Small Town News

City of Shelton finalizes union contracts

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After months of negotiations, the city's unionized employees have agreed to contracts that reduce their health care coverage and do not include cost of living adjustments (COLAs) for, in some cases, up to three years.

The city asked union employees, including public safety, financial services, public works and customer service employees, to agree to reduced health coverage and no COLAs to save money in coming years, and balance their budget.

"It allows us to do some things that we would not have been able to do," city administrator Dave O'Leary said.

The city. changed its health plan for all employees, O'Leary said, to a different health plan than the city previously offered.

"Health First is a new option offered by our insurance provider," O'Leary said. "It has a few things better, other things not as good, but it still is good coverage. It is less costly."

Employees will also be asked to cover a portion of their health insurance premiums.

"All employees ... will pay a considerable share of the cost of their medical insurance now," O'Leary

said.

Employee unions could choose to pay a percentage of their health insurance premium, or to have the city reimburse them for a fixed amount.

For example, union employees from the public works department, and the financial services department will be reimbursed for up to $1,054 of their health insurance premium.

Public safety, or police, employees will pay 12 percent of their premiums and unionized customer service employees will pay 19 percent of their premium.

The city previously covered the cost of all their employees' health care costs, but city administrative staff now say that due to the recession, the city can no longer keep up with rising health care costs.

While some city employees will be eligible for COLAs within the next few years, the contracts include no COLAs for any employee through the end of 2011.

The city also changed its deferred compensation program in the new union contracts. The city doesn't withhold money for Social Security; instead, it deferred compensation, which withholds money from an employee's salary, similar to a pension program.

"There are other cities that ... generally have more robust deferred compensations than we do," O'Leary said. "When people leave long-term employment with the city, they'll leave without the benefit of Social Security. Deferred compensation is an important thing for them."

These contracts increase the amount of money withheld for deferred compensation for most employees.

O'Leary thanked city employees for making concessions in their contract negotiations.

"They've now stepped up and said 'we're participating in a recession along with everybody else,'" he said. "I want to say for myself, thank you."



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© 2011 Shelton-Mason County Journal Shelton, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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