RTM Votes Down Contract With Mid-Managers

The Representative Town Meeting late Monday overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract between the town and a union representing mid-management employees. The vote was six in favor, 27 opposed and three abstentions.

"I have a serious concern with starting out at a baseline of 10 percent," RTM member Joseph Palmer, R-4, said of the proposed contract's provision for employees' cost share of healthcare premiums. "The baseline is way too low...To start out at 10 percent completely ignores the financial situation the town is in right now."

Federal employees pay 28 percent, while most private sector employees pay from 25 percent to 50 percent, Palmer said. "If town employees contributed 25 percent, it would save the town $4 million next year, and I can't allow this to go on - not one year but three years - where taxpayers are subsidizing these healthcare premiums."

The proposed contract called for employees hired prior to July 1, 2010 to contribute 10 percent of the premium cost share, effective July 1, 2012, while employees hired on or after Aug. 1, 2010 would contribute 12 percent, effective upon executon of the contract. The dates and language of this part of the contract are different on another document given to the RTM and public, but this wording comes from the "Memorandum of Agreement" and not the "Highlights of Tentative Agreement" document.

Currently, employees in the bargaining unit pay $29 a week.

RTM member Edward Bateson III, R-3, said he liked that the proposed three-year contract, which would have run retroactively from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2013, moved new hires onto a 401(a) retirement plan, instead of the town's existing pension system, which is significantly underfunded on an accrual basis.

But Bateson didn't like a provision in the contract which, he said, applied to only one of the 41 employees in the bargaining unit, Assistant Director of Public Works Ed Boman, who previously served in former First Selectman John J. Sullivan's administration.

That provision allowed an employee "who was involuntarily separated from employment with the employer and whose contributions [to the pension system] were refunded at the time of said involuntary separation, and who returns to employment with the employer, may purchase creditable service prior to the involuntary separation for which contributions were previously refunded."

"I really don't think this is a decision for this body, that these years of service be included," Bateson said, adding that the Town Employees Retirement Board may be a better venue. "I don't think it should be included in the contract. I just don't think it's in our purview."

"The biggest issue as a bargaining unit shouldn't be dealing with one specific person," Bateson said.

But Mary Carroll-Mirylees, director of the town's Human Resources Department, said the Town Charter says the RTM votes on all changes to the pension plan. "The Charter also says the Retirement Board doesn't have the authority to make changes to the pension plan," she said. "The only way to make any change to the pension plan is with your vote...There was no other platform for this to be done."

The proposed contract called for new hires to contribute at least 4 percent of base salary and longevity to the 401(a) plan, though they could contribute up to the maximum allowed by law. The town would match an employee's contribution up to 4 percent and the town's contribution wouldn't vest until the employee had been continuously employed for five years. The town also had to provide longterm disability benefits for the permanent and total disability of new hires at a rate of 50 percent of salary, and that benefit was to be provided through insurance.

Carroll-Mirylees, responding to Palmer's concerns about employees' cost share for healthcare premiums, said negotiations involve "give and take" and that the proposed contract had moved from a dollar amount for cost share to a percentage with no cap. She also said co-pays were doubling in the proposed contract. "Changing to a percentage at the same time as doubling co-pays is a significant change to employees," she said.

The proposed contract called for wage increases of 0 percent from July 1, 2010 to Dec. 31, 2010; 1 percent from Jan. 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011; 1 percent from July 1, 2011 to Dec. 31, 2011; 1.5 percent from Jan. 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012; and 3 percent from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. "It was the desire of the first selectman not to impact the budget too much in the first couple of years," Carroll-Mirylees said.

The estimated cost of the proposed contract was $26,014 in 2010-11; $59,011 in 2011-12; and $135,596 in 2012-13.

Monday night marked the third time the RTM rejected a proposed contract between the town and a union representing town employees in less than a year. The RTM last summer rejected proposed contracts between the town and unions representing firefighters and Town Hall employees. But the RTM this spring approved a contract between the town and union representing Town Hall employees. The firefighters' contract is in arbitration.