Terry Mahurin has never spoken out on anything political
– that is, until now. The 66-year-old retired engineer has spent
the past few months pouring over Santa Clara Valley Water District
financial documents.
Terry Mahurin has never spoken out on anything political – that is, until now.
The 66-year-old retired engineer has spent the past few months pouring over Santa Clara Valley Water District financial documents.
“To me, the water district has just lost their credibility,” the Morgan Hill resident said.
Meanwhile, another retiree, 67-year-old Bob Cerruti, of San Martin, was reviewing much of the same information. In May, the two men found each other and joking call themselves “partners in crime.”
After it became apparent the water district was going to raise wholesale water rates in South Valley by 25 percent, the men became activists. Both attended an April 26 meeting held in Morgan Hill about the rate increase.
“I heard some things that didn’t sound right,” Mahurin said. “I went through their budget. I began to look in areas where I thought I’d see interesting things.”
Among their areas of concern are employee compensation increases, recent new hires, increasing municipal-and-industrial water rates and a $4.6 million solar project.
Mahurin shared some of his findings at a water district board meeting in May.
“Their response was zip,” he said of the board. “I don’t know if they were stunned or not. I’m sure their view was if we ignore this person, he’ll just go away.”
Board member Sig Sanchez said he was impressed with Mahurin’s research.
“He was very knowledgeable, as I recall listening to him make the presentation,” Sanchez said. “He went through the budget quite thoroughly.”
In June, the water district board of directors voted in favor of the water rate increase that took effect Thursday. They also approved a $241 million operating budget for this fiscal year, which runs through June 30, 2005.
Cerruti and Mahurin see multiple areas in the operating budget where they think the water district is overspending. One such case is employee compensation. Cerruti says in the past two years district employees have received a 52.4 percent increase in their salaries and benefits.
This simply is untrue, Sanchez said.
“We have three bargaining units we deal with. The last bargaining session I think they got 3.5 percent to 4 percent,” he said.
Health insurance costs have increased 20 percent each year. The public employee retirement plan, which the district’s employees are enrolled in, billed the water district for $2.5 million for the first time in 2003 and likely will charge $8 million this year.
Also, included in this increase are new hires. Currently, about 889 people are employed full-time, up from 785 last July. The water district is budgeted for 915 full-time employees.
“We hired the best and the brightest from the (dot-com) bust,” Water District spokesman Mike DiMarco said. “I’m pretty impressed with some of the folks we’ve hired.”
Cerruti and Mahurin aren’t buying the water district’s explanations. They are frustrated with the water district for approaching taxpayers for more money, while they see the water district spending money on other budget items or keeping extra in its reserves. Reserves are estimated to be $436 million for this year.
“I think that they’ve had so much cash over there for so long that they’ve gotten into this, ‘Well, let’s stick it to the rate payers mode,’ ” Mahurin said.
Sanchez agrees that the water district is overspending. He was the only one on the seven board of directors to vote against the 2004-05 budget and its increase of nearly 3 percent.
“All government agencies are cutting back, and we continue to expand,” Sanchez said. “We have a lot of capital improvement programs. Many of those can be delayed.”
Cerruti resigned from a district’s flood control committee in part because of the decision to use water rates to build a new $4.6 million solar project that is supplying about 20 percent of the agency’s energy needs at its south San Jose campus.
Kamei was the only board member to vote against the water rate hike because she wanted to explore implementing the increase over time.
