Town Board and union reach agreement on concessions
Tensions had flared as Glenville town officials negotiated a contract with the police union, but a compromise was eventually reached, ending a possible arbitration between the two sides.
The Glenville Town Board approved the Glenville Police Benevolent Association’s contract during the Wednesday, March 16, meeting. The previous contract had been expired for 15 months. Detective Michael Lamb, who assumed the role of President of the PBA at the beginning of the year, helped usher in the final stages of contract negotiations. While the PBA and town officials have clashed previously, both sides were able to reach an understanding on concessions and raises.
Going into these negotiations, this board stated they needed to control costs, particularly the cost of employee health insurance, which is killing our budgets, said Glenville Supervisor Christopher Koetzle at the meeting. `Our contract needs to be fair, and it needs to be affordable. This agreement achieves many objectives, although not all.`
The town is switching from an HMO 25 to HMO 30 plan, and the most expensive health insurance option was removed. Money paid to employees opting out of health insurance coverage also decreased, and new employees will receive an even smaller opt-out payment.
All of the other towns and cities in the county provide heath insurance to police officers retiring before 55 years old, said Koetzle, but the board thought the option was too expensive. Also, accumulated sick time will be used by retired officers to pay for health insurance expenses to avoid large payouts.
`Right now, they cash out a large sum of money, which would be difficult for the town to pay. If they are using this to pay for health insurance over time, it will be spread out and it will be pre-tax dollars, so it saves the employee and it saves the town a payroll tax as well,` said Koetzle.
Overtime is also being addressed with protocol changes, limiting officers to three hours regardless of how many recall events might occur.
All of these changes are estimated to save the town $37,000 this year, which will help offset the cost of raises totaling $70,000. Also, the board has to retroactively distribute 2010 raises, which is estimated to cost $49,500.
`We don’t have any way to offset the cost,` said Koetzle about the 2010 raises, which he hopes to avoid dipping into the fund balance to compensate.
For 2010, the department is receiving a 2.75 percent raise and the salary increases for the current and following year will have mid-year bumps in raises. For the first half of 2010, there is a 1.5 percent raise and in July there will be another 1.5 percent raise, which totals to 2.25 percent for the year. The same increments in raises will also occur in 2012.
`The board recognizes that our town police department is a good, or I would say, even better than most of the county, if not all. We also recognize that other departments pay their officers higher salaries,` said Koetzle. `If the town had chosen to allow this process to proceed to arbitration, we may not have had a resolution until late this year or even next year.`
He said this would delay health insurance savings and an arbitration board can only determine two years, so the board would be renegotiating the contract for the 2012 budget. The average annual wage increase through arbitration over the past year, said Koetzle, was 3 percent, which the board believed was too high for the residents to afford.
Town Attorney Michael Cuevas said the negotiated contract is `sort of back to the original proposal` offered to the union. A streamlined disciplinary process is also planned to save administrative and legal time long-term.
Koetzle restated the board’s commitment to raising revenues in the town and easing the burden on taxpayers.
`While any cost increase in this economic climate is problematic, the board is determined to face any of these fiscal challenges head on. We are committed to utilizing the full range of options available to us to increase non-tax revenues to build our tax base and reduce expenses,` said Koetzle. `We hope and expect the members of our town police department and all our town employees will be partners with us in these efforts.`
Glenville PBA President Michael Lamb could not be reached for comment.“