Editor’s Notebook -- Danette Goulet

I would like to offer my services to the city.

For the bargain price of $25 an hour I’ll sweep my street with a push

broom.

That’s considerably less than the $39.06 per hour that sweepers are

raking in now in Surf City.

Several weeks ago the City Council renewed a contract with Nationwide

Environmental Services to sweep the streets of Huntington Beach twice a

week.

Before continuing that contract they compared the price of the service

to what it would cost to have city staff take on the responsibility.

Everyone agreed that it would be cheaper to do the job in house.

So why, I wondered, did they decide to continue using Nationwide.

Isn’t the normal way of things, to hire the lowest bidder who will do

the best possible job? Did they not think city workers would do a good

job?

Of course not. They knew a proposal to have the city do it would be

cheaper because it is the city that directs Nationwide to charge so much.

It would not cost less to do the job in house if the city permitted

Nationwide to pay its employees as it saw fit.

The city of Huntington Beach requires contractors to pay prevailing

wage. That is, to pay employees top dollar. Sounds good, right?

Sure, until you see the numbers.

Under prevailing wage the city requires that street sweeper drivers be

paid $39.06 an hour.

Nationwide typically pays its street sweepers $15 to $18 an hour.

Neither figure includes benefits.

That’s quite a jump.

Why does the city insist on these astronomical wages for laborers?

Officials will tell you it’s because they are required by state law to

do so. But that is not entirely true. Charter cities, like Huntington

Beach, can opt out of this prevailing wage law by simply passing an

ordinance.

Once that ordinance is passed, the city can hire the lowest bidder to

do the job as long as the project is not funded by state or federal

money.

Huntington Beach, however, has not passed any such ordinance and so

pays these prevailing wages, with taxpayer money, to every qualifying

laborer that contracts with the city.

The California Labor Code requires the payment of prevailing wages on

public works projects for $1,000 or more.

Prevailing wage rates, which in Orange County range from about $35 to

$41 an hour, take what the majority of workers in a profession make in an

area and bump it so they might afford to live comfortably in that area.

How in these times of financial uncertainty, can the City Council

justify paying workers this much at the expense of taxpayers?

Labor unions will tell you that for prevailing wage you can be assured

that the job will be done properly.

Well I should hope so. For $39 an hour our streets should be spotless

-- there should be no urban runoff hitting our beaches at all.

I’m sure these rates do draw skilled laborers into the professions.

But in the meantime the rest of the citizens, who pay those wages, and

work non-labor jobs will go bankrupt while street sweepers make a

killing. If they were to work 40 hours a week for a whole year in a city

that pays prevailing wage, they have the potential to make more than

$80,000 a year.

I personally, am all for a little competition.

Why not find the worker who will do the best job at the most

reasonable rate?

Or at very least let’s put the issue before the residents who are

footing the bill.

* DANETTE GOULET is the city editor. She can be reached at (714)

965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 danette.goulet@latimes.comf7 .