Credit: The Bakersfield Californian, Lois Henry

There’s a reason Bakersfield’s fire and police unions have been working without a contract for more than a year and negotiations are dragging on, no end in sight.

The city manager’s office is not only rigid, but I believe unreasonable in its bargaining position.

I know, I know, you can’t believe Alan “old softie” Tandy would ever be unreasonable.

But, um, it’s true.

“Oh yeah, he comes in and thumps his hand on the table and acts like a big bully,” Bill Ware, president of the Bakersfield Police Officers Association, told me. “We’re not intimidated by that. We’re cops. We intimidate those who intimidate others.”

As a result of all that hand thumping, the police officer’s union contract expired in July 2007 and the two sides are now at impasse. The firefighters’ contract expired a year ago but they’re still talking with the city.

The real nut here is retirement, not pay.

Both unions have 3 at 50 (employees retire at age 50 and receive 3 percent of their last year’s salary for every year of service).

The city — two councilmen in particular — wants to increase that to 3 at 55. And Tandy is going to the mat over it.

Hey, I agree 3 at 50 is a overly luxurious for Bakersfield’s wallet.

But going to a two-tiered system where new employees have a different deal doesn’t save us any money until people start retiring, potentially years out.

There are other ways to lower retirement costs that the unions have indicated they’re willing to consider.

Getting there, however, requires reasonable attitudes and a willingness to set politics aside. (You knew it was really all about politics, right?)

That’s where Councilmen Ken Weir and Zack Scrivner come in.

Both made “unfunded liabilities” a major issue during their campaigns and vowed to right the city’s financial ship by cutting back on the city’s retirement largess.

I’m not convinced we’re going down the tubes because of a couple of grim years on the stock market, which in good times helps fund the retirement accounts and in bad times sucks out money like a Hoover vacuum stuck on high.

We’ve always had unfunded liabilities — not just in the form of future retirement costs, but in future medical benefits for retirees as well. It’s only been in recent years that municipalities have had to actually SHOW those costs on their books. And much hoopla has ensued ever since.

Even so, if you want to cut costs (always prudent) you could do that by asking employees to pay more into their own retirement fund. The city currently picks up the entire retirement tab after an employee’s sixth year on the job.

Firefighters have offered to “give back” 3 percent of their proposed pay increase of 8 percent over two years, asking the city to give them 5 percent in pay and fund the retirement and retiree medical accounts with the remaining 3 percent. That may sound like they’re paying themselves, but the money would help pay the city’s current retirement costs so they wouldn’t have to dip into the general fund for quite as much.

That 8 percent, by the way, is exactly what other city employees, including managers, have received over the last two years. Truth be told, though, unions would be much better off in the public’s eye not asking for any raises right now, or offering it all to help defray retirement costs considering what’s happening in the private sector, not to mention layoffs that have already hit the police department.

Ware told me the police union has also tried to talk with the city about what they might get in exchange for bumping the retirement age to 3 at 55, such as longevity pay. But no dice.

“It’s ‘take it or leave it,’” Ware said of the city’s attitude.

Firefighters thought they were close to a deal when they offered the give back, but then Tandy brought a new issue to the table — staffing minimums —according to union president Derek Tisinger.

So, they’re back at Square One.

I asked Tandy about that via email (he won’t talk to me on the phone anymore) and he wrote, “Sorry — I do not think it is productive to conduct complex collective bargaining sessions through the media!”

Yes, I’m sure the citizenry couldn’t possibly understand such complex issues as staffing and pay.

I do know a political stink bomb when it goes off under my nose. And this smells like Tandy taking marching orders from Weir and Scrivner so they can crow over their “fiscal conservative” credentials when they next run for office.

Goody for them, but I’d rather have a reasonable contract with members of the two agencies that provide for the safety of this city.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian.