City unions still under expired contracts

KINGSTON, N.Y. » Members of the city’s police and civil service employees unions are working under expired contracts but Kingston officials hope to have a resolution on new deals with each in the coming months.

“The city is in negotiations with both unions and hopes to come to a resolution with both parties in the coming months,” Megan Weiss-Rowe, the city’s director of communications and community engagement, said in an email Monday.

Members of the Kingston Police Benevolent Association and the Civil Service Employees Association have been without contracts since the end of 2016. The city and the two unions have been negotiating on new deals for several months.

Fran Fagan, president of the Kingston Civil Service Employees Association, said Monday he could not comment because the parties were still negotiating.

Officer Harry Woltman, president of the Kingston Police Benevolent Association, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, the city reached a new three-year deal with Kingston’s firefighters’ union. The contract with the Kingston Professional Firefighters Association Local 461 was unanimously adopted by the Common Council in March.

The new contract, retroactive to the beginning of January 2017,

provided firefighters with salary increases of 2 percent per year for 2017, 2018 and 2019. The city’s total cost for the raises will be

$692,350.

The union’s last contract, a five-year deal, expired at the end of 2016.

The new contract calls for union members to continue contributing 10 percent, up to a maximum of $3,000, toward the cost of their health insurance.