I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who participated in the recent vote for the new Memorandum of Understanding. We didn’t have a lot of time to get the vote out to all of you due to time constraints related payroll processes but so many of you came through and made it happen anyway. Thank you, thank you!

Please thank your Negotiations team for all of their hard work on this year’s Negotiations:

Carl Carr, Business Representative for OE3, Barb Cole and Stephanie Albright for Unit 3, Adrian Just and myself for Unit 4, Kyle Shasteen and Pheakdey Preciado for Unit 5.

We received 7 ballots for Unit 3, 37 ballots for Unit 4 and 20 ballots for Unit 5. It is my honor and privilege to inform you that the results were unanimous in support of ratifying the contract! Assuming that the contract is ratified by the Board of Supervisors at their meeting on September 21st 2021, the new Memorandum of Understanding will become effective October 21st 2021 through June 30th 2025 (pay schedules linked below).

Here’s a summary of the contract:

Pay Increase –
For the first year of the new agreement, all positions will be brought up to 98% of the market median as outlined in the 2019 Class & Compensation study performed by the county. The following 3 years will have incremental pay increases. Please review the outline below.

▪ 98% of Market Median in FY 21/22, effective 12/01/21 pay period

▪ 100% of Market Median in FY 22/23, effective 07/01/22 pay period

▪ 102% of Market Median in FY 23/24, effective 07/01/23 pay period

▪ 105% of Market Median in FY 24/25, effective 07/01/24 pay period

Click on the links below to access the proposed pay schedules:

Unit 3 – Unit 4 – Unit 5

Life Insurance –
Effective July 1, 2022, and on the first day of the month following the date of your hire thereafter, an employee shall be covered under a group life insurance plan for the amount of their base annual salary up to $100,000. (For example, if your base salary is $40k, you will be insured up to $40k, if you make $110k, you will only be insured up to $100k)

Air Medical Membership –
Effective as of January 1, 2022, and on the first day of the month following the date of your hire thereafter, an employee shall be covered under an air medical membership program. This will be the standard member enrollment, and you will have the option to upgrade to the higher member package at a discount rate if you wish.

Longevity –
The language has been changed to allow for you to maintain your longevity increases as they are earned regardless of whether you promote, reclassify, or demote. For example, if you are at step 5 of your current classification, plus L2 longevity and you move to a new classification, you will move to your proper step of new classification (either 1 – 5) but will retain your L2 longevity moving forward.

Happy New Year everyone! I am happy to announce that the results are in on the 2021 LCEA Board Elections. We received a modest response with 33 ballots received out of 95 that were sent out (34.73%) but we are certainly grateful to all of you who took the time to nominate someone and/or cast your ballot during such complicated times.

Please join me in congratulating the following candidates who won their seat on the LCEA board for a two-year term (2021-2022):

President – Elizabeth (Liz) Arnold

Secretary – Christina Lloyd

Treasurer – Amanda Frazell

Directors – Pheakdey Preciado (Environmental Health), Tina Warren (Employment Services – DSS), Lori McAllen (Behavioral Health)

Special attention should be made to our outgoing Treasurer Cindy Silva who is retiring from County service in 2021 and has dutifully served on the board for many years. Additionally, we have appointed a new Vice President as of our December 2020 meeting so please congratulate Joleen Pryal to this appointment!

It has been an honor and a privilege serving all of you as President and I look forward to supporting Liz and the others in ushering in some positive changes for County employees in the coming years!

Sincerely,

Vanessa Mayer

We are taking nominations for officers for a two year term for some of our officers effective January 1^st 2021 through December 31^st 2022. We will also host a conference call on December 4^th 2020 at 6pm (dial in# (605) 472-5571 access code# 754557) where nominations may be made.

Nominations may also be submitted at the following web link: https://form.jotform.com/203275340876054

Officer position descriptions can be found in our Bylaws at http://www.lcea.info under Resources/Bylaws.

Thank you!

Vanessa Mayer

Special thanks to Barb Cole, Christina Lloyd, and Cindy Silva who scrambled to help us enact contingency plans to carry out this vote during a PSPS. This was a monumental effort to take on in such a short period of time, but they rolled up their sleeves and got it done!

Additionally, many thanks are due to the rest of your negotiations team – Dave Hendrick, Elizabeth Arnold, and Carl Carr who fielded questions and answers to folks at breakneck speed.

Lastly, thank you to those of you who took the time to vote and/or to reach out to us with questions and concerns. We heard you and we aren’t giving up on you. This is a short contract and there will be opportunities during the next few months to explore solutions to some of the issues we found.

Sincerely,

Vanessa Mayer

LCEA President

Your negotiations team has chosen to remain neutral on the recently submitted proposal by the County. A copy of the proposed draft MOU and salary schedule is linked below. We are asking our voting eligible members in units 3,4 & 5 to submit their vote on or before 3PM Monday, 10/26/2020.

Here is a summary of the proposed changes:

• Implements the CPS-HR Classification Study of October 2019 at 85% of market median for those positions covered by units 3, 4, 5 effective 10/21/2020 (payable on the 12/1/2020 paycheck).
• For Licensed nursing positions covered by this MOU which are designated as “hard-to-fill,” implements at 90% of market median for those positions covered by units 3,4,5 effective 10/21/2020 (payable on the 12/1/2020 paycheck).
• Eliminates the 12-step salary system, replacing it with a 5-step system and restores longevity pay for continuous service at 5-year intervals.
• Includes reopener language to discuss compaction issues for those classifications impacted by compaction.
• Includes language that commences negotiations for a potential cost of living adjustment (COLA) prior to 10/20/2021.
• 1 year term, effective 10/21/2020 terminating on 10/20/2021.

If you have any questions, or if you are a voting eligible member (dues paying) and have not yet received a ballot by email please feel free to contact me at (707) 350-0098.

Thank you,

Vanessa Mayer

LCEA President

You may have seen today that the board of supervisors will be voting on a proposed salary schedule and draft MOU for our units (3,4,5) tomorrow. I am writing today to advise that although we permitted the county to publicize their offer for our units, we aren’t yet in a tentative agreement.

Your negotiations team will be conducting a thorough review of the submitted offer and at some point, will be submitting it to the membership for a vote. There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of negotiations, so I appreciate your patience in this matter.

In solidarity,

Vanessa Mayer

LCEA President

Link for reference:

https://countyoflake.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4666101&GUID=8AD9DE14-0697-4975-9A13-5D770B8B3085&FullText=1

Hello everyone,

The County recently reached out to our team to continue negotiations following a break that spanned the summer after our ratification vote. A few things have changed since that time. Cody Risser, our Vice President who chaired the Negotiations Committee for LCEA has moved on from employment with Lake County. Additionally, Joe Wildman, our Business Representative from OE3 has recently retired. Both of these gentleman were exceptionally knowledgeable and passionate about supporting you all on the negotiations team (and beyond) and their absence will be felt for some time. We wish both of them well in their future endeavors.

Additionally – we lost Marea Bartolucci who also left County employment recently. Marea acted as our information officer, wearing many hats and helping out the team in a million different ways. She will also be sorely missed and we wish her the best of luck in her next adventures.

Moving forward, Carl Carr comes to us as our new Business Representative from OE3 and even though he doesn’t officially start until tomorrow (10/01/2020) he is now our Chief Negotiator and has been neck deep in work for our units for several weeks now. This includes an initial call with the County’s Chief Negotiator Margaret Long on 9/23 to open negotiations and a follow-up call that he had with her today.

Per those discussions, the county has verbalized their intent to withdraw their initial offer and offer something else in its place. We will be sending out a request for information as well requesting that the County solidify their new offer in writing. Unfortunately details about the offer will need to remain confidential pending the outcome of bargaining but, as always, I will always keep you informed as much as I can throughout this process.

Your negotiations team is represented by the following individuals: Barb Cole, Christina Lloyd & Cindy Silva (Unit 3), Elizabeth Arnold (Unit 4) and Dave Hendrick (Unit 5) and myself. Thank you in advance for all your patience and support.

Sincerely,

Vanessa Mayer

LCEA President

Long overdue, I have the great pleasure of announcing your LCEA Officers for 2020. All of these individuals were nominated and determined eligible when we sent out nomination forms in March 2020 and they all ran unopposed due to a lack of opposition and agreed to serve in this capacity.

These positions take a huge amount of personal time, effort, and sacrifice from people who like all of us struggle daily to balance the needs of their families with a job working for Lake County. These individuals work tirelessly and selflessly in work that is (for the most part) unpaid and in service to their colleagues. Please take a moment when you can to thank them for their sacrifice. While we can always improve, after spending many years watching some of these folks work – I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to look out for all of us in times of need. Our newly elected’s too are already showing a passion and interest in serving their fellows that is so promising for our future!

Effective immediately, please congratulate the Officers below in their appointment to the LCEA board for a two-year term (2020-2021):

Vice President – Cody Risser, Social Services (incumbent)

Safety Representative – Dave Hendrick, Public Services (incumbent)

Chief Steward – Elizabeth Arnold, Behavioral Health – Newly elected!

Director – Barbara Cole, Social Services (incumbent)

Director – Dave Hendrick, Public Services (incumbent)

Director – Stephanie Albright, Social Services – Newly elected!

Nominated Steward – Pheakdey Preciado, Public Health – (incumbent)

Please note that this list only constitutes about half of your elected LCEA board as the other half will be elected for a new (two-year) term at the end of this year comprising a service period of 2021-2022. To everyone who took the time to nominate a board member during all of this COVID-19 craziness, thank you!

Sincerely,

Vanessa Mayer, LCEA President

Following the 8 week stay of negotiations referenced in my last update, we received word from the County that they requested a further extension until October 2020. Their reasoning, again, is that they do not yet know the true state of their financial situation in the long term due to impacts from COVID-19.

While we want more than anything to see the salary adjustments offered in the proposal be implemented, it would need to be put before the Board of Supervisors and voted upon publically in order to be ratified. At this time, the County is not able to put such a vote as this before the board without an accurate idea of their current financial state. LCEA will not be rushing the County into a hasty vote either, as we believe doing so would NOT be in the best interest of County Employees.

You may be wondering why we haven’t returned to the table to negotiate on noneconomic items? The truth is that negotiations are over as long as we remain in a Tentative Agreement. We do not believe that further negotiations at this time would give County Employees any offer better than the one we already accepted.

So we continue to wait as this pandemic stretches on. We wish we could be sharing happier news, but unfortunately this is all we have to report.

Sincerely,

Vanessa Mayer

LCEA President