The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

January 2, 2012

BEC to study union contracts

By Dan Linehan The Free Press

MANKATO — Proposed contracts with more than 200 Blue Earth County employees include pay raises of 1.5 percent in 2012 and 2 percent in 2013.

If approved during the County Board meeting today, the raises will come after a county-wide freeze on cost-of-living raises in 2011.

The contracts at issue are for human services (108 employees), courthouse and library (90) and probation (19). All told, they will cost the county about $135,000 in 2012 and $180,000 in 2013.

County Administrator Bob Meyer, in his first go-around as chief negotiator for the county, said the unions didn’t come to the table with unreasonable demands.

“We appreciate the way they’ve responded,” he said.

Board Chairman Kip Bruender, who is on the county’s negotiating committee, called it a “fair contract” but said it was “a little more than the county wanted to spend.”

Meyer said the only other change in the contracts that could affect compensation is a slight change in how probation employees can donate sick leave to each other.

In Blue Earth County, when an employee accumulates 960 hours of sick leave (120 days) their rate of accruing leave halves to four hours per month and any surplus is called “catastrophic” leave. Such leave cannot be cashed out if an employee leaves.

The change is that each probation employee will be allowed to donate 20 hours of catastrophic sick leave to another employee.

The county is currently negotiating with the deputies’ union and has yet to begin talks with its custody officers.

Meyer did not hire a consultant to help with the current round of negotiations, but the county has retained a law firm to negotiate with six assistant county attorneys who are forming an association.

Meyer said part of the reason for hiring the consultant is the intuitive notion that it’s good to have an attorney on your side when you’re negotiating with attorneys. The other reason is that, while negotiating with already-established unions is familiar by now, working to create a new bargaining unit is new.

While the County Board is likely to pass the proposed contracts today, Commissioner Drew Campbell will be asking questions. In December, he voted against a nonunion pay increase of 1.5 percent because he didn’t think higher-paid managers should automatically get the same pay increase the unions get.

He said the average wage for non-union full-time employees is more than $65,000, higher than for the union group.

“We have a decent package, then turn around and give everything to the supervisory personnel,” said Campbell, a longtime union member. “It almost affected morale I think sometimes.”

Meyer said he recommended the non-union increase partly as a fairness issue. Department heads, who are among the highest-paid employees, didn’t get cost-of-living increase in 2010 or 2011.

The meeting begins at 9 a.m. today in the Historic Courthouse.

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