Security in the face of uncertain future

In today's financial climate, when "speculator" dominates the headlines and the future seems if anything even more troubling than the present, Baker City's budget stands as a bastion of fiscal certainty.

Most of it does, anyway.

This is the case because both the city's management, and members of the three labor unions which combined represent about 60 of the city's 75 workers, settled for the security of five-year contracts rather than insist on shorter deals and gamble on the notion that the city would be flush with cash in a few years.

That the two sides agreed on those unusual five-year contracts — most of the city's past union pacts were for three years or less — without so much as a public threat of going to mediation or arbitration seems to us persuasive evidence that people are sufficiently pessimistic about their financial prospects that they want assurances.

Union workers haven't, in any case, shown much interest in the past in locking in relatively modest cost-of-living raises for as long as half a decade. Yearly raises in the city's five-year contracts range from 2 percent to 4 percent, and most employees will get 3 percent boosts each year.

Motivations aside, City Manager Steve Brocato deserves credit for proposing five-year contracts.

The ratification of the three contracts affords city officials a chance rare among government agencies: The ability to draft realistic budgets as long as five years before the money will be spent.

Employees' salaries and benefits account for the majority of the city's spending, and the three unions represent about 80 percent of the city's workforce.

Now that city officials know how much that 80 percent will cost during the next five years, they can give the City Council, in advance, relatively accurate estimates about how many dollars will be available for vital project such as repairing streets and ensuring the water and sewer systems work efficiently.

With the specter of high fuel prices continuing to erode the city's buying power in areas ranging from powering police cars and fire engines to the escalating cost of the asphalt that smooths streets, Baker City officials needn't worry about fluctuations in the city's biggest expense.