CORRECTION: Following comment from RCEA Executive Director Beth Burks, the Outpost would like to correct a few points made in the original article.

Burks and deputy director Eileen Verbeck currently earn a smaller salary than the Outpost originally reported. In short, we had confused actual salary with potential salary – what a person in each of those positions may earn after years of service. Burks’ base salary, for example, is currently $212,000, not $246,000 as we had originally reported.

If the higher salary ranges are approved at Thursday’s meeting, it may take employees several years to work their way to the top of the scale at their particular job. Burks says that no employee will be getting more than a five percent increase in their actual salary if the proposal is approved.

But the Outpost notes that the proposal would institute the potential for large raises over the current maximum salaries, in some positions, as employees move up the pay scale. The maximum the the deputy executive director could earn, for example, would be 34.7% higher than it is now.

In addition, the article misidentified the mid-year budget projection’s net income for the organization as RCEA’s reserve balance.

The Outpost regrets the errors.

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Original article:

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority, the agency responsible for purchasing electricity for residents in Humboldt County, is attempting to grant its employees massive salary increases — many of them more than 20% — and switch to a four-day workweek.

Everyone at RCEA stands to benefit if the board of directors decides to raise their salaries and implement a four-day workweek at their meeting tomorrow.

According to the staff report, a number of unfilled positions at RCEA gives it a $600,000 surplus, some of which they can use by handing out the raises, which will total about $104,000 annually. The raise suggestions come courtesy of consulting firm Gallagher, who took a look at their staffs’ salaries, compared them to positions elsewhere they considered roughly equivalent, and recommended the pay bumps.

RCEA wants to move to a four-day, 34-hour-a-week working schedule to “to support employee recruitment and retention, promote work-life balance, and maintain service levels to the public, while remaining fiscally responsible.” 

“Like many public agencies, RCEA continues to experience budget constraints combined with competitive labor market conditions, increased workload complexity, and heightened employee burnout,” the staff report reads. “In response, staff have evaluated alternative work schedules that maintain operational effectiveness while improving organizational sustainability.”

Their staff’s productivity goals would remain unchanged.

Merritt Perry, Arcata’s city manager, declined to comment on RCEA directly, but said that when it came to Arcata’s budget — considering rising costs across the board — he urged caution.

Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery told the Outpost that the proposals for an increased salary were unjustifiable, and that their timing, coming near the middle of the fiscal year, was concerning as well.

“I am amazed at the compensation level being proposed,” Slattery said. “I don’t know where they came up with that salary schedule and how it was achieved, but just based on our region I find it not equitable with other positions of similar description and responsibility…Whether they’re financially doing well, I still don’t believe there’s justification for such salary proposals.”

The Outpost left several voicemails for RCEA’s media spokesperson; she could not be reached for comment.

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CORRECTION, 5:58 p.m.: A previous version of this article misidentified mid-year budget projection net income as RCEA’s reserve balance. The Outpost apologizes for the error.