Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Another Living Wage Violation Filed Against City Contractors

Question:

What do the janitor for the Carmel Mountain Ranch and Rancho Penasquitos branch libraries, the Kroll Report, cost overruns with outside attorneys and Prudential Overall Supply have in common?

Answer:

They all highlight the City of San Diego's inability to properly manage its contracts.

For the second time in less than seven months, a Living Wage Ordinance violation has been filed against a company contracted by the City of San Diego.

At this morning's City Council meeting, Kenneth Wells, a janitor employed by Jani-King of California to keep the Carmel Mountain and Rancho Penasquitos branch libraries clean, testified that the company blatantly violated its contract with the City by paying him below the law’s minimum wage.

In a complaint filed with the City’s Purchasing and Contracting Department and the State of California’s Department of Industrial Relations, Wells says the company paid him $2,460.08 below the minimum stated by the law from June 21 to September 30 of last year.

San Diego’s Purchasing and Contracting Department has just one employee working part-time despite a recommendation that it takes five full-time employees to accurately monitor the City’s contracts. The department has struggled to enforce the City’s many contracts since being the first department under Mayor Jerry Sanders’ administration to be “streamlined.”

If the City is unable to enforce a contract on a simple issues such as pay, how can it be depended on to manage the more complex issues in a contract?

No comments: