Benefits plan causes debate

A routine approval of a new public employees’ union contract led to harsh words and hot debate at the City Council’s meeting this week. Some council members called it a shortsighted contract that could cause fiscal problems.

The issue that divided the room was a Municipal Employees’ Assn. plan to boost retirement benefits on its own, using money that would otherwise go to wages.

Ultimately, the council approved the contract on a 4-3 margin, with Councilman Don Hansen, Councilwoman Debbie Cook and Councilwoman Cathy Green voting no.

At the same time, the council defeated 5-2 a motion by Hansen to ask for a side-agreement that the union would keep funding the benefit on its own for 10 years; the deal would not have prevented it from being negotiated away by future councils.

Councilwoman Debbie Cook was its only other supporter, saying the country was headed toward “economic meltdown” and employees shouldn’t be burdened with the cost of more retirement funds.

“I think that it is fundamentally unfair,” she said. “We had a package we offered, and I believe that money should have been paid into salaries.”

With the cost of living going up, Hansen said, younger and lower-end employees will start to need the wages they put away into the retirement fund.

“It’s not just energy, it’s food, it’s everything,” he said. “It’s medical insurance costs. All these things are going to need to be vetted. We’re shifting a good chunk of their wages into a benefit that they probably won’t even see the upside of.”

Hansen also feared that council members in 2012 would be faced with new demands for higher wages from a union that just promised to take on the cost of the benefit indefinitely. So though it wouldn’t be binding, he said he wanted proof the council didn’t intend to absorb the cost at the next bargaining session.

“A document of this sort would leave a road map for city council in the future,” he said. “The majority of us may not even be here. It would be a new council looking at these contracts.”

Former Employees Assn. President John Von Holle said making the rank and file go through another vote on the contract would come off like negotiating in bad faith.

He said his fellow employees voted overwhelmingly to support the contract with full knowledge of what it meant.

“They did vote understanding the pros and cons about it,” he said. “They knew what was going on.”

Councilman Joe Carchio said officials had to accept that negotiators were working in good faith.

“The rank and file overwhelmingly supported this,” he said. “With rank and file willing to take little bit of a step forward and pick up the tab, I think we have to accept that’s what they want.”