Budget, labor deals on Long Beach harbor commissioners' agenda

Port of Long Beach managers plan to spend big money — $3 billion on infrastructure projects over the coming decade.

That figure is included in a staff report outlining the Long Beach Harbor Department’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. The department’s budget team is asking for $809 million worth of spending with more than two thirds of that amount — $558 million — going to major capital efforts like the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement and Middle Harbor projects, according to a staff report.

Long Beach’s Board of Commissioners oversees city govement’s Harbor Department, which in tu manages the Port of Long Beach. Harbor Commissioners and staffers are scheduled to preview the proposed budget during a Thursday evening meeting that also includes a study session on the department’s multiple project labor agreements goveing hiring rules for major projects.

Capital projects

The Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement and Middle Harbor projects are already in progress. Port managers expect the new bridge, a link from the downtown Long Beach area to Terminal Island, to cost about $1.5 billion by the time workers are predicted to finish the job in 2018. Port managers had priced the bridge replacement at $950 million before construction began, and have since explained the increasing costs as stemming from Caltrans’ demand to engineer the span to stricter earthquake safety standards and challenges posed by old oil wells at the project site.

The Middle Harbor Project represents a large scale-overhaul of Long Beach Container Terminal’s pier facilities. Plans include dredging, infilling to coect Piers E and F and increasing on-dock rail capacity. The first phase of the project has been completed and Long Beach port officials are predicting that progress achieved thus far on Middle Harbor will help push operating revenues to $384 million, about 6 percent greater than the port’s estimated income for the current fiscal year. Port officials are also proposing to spend nearly $35 million on sewer, street, water, and stormwater work; nearly $31 million on dredging; about $25 million on rail network improvements and nearly $22 million fire safety and security enhancements.

The port’s budget team is asking for a smaller budget than what harbor commissioners approved last year — $829 million. Actual expenditures for the current fiscal year, however, are estimated to total to about $716 million.

Harbor commissioners may vote on whether to support the port budget on May 23. Although the port’s budget is funded separately from the City Hall’s general budget that pays for city services, the Harbor Department spending plan would be included in the full city budget proposal scheduled to go before the City Council in late summer.

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Labor policy

Harbor commissioners are also scheduled to discuss project labor agreements goveing construction of the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement and different phases of the Middle Harbor projects.

Project labor agreements tend to be advantageous to union workers and contractors who hire union labor. Harbor commissioners have considered the prospect of enacting portwide project labor agreement amid such conces as whether doing so would be possible without making it harder for small businesses to get deals.

Long Beach’s City Council adopted a citywide project labor agreement in April 2015.

Harbor commissioners may vote on a portwide project labor agreement on May 27, port spokesman Art Wong said in an email.