PERB’s End of Fiscal Year Numbers

Fiscal year 2009-2010 is over. PERB’s annual report for 2009-2010 is not due until October 1, 2010. However, I have been keeping track of PERB’s decisions throughout the year. So unless there are additional cases issued before June 30th that PERB has not posted on its website, I have the final tally for the year.  For fiscal year 2009-2010, PERB issued 79 decisions.  The year before, fiscal year 2008-2009, PERB issued 89 decisions. However, PERB had five board members in 2008-09, while it had only four board members for most of 2009-2010, and ended the last few months with only three board members. So given that PERB only had about 3.5 board members this year, and was subject to 3-day a month furloughs, 89 decisions is not bad at all.

Here are some other statistics for the 2009-2010 fiscal year:

Decisions by Statute:

• MMBA: 33
• Dills Act: 17
• EERA: 15
• HEERA: 12
• Court Interpreter: 2

Decisions by Type:

• Appeals from Dismissals: 49 (15 of which were DFR’s)
• Exceptions to ALJ Decisions: 23
• Approval of Settlement: 1
• Administrative Appeal: 2
• Reconsideration: 2
• Unit Modification: 1
• Amend Certification: 1

Decisions by Outcome:

• Dismissal Affirmed: 44
• Dismissal Overturned/Partially Overturned: 5
• ALJ Decisions Affirmed: 14
• ALJ Decision Overturned/Partially Overturned: 9

Decisions by Board Member:  

• Dowdin: 29 
• Wesley: 20 
• McKeag: 15 
• Neuwald (Term ended 2/28/10): 15 

Other Interesting Facts:  

• There were 5 dissents in the last year: 2058M (Neuwald); 2107H (McKeag); 2106S (McKeag); 2103M (Dowdin); 2094H (Neuwald).

Comments: 

1. I need to confirm this, but I believe this is the first year that the MMBA has generated the most cases from the Board. Last year, the MMBA and EERA were tied at 34 each. I believe that before that EERA has always been the dominant Act. This year, it wasn’t close. The MMBA generated 33 cases while EERA only generated 17.
2. The only other major statistic that stands out to me is the Board’s affirmance rate. The rate that dismissals were affirmed by the Board was 89.7%, which is consistent with the historical average of 90%+. However, what is surprising to me is that only 60.8% of the proposed ALJ decisions were affirmed in their entirety. 9 out of 23 proposed ALJ decisions were partially or completely overturned. This is a significant statistic because I think it will only drive more cases to the Board.  As a litigant, I’m much more likely to appeal a case to the Board if I have a 40% chance of success (even if it's only a partial success) versus only a 10% chance.  40% isn’t good, but it’s a whole lot better than 10%.