Local cities sue state over perpetual contracts

NORTH PROVIDENCE – Sixteen municipalities, including six in the Blackstone Valley, have joined onto a lawsuit challenging the recently-enacted “lifetime contracts” law.

Leaders from cities and towns across Rhode Island gathered together in North Providence Town Hall on Tuesday morning to announce the legal challenge to what they described as a “financially irresponsible lifetime contracts law,” as the mayors and town administrators argued the law allows the automatic continuation of municipal contracts for employees, negating the need for negotiations.

The 16 cities and towns are challenging the law as an impairment of existing contracts under the state constitution’s

Contract Clause, as well as a violation of the Home Rule provision of the state constitution, which grants cities and towns the authority to decide local matters, officials said.

The communities named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Burrillville, Central Falls, Lincoln, North Smithfield, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket. They are joined in the suit alongside Barrington, Bristol, Charlestown, Cranston, East Greenwich, Little Compton, North Kingstown, North Providence, Providence, and Smithfield.

“Small cities and towns, like Burrillville, have to expend the same amount of time and money to negotiate and litigate union contracts as the large communities, but we do not have the same financial resources as the larger communities,” said Burrillville Town Manager Michael Wood.

RLH RP SH

“Every taxpayer in the state will benefit if this litigation is successful, and I en

courage every community to participate.”

Cranston Mayor and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Allan Fung added “The lifetime contracts law ties the hands of local officials when negotiating, especially when trying to get concessions. As the costs of health care, pensions, and retiree benefits keep rising, taxpayers will get crushed if local leaders can’t renegotiate those benefits.”

The law firm Greenberg Traurig is representing the

plaintiffs, with former Providence Mayor Angel Taveras as lead counsel.

Gov. Gina Raimondo in May signed the contract legislation to become law, despite opposition from local leaders.

Raimondo in May said the new bill was a fair compromise that protects workers’ wages and benefits from unilateral cuts after a contract expires, while not binding cities and towns to other provisions of the expired contract, the Associated Press reported. While may

ors and town administrators have said it gives unions no incentive to negotiate in difficult times, Raimondo said unions will be motivated to remain at the bargaining table for future wage increases, the AP reported.

Lifetime contract bills have been introduced since 200 . A similar bill was vetoed by Raimondo in 201 , noting that “they tied the hands for our municipal leaders and ultimately binds our taxpayers to contracts that would never end” and “hurt the public’s position in contract negotiations and place d@ taxpayers at risk of being forever locked into contractual provisions they can no longer afford.”

The Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns has proposed “reasonable alternatives,” such as the temporary continuation of contracts by mutual agreement an approach that was passed into law for firefighter contracts in 201 .