; like there's some conspiracy or something and it's just blatantly false,” Begich added.
Abbott told the Assembly audit committee during a meeting Oct. 30 that any changes were minor.
Among the alterations the administration made to the contracts that Starr identified include changes in shift limits for police department employees, making the salary for the APD union representative the sole responsibility of the municipality, a program allowing officers to drive their patrol cars to homes outside the municipality, an increase in the compensatory time police field training officers receive and pay adjustments for Anchorage Fire Department lead dispatchers who were training new dispatchers.
“These are only a handful of examples and I think they are in violation of city labor laws,” Starr said. “I would not be fulfilling my duties as a member of the Assembly if I did not seek an audit of all city contracts.”
In agreeing with Starr's call for an audit and the mayor's assertion that there is a history of similar contract changes under former mayors, the Assembly decided to extend the investigation into the contract practices of prior municipal administrations back as far as 1990.
Starr's primary reason for seeking the audit is that municipal code requires any changes made to municipal labor contracts be approved by the Assembly. He also wonders who is making these deals since they aren't coming to the Assembly for review and worries about the implications the modifications will have on the city's operating budgets.
Dave Otto, the municipal director of employee relations Ñ or someone signing on his behalf Ñ signed off on the majority of the contract changes.
Starr presented the assembly audit committee with a packet of 46 changes to municipal labor contracts that have been made since 2004 and the mayor signed off on just one. None of the changes were presented to the assembly.
“If these changes aren't coming to the assembly for review, and the mayor hasn't signed off on them, it's difficult for the public to have confidence in who is watching the store,” Starr said.
Assemblyman Chris Birch joined Starr in calling for the audit and has asked for an accounting of the costs of the contract changes.
Sharon Weddleton, chief financial officer for the municipality, said she would investigate the cost, but told the assembly audit committee that it would take some time, especially with the pending approval of the operating budget. The city's operating budget is set for assembly review and approval Nov. 25.
One agreement gave APD field training officers, who already received a 5.5 percent pay raise for serving as training officers under the Assembly-ratified contract, up to 20 hours of compensatory time off for each day of training. That means more experienced officers are taking more paid time off and other officers are forced to work overtime to keep the force fully staffed.
“Under this side agreement, the city is basically paying for the training officer to have time off and on top of that, another officer is getting overtime pay to fill his shift,” Starr said. “This is not a sound business practice and multiplies the financial impact and burden to the taxpayers.”
Starr, who was chairman of the assembly budget committee until May, said he has questioned the numbers in the budget from year-to-year about the values of employee payroll and benefits, but he hadn't seen the side agreements until recently.
“Something just isn't making sense and I believe the increase in overtime and labor cost in the police department is a direct result of these secret side agreements,” Starr said. “I am also concerned because it is the Assembly's responsibility to procure funding and these agreements may be a way of avoiding that step of the checks and balances of government.”
