It’s wage freezes vs. layoffs as budget ax hovers

STAMFORD – The Board of Finance’s latest meeting on the massive budget cuts they are weighing ended with a private discussion.

Chairman Richard Freedman wanted to update members on union negotiations out of public view, which open-government laws permit.

The board is preparing for Wednesday, when members will recommend an unprecedented $35 million reduction to Mayor David

Martin’s 2020-21 spending plan — a fiscal fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Such a cut could mean layoffs of police officers, teachers and other city and school employees and, for residents, roads not paved, garbage not collected, larger classroom sizes and service reductions.

To avoid cuts that drastic, the administration has asked the 10 city unions and four Board of Education unions to forgo pay raises for the fiscal year that starts July 1 and the year that follows.

Much is at stake but, because negotiations are private, little is known about where the unions are leaning.

Stalemate?

The Stamford Education Association, which represents more than 1,500 teachers, and budget officials this week said they were not talking. Teachers have been emailing the finance board and speaking during webinars on the budget. Thursday they protested the planned cuts by rallying around city hall in their cars.

Union President Diane Phanos said teachers want the finance board to find “alternative means to balance the budget” — and has mentioned using the city’s Rainy Day Fund as a way to plug some of the gap. She said the city should not seek to break a collective bargaining agreement that was settled in good faith.

Phanos said Superintendent Tamu Lucero asked her to a meeting that was not a negotiation, since Lucero “did all the talking.”

Lucero responded that during the meeting “we reviewed several options and noted that the options shared were our best thinking, and we would be happy to hear the SEA’s ideas. The SEA said that they would need to discuss and get back to us.”

Lucero had requested a $15 million budget increase, much of it to cover contractual pay raises, but the finance board is keeping the school budget the same in 2020-21 as it is now. Lucero said a two-year salary freeze for all school employees would amount to $11 million.

Not adversaries

The news from other union talks Friday was less grim.

Sgt. Kris Engstrand, president of the 270-member Stamford Police Association, said the city’s attorney has reached out to the union’s attorney.

“They are bouncing ideas back and forth,” Engstrand said. “I want to work together, not be adversaries. We understand the hardships. We are sympathetic to the citizens and the city. But it has to work out for both sides.”

Matt Forker, president of the Stamford Administrative Unit, which represents about 65 school administrators, said their attorney, John Gesmonde, is communicating with the Board of Education.

Gesmonde said there have been meetings, but not negotiations.

“We have an existing contract. The oversimplification of this is the mayor wants the unions to give back money and we proposed a concept that they are considering,” Gesmonde said.

He represents two other unions, the Stamford Municipal Nurses Association and the Stamford Board of Education Employees Association of custodians and trades workers, Gesmonde said. Those situations are similar, he said.

“I made a concept presentation and as far as I know they are considering the presentation I made,” Gesmonde said. “Something could happen soon, or not at all.”

Questions hang

Dan Colleluori, president of the Stamford Municipal Supervisory Employees Union, known as the MAA, represents 115 city supervisors. The MAA’s negotiating committee is preparing a counter to a city proposal, Colleluori said Friday.

“We are trying to work with them,” he said, though he has a question.

The city is seeking to add two new supervisory jobs, which he was asked to review as MAA president, Colleluori said.

“I responded that we have this financial crisis, and should you be hiring new positions when you are asking us to take zero percent raises for two years?” Colleluori said.

Union leaders have other questions. They want to know whether the pay cuts Martin and Superintendent Tamu Lucero have announced are equivalent to what they are asking of the unions.

Martin, his cabinet and aides, a total of 32 nonunion city employees, will roll back their salaries to what they were on July 1, 2018 and forgo the raises they are due this July 1, for a savings of $200,000. Lucero and the six members of her cabinet will forgo their raises for this fiscal year and the next, saving $25,427.

“We’re asking all the unions to share the burden of the financial challenge everyone in the city is facing due to the pandemic,” Martin said in a statement. “A number of the unions have indicated a willingness to help and we’re hopeful that they all will contribute sufficiently to preserve city services in these uncertain times.”

He and his cabinet agreed to reduce their “contractually protected salaries,” Martin said, and are “asking the unions to make a similar contribution for the good of the people of Stamford.”

Lucero said in a statement that she and her cabinet members “have acknowledged our willingness to assume a portion of the burden to our city. We are asking the SEA to return to the table to discuss how they, too, might be able to help.”

No one spared

During a budget webinar this week, finance board Vice Chair Mary Lou Rinaldi said the goal is to avoid the worst result of budget woes – layoffs.

“No one wants to make the kind of decisions we have to make. This is ugly and keeping us all awake at night,” Rinaldi said. “We are asking the unions to work with us so people don’t lose their jobs.”

Members of the Board of Representatives who have been taking part in the meetings said there is no way around reducing salaries, since they and benefits comprise 80 percent of the budget.

“If we’re truly in this together, the most impactful reductions must come through union talks,” said Rep. Susan Nabel, D-20.

Rep. J.R. McMullen, R-18, said some of the city employees who offered comments during the meeting missed the point.

“They have said they don’t think they are appreciated. They are appreciated, but it’s unreasonable for them to believe they will not share in the financial impact,” McMullen said.

Rep. Dennis Mahoney, R-20, said teachers must be part of the effort.

“Teachers need to step up and protect the children by agreeing to some concessions,” he said. “No one will be spared from the sadness and stress of the cataclysmic effects on their finances. No one. And no one should expect to be.”