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Town inks 8-year contract with CSEA employees
CSEA members in Local 852, White-Collar Unit 8759, ratified the contract agreement 85 to three. Joanne Salvia, unit president, presided over the vote at Babylon Town Hall last month. The contract calls for annual salary increases and continues to provide current members with health benefits that are fully paid by the Town. It also ensures that the Town will not have any layoffs during the length of the contract. "We are very happy with this new agreement, and are gratified that our members voted almost unanimously in favor of it," said Salvia. The contract runs from 2009, when the current contract expires, through 2016, and provides increases of between 2.5 and 3 percent a year, less than the current rate of inflation, pointed out Ron Kluesner, assistant to Town Supervisor Steve Bellone. It maintains the current level of health benefits for all employees, but requires that newly hired employees pay 15 percent of the cost of healthcare benefits. At present, a family plan costs the Town $15,000 a year. In addition, the Town agreed to maintain a minimum of 118 full-time employees but can expand its part-time staff as needed. "What is significant about the agreement is that it gives current employees regular pay raises and ensures their benefits over the next eight years, but also allows us to continue to reduce the cost of providing government services," said Kluenser. "That's a good thing for taxpayers." Salaries for employees in the unit begin at approximately $25,000 a year for entry level positions and increase to approximately $70,000 a year. With retirements anticipated over the life of the contract, Kluesner said the Town will be saving on its healthcare costs and its salary lines as new employees at lower salaries replace higher paid employees who have been with the town for many years. "This agreement allows us to take care of the employees who are here very well over the next eight years," said Salvia who added that the tone of the negotiations was one of cooperation and mutual respect. "The Town was fair and we recognized that we are all working toward the same goal, which is to do a good job for the public," she added. Kluenser and Salvia said they believe that the increase in the health-care contributions for new hirees would not make it more difficult to hire new employees because the Town will continue to be a good place to work. "We will still be competitive because we continue to offer competitive salaries with holidays, vacation and sick days," said Kluesner. "And the Town is still a nice place to work." "Those who come into the job will know what the benefits are," said Salvia adding that most companies today require similar financial commitments for healthcare benefits from their employees. "We could not close our eyes to what is happening, and while we made some concessions, we believe we did a good job of negotiating on behalf of our members." In related matters, the Town entered into a memorandum of understanding with Covanta, the company that operates the resource recovery facility. The agreement helps define and settle some outstanding issues that have arisen since Covanta took over the company from Ogden Martin, which went into bankruptcy three years ago. Since the change of ownership, resource recovery services have improved and become more efficient, said Kluenser, enabling the Town to reduce some of its costs. For example, Covanta has eliminated delays for haulers at the incinerator, enabling them to make their collections on time. Additionally, a longstanding practice of passing along the company's sales tax costs to the Town has been eliminated in the new agreement. The Town currently pays approximately $78 per ton for disposal, which includes the cost of operating the facility, the Town's debt service on bonds. Once the Town meets its commitment of annual tonnage, its percentage of return on the electricity the facility sells to LIPA increases, again reducing the town's annual resource recovery costs. "The end result is that the changes will enable the Town to pass along savings to other taxing entities such as the local libraries and fire departments," said Klusener. "That in turn means lower tax bills for our taxpayers." In other business, the town has awarded a bid to L & M Specialty Co., Inc., in the sum of $16,438 for installation of irrigation systems at two medians on Deer Park Avenue, North Babylon. The work is part of a project to beautify and improve those medians, which has been funded, in part by the developers of the Tanger Mall Retail project in Deer Park.
The next Town board meeting will be held Tuesday, Jan. 22, 3:30 p.m. Town Hall, Sunrise Highway, North Lindenhurst.
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