Leggett and Fire Fighters Strike Deal, but Questions Abound (Updated)

The Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association (MCCFFA) announced more than $7 million in concessions in a tentative deal with the Leggett administration yesterday. But the structure of the deal and its timing are sure to raise questions at the County Council.

The Fire Fighters’ press release (which we reproduce in whole below) describes their concessions this way:

Under the agreement, MCCFFA members will forego negotiated holiday pay benefits and will defer a scheduled 4% pay increase for three months, from July 2009 to October 2009. These concessions will save the County more than $5 million in Fiscal Year 2010.

In addition, MCCFFA agreed to a 6-month deferral of a scheduled 3.5% pay increase, from July 2010 to January 2011. This concession will save the County nearly $2 million more in Fiscal Year 2011.

The structure of this deal is a bit different than the concessions given by the Teachers, SEIU and the Supervisors to the school system. We described them in December this way:

1. The 5.3 point Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) has been eliminated for the next fiscal year.

2. The step increases that apply for employees who gain seniority will remain. Those increases range from 1 to 2.5 points.

3. Health insurance benefits will remain at the same level for at least five years.

4. The school system and the unions will establish a task force to examine employee work loads.

The school unions gave up their entire COLA for one year. The Fire Fighters are deferring one increase for three months (from 7/09 to 10/09) and another increase for six months (from 7/10 to 1/11), as well as foregoing some vacation pay. The difference in terms is important because the school unions negotiated a “me-too” provision that says:

If the County Government negotiates higher compensation improvements for any of its employee organizations during FY10, FY11, or FY12; those higher increases will be matched for school system employees.

In other words, if another union gets a better deal, the school unions are entitled to get the same terms from the school system. It is far from clear whether the Fire Fighters negotiated better terms than the school unions. But if the school unions find that the Fire Fighters did indeed get better terms, they may very well seek to reclaim a portion of their pay. That would set off a chaotic chain reaction through the county’s still-embryonic budget process that neither the school system nor the County Council will want to deal with. And waiting in the wings are the police union and MCGEO, who have yet to conclude their negotiations with the County Executive.

Time is running out to get the remaining agreements done. The school unions’ concessions have been incorporated in the school system’s proposed budget, which has already been submitted to the County Council. The County Executive must submit his budget to the council in March. If he has not obtained concessions from the Fire Fighters, the police and MCGEO by then, his budget must fully fund their contracts under the law. It will then be the responsibility of the council to underfund the contracts, thereby denying funding for the COLAs. If the Executive does strike deals with the Fire Fighters, police and MCGEO, then he can include those reduced compensation levels in his budget, saving the council some dirty work. My informants question why it is taking so long to renegotiate these contracts since today’s budget problems were known almost a year ago.

The bottom line is this: the County Executive must be careful in dealing with the remaining collective bargaining agreements. Activation of the “me-too” provisions by the school unions would take the county into uncharted territory as the clock ticks down to budget Armageddon.

Update: The Washington Post obtained this amazing quote from Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield:

Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield called Sparks's announcement "in error."

"We have not finalized an agreement with the firefighters. There are some outstanding legal issues that we need to resolve," Lacefield said. "I did not expect to get a release like that across my desk this morning. " He declined to be more specific.

What is going on inside Ike Leggett's management team?

Update 2: According to the Gazette, Council President (and union nemesis) Phil Andrews picked up on the difference between the unions' concessions.

Following is the press release from the Fire Fighters.

*****

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT: John Sparks (240-876-1920)

Montgomery Career Fire Fighters Reach Tentative Budget Deal To Save County Over $7 Million

(Rockville, MD) In response to the projected Fiscal Year 2010 budget shortfall facing Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association (“MCCFFA”) announced today that it has agreed to a series of pay concessions that will save the County Government more than $7 million over the next two fiscal years. MCCFFA represents more than 1,000 fire fighter/paramedics employed by the Montgomery County Government. The agreement is subject to ratification by MCCFFA membership.

Under the agreement, MCCFFA members will forego negotiated holiday pay benefits and will defer a scheduled 4% pay increase for three months, from July 2009 to October 2009. These concessions will save the County more than $5 million in Fiscal Year 2010.

In addition, MCCFFA agreed to a 6-month deferral of a scheduled 3.5% pay increase, from July 2010 to January 2011. This concession will save the County nearly $2 million more in Fiscal Year 2011.

“In normal times, we expect our elected officials to fully honor our contracts,” said John Sparks, President of MCCFFA. “But these are not normal times. We understand that in these difficult times we must all be part of the solution, and MCCFFA is doing more than its share.”

Last month, the Montgomery County Teachers Association agreed to postpone the Fiscal Year 2010 Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for teachers to help the County close the looming budget gap. MCCFFA’s negotiated COLA for Fiscal Year 2010 is scheduled to be approximately $5 million. The unions representing other county employees and police are still in negotiations with the Leggett Administration.

“The unions met last fall and we agreed that we would each negotiate our own solution to help the County,” said Sparks. “The County asked the fire fighters to give back $5 million as our share of the solution, and we did more than asked. That’s what fire fighters do – we sacrifice every day.”

MCCFFA is currently in the first year of a three-year labor agreement. The contract, which was approved by the Leggett administration in April 2008 and by the County Council in May 2008, brought the starting salary for the County’s rookie firefighters to $40,797, compared with $44,302 in the District, $40,848 in Prince George's County, $47,472 in Fairfax County, $44,637 in Arlington and $43,618 in Alexandria. Among jurisdictions such as Montgomery with more than 500,000 people, the average salary nationally is $44,275 for starting firefighters.

Sparks thanked County officials who have negotiated with him for several months and praised their willingness to find creative solutions to the budget problem. He said that the agreement will be submitted for ratification by his members “as soon as the County gives its final sign-off.”
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