Waukesha mayor seeks union concessions
Waukesha - After his proposed $136 garbage fee next year in order to achieve a tax levy freeze fell flat, Mayor Jeff Scrima has proposed that nearly 400 city union employees with contracts in place until 2013 voluntarily forfeit pay or benefits or face possible layoffs or furloughs.
The proposal came Wednesday night less than two hours before a meeting of the Finance Committee, which is trying to find $1.5 million more in budget saving to achieve the zero-increase tax levy.
Scrima outlined a series of options in a memorandum to aldermen:
Freeze pay for all employees, including union members, saving $571,000. Employees were scheduled to get a 1.5% increase next year.
Ask employees to contribute 12% for health insurance, instead of the scheduled 7% to 10%, saving $425,000.
Have union employees contribute 5.8% to their pensions, as nonunion employees are now required to do, and saving the city $1.57 million.
If employees are unwilling to make concessions, Scrima said, the Common Council could decide to lay off employees. It would take 17 layoffs, at an average of $93,000 each, to achieve a $1.5 million saving.
If the council chose furloughs on all union employees, other than police and firefighters, 22 furlough days would save $1.5 million, Scrima said.
Scrima's position
"We must hold fast to treating each other with fairness, and be willing to compromise for the greater and future good of Waukesha," Scrima says in his memo. "We can maintain city services, hold to our goal of a 0% levy, and not increase taxes."
Ald. Joe Pieper, Finance Committee chairman, questioned whether unions would be inclined to accept the idea, or whether negotiations could be accomplished before a budget is adopted.
"We're not going to know unless we try," Scrima told Finance Committee members.
Two representatives of the city's largest unions reached Thursday declined to comment. Tim Schultz, president of the 138-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 97, and Lloyd Pickart, president of the 93-member Professional Firefighters Local 407, said they had not yet been contacted by city officials and had no comment on the plan.
Human Resources Director Donna Hylarides Whalen said police and fire unions, which represent about half of the city's unionized employees, could reopen contracts and accept amendments without broader repercussions. But she said the state budget-repair bill that virtually eliminated collective bargaining for public employees offers no incentive for other unions to reopen existing contracts because of the "draconian result in the law."
"The other unions would be extinguishing all of their collective bargaining and organizational rights immediately, and I think it's unrealistic to anticipate that they would be willing to do that," she said.
"They have everything to lose and nothing to gain."
However, Ald. John Kalblinger said a 22-day furlough would amount to nearly a 10% pay cut, and a layoff would cost an employee his or her job.
"I think it would be prudent to at least approach the unions," he said.
More meetings
The Finance Committee had hoped to finish its budget recommendation by next week when the Common Council was scheduled to meet Tuesday as a committee and review the $125 million budget.
Instead, the council will meet at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the union contracts and potential concessions.
The council still hopes to adopt a budget by month's end, possibly on Nov. 22.
Some members of the Finance Committee, along with Scrima, have been adamant that the city budget should freeze the tax levy next year, which likely would produce a tax cut for many property owners who have seen their property values drop an average of 6% or more in the past year. That standard is tougher than the one imposed by state tax levy limits, which would permit a tax levy increase of about $1.5 million.
Memo on JSOnline
Read the mayor's memo at jsonline.com/Waukesha.