[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Living Wage Analysis

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Yates, Bob

Karen & Peggy:

Thank you for Tuesday's presentation of options to study the possibility of increasing the minimum compensation levels for certain city employees and contractors.  As your teams conduct the analysis, let me suggest that any request to City Council to make decisions in these areas include the following information:

A. Contracted Janitorial and Landscaping Services:


1.  How many people are engaged in providing these services?


2.  How many are full-time and part-time?  What number of full time equivalents (FTEs) are engaged in providing these services?  How many are seasonal?


3.  What is the range of compensation and median hourly wage for each type of service?


4.  How many contractors provide these services?  What are the sizes and terms of the respective contracts?  Are all of the contracts terminable by the City without cause and without penalty?  Are there other considerations if the City were to terminate contracts early or to decide not to renew them?


5.  Are the people who provide the services W-2 employees of the respective contractors, or are those people independent contractors themselves?  Do the contractors use subcontracting companies?  If the people who provide services are independent contractors or employees of subcontractors, will they be subject to a minimum wage requirement?  If so, will a minimum wage requirement also apply to the contractor's other subcontractors, vendors, and suppliers?


6.  To the extent that the people who provide services are employees of the respective contractors, do the contractors provide such employees benefits, such as health insurance and vacation and sick leave?  If so, how do these benefits compare to those provided by the City to its similarly-situated employees?


7.  Would any minimum wage requirement apply only to those employees of the contractor who work within the Boulder city limits, or would it also apply to other employees of the contractor who provide support or parallel services in other jurisdictions (for example, the contractor's administrative support located outside of Boulder, or the contractor's other crews who work exclusively outside of Boulder)?


8.  To what extent do people on the contractors' Boulder city crews also work for other cities?  To what extent do people on the contractors' Boulder city crews work for non-governmental customers?  Would Boulder require the contractors to pay such employees the Boulder wage on days when the crews work outside of Boulder or for private customers?  Would doing so comply with the state's minimum wage restrictions?


9.  What percentage of the employees of such contractors live outside of Boulder or Boulder County?


10.  What portion of landscaping or janitorial services are provided by non-profit entities, like the Bridge House Ready to Work program?  How would these be treated?  If included in a increased wage requirement, how would these organizations be affected?


11.  Would contractors which provide landscaping services and non-landscaping services (like Bridge House's culinary services) be required to pay the minimum wage for all employees, or only the landscaping employees?  In either event, how would this affect their non-landscaping services?


12.  Is each contractor willing to raise the wages of its employees and independent contractors to the level requested by Boulder?  If not, why not?


13.  With respect to landscaping contracts specifically, are some of them imbedded as subcontracts in broader contracts for other services provided to the City (for example, construction or road work)?  If so, will the minimum wage requirements be applied to those related contracts and subcontracts?


14.  What will be the incremental cost to Boulder to require contractors to raise their minimum wage?


15.  How will this incremental cost be covered, including through increased taxes, application of general fund reserves, or reduced services in these or other areas?


16.  Will there be adverse consequences suffered by increasing wages to employees of the City's contractors (including, for examples, the "cliff effect" of disqualifying people from certain social services)?


17.  In the event of termination or non-renewal by the City, do any of the respective contracts require the City to employ affected employees of the contractor?  Do any of the contracts prohibit the City from hiring the contractor's employees?


18.  What would be the annual cost to the City of bringing in house all of the currently-contracted janitorial services (including increased wages, benefits, and supervisory expenses, offset by any contracting savings)?  Are there non-economic advantages or disadvantages to either the City or the affected employees?


19.  Is it feasible or advisable for the City to bring in house some or all of the currently-contracted landscaping service?  If so, what would be the annual cost to the City (including increased wages, benefits, and supervisory expenses, offset by any contracting savings)?  Are there non-economic advantages or disadvantages to either the City or the affected employees?

B.  Other Contracted Services


1.  In addition to janitorial and landscaping services, for what other services does the City contract?


2.  Is it feasible, possible, or advisable to require such other contractors to pay their employees or independent contractors a minimum wage?


3.  If so, address questions 1 through 19 above for each type of service.


?C.  Seasonal Employees


1.  What percentage of the City's seasonal employees are under 18?  What percentage of the City's seasonal employees are the primary or secondary wage-earner in their household?


2.  For other cities which have undertaken living wage efforts for city employees, is there an exception for seasonal or youth employees?


3.  What will be the incremental cost to Boulder to increase the minimum wage of seasonal employees?


4.  How will this incremental cost be covered, including through increased taxes, application of general fund reserves, or reduced services in these or other areas?


5.  Assuming no increase in the funding for the respective programs that employ seasonal employees, would an increase in minimum wage require the city to decrease the number of seasonal employees?  If so, by how many and in which areas?


?
Thank you very much for your work on this important study.

Best,

Bob