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County employee voices pay and contract concerns in public comment as SEIU bargaining continues
Summary
At the Feb. 25 Board of Supervisors meeting, county employee and District 3 constituent Karen Bussard urged the board to return to SEIU bargaining over salary adjustments and Measure K funding, saying current offers leave represented employees behind and warning a strike could have long-term morale consequences.
Karen Bussard, a Kern County employee and resident of Supervisorial District 3, used the public-presentations portion of the Feb. 25 Board of Supervisors meeting to urge renewed bargaining with SEIU and to raise specific salary and cost-of-living concerns.
Bussard said employees represented by SEIU are uniquely affected by state-required cost-of-living adjustments and argued those COLAs should be permanent rather than renegotiated annually. She told the board she had reviewed multiple memoranda of understanding and cited figures during her remarks: "the county's proposal for SEIU's 5,000 represented employees is $36,241,147.38," she said, adding that some Measure K funds and COVID-era monies have not been earmarked for SEIU-represented staff.
Bussard described household budget pressures and called the difference between the county’s and SEIU’s positions meaningful enough to warrant returning to the bargaining table. "Surely this warrants going back to the bargaining table to work out some compromise," she said, and warned that "a strike will result in lasting employee route consequences."
The remarks occurred during the public-presentations period; the board did not take immediate action on the comment. Bussard provided copies of a prepared statement to the board and requested clarification about the county's last-best-final offer versus SEIU's proposal.
Why it matters: Bargaining with SEIU affects thousands of county employees and can influence county service delivery, budgets and labor relations. Public comments at the meeting raised specific figures and sought a return to negotiation, but no formal board action on the bargaining position occurred during the session.
