The Yolo County Attorneys Association just ratified a three-year MOU with the County of Yolo that will result in an increase of over 16% in pay. The MOU includes a 3% COLA and a 2.21% equity adjustment retroactive to July 1, 2022. In January 2023, there will be a 5% equity adjustment, followed by a 2% COLA in July 2023, and a 3% COLA in July 2024. The increases are compounded to 16.13%.

Part of the increase is attributable to implementing the survey information produced by the County and the Association comparing Yolo Deputy District Attorneys, Deputy Public Defenders, and Child Protective Services attorneys with job classifications in comparable agencies. But the parties also had to overcome a long tradition of the County only implementing increases to bring Yolo employees to 95% of the market. After years of contention over this issue in bargaining, the County agreed that the 95% rule is arbitrary and it adopted a 100% of market comparison. In coming to this conclusion, the County bargaining team and the Board of Supervisors determined that the 95% rule should be changed for all County employees. The County is now in the process of rolling out an additional 5% for all County bargaining units. Additionally, the County has agreed to revisit how it looks at the issue of comparability in future surveys.

In addition to the increases in pay, the County agreed to increase floating holidays by 8 hours, agreed to provide County-issued cell phones to all bargaining unit members, adopted a telecommuting policy, increased the number of attorneys receiving a 2.5% differential for “expert attorney” level from 6 to 12 attorneys, and other beneficial language changes to the MOU.

The County bargaining team, which included its chief negotiator Alexander Tengolics, Director of Human Resources Alberto Lara, and Chief Assistant County Counsel Ronald Martinez, worked tirelessly and collegially with the Association’s bargaining team to achieve this result. MAJ partner Gary Messing was the chief negotiator for the Association’s bargaining team, which was ably led by its President, Deputy Public Defender Bret Bandley. Also on the Association’s team were Deputy District Attorneys Frits van der Hoek, Matt De Moura, and Jose Gonzalez-Vasquez, along with Deputy Public Defenders Peter Borruso and Sherri Bridgeforth.