[Council Communication]  [Attachments]

Council Communication

Title:	Ratification of labor contract between the City and Ashland Firefighter's Association
Dept:	Administration
Date:	April 6, 2004
Submitted By:	Tina Gray, HR Manager
Approved By:	Gino Grimaldi, City Administrator

Synopsis:	The City has been involved in negotiations with the Ashland Firefighter's Association since their contract expired June 30, 2003. Differences in perspective on economic issues and scheduling conflicts delayed the process. Although mediation efforts proved unsuccessful, both parties worked hard to come to a new agreement outside of arbitration. The City has reached a tentative agreement with the Association, and staff is now recommending final ratification of the agreement by the City Council.
Recommendation:	Staff recommends the Council authorize the City Administrator to sign the labor contract, ratifying the tentative agreement reached in negotiations.
Fiscal Impact:	The agreement calls for retroactive pay increases of 2% to be applied to the current wage schedule for the months of July 1, 2003-January 1, 2004, and a 2% increase retro from January 1, 2004 to present. Staff had budgeted for a 3% increase in 2003, so the first contract year amounts to an increased cost to the city of $16,300.84. The new agreement requires a 5% employee contribution for health insurance, which will help offset the increased salary cost. Under this agreement firefighters will be eligible to set aside pre-tax dollars for qualifying health care expenses in the City's Flexible Spending Account program. Participation in this program will generate payroll tax savings for the employees and the city in this and future years. The new agreement also calls for an improvement to the vacation accrual rates for this bargaining unit in order to bring the firefighters in-line with comparator jurisdictions. The improvement to vacation accruals represents a liability of approximately $121,000 over the three-year contract. However, the actual impact on the budget is negligible due to the incremental nature of vacation usage. Minimum staffing levels, vacation bidding and employee turnover dictate the amount of actual vacation time taken by employees, so it is extremely unlikely that all employees in the bargaining unit would utilize their entire vacation accrual during a given year. In fact, most firefighters carry a bank of hours from year to year subject to accrual limitations, so we do not budget the entire vacation liability. The 2nd and 3rd years of the contract call for a 3% increase on July 1st, which have already been projected into the budget and will not have any fiscal impact.
Background:	The City received notice of intent to bargain from the Ashland Firefighter's Association early in the spring of 2003. After several bargaining sessions it was clear that we had reached impasse over wages and health insurance. The Association and the City were not in agreement over the list of comparators or how to calculate the value of health and retirement benefits in the total compensation figure. After mediation it appeared that both parties would be preparing for interest arbitration. Understanding the negative impact that arbitration has on employee morale and relations between the City and the Association, both parties continued to work at coming closer together in their economic proposals. The largest factor driving negotiations apart was the inclusion of Woodburn as a comparator. The City determined that the Association's opposition to including Woodburn because they do not have paramedics was a viable argument as the City of Ashland does require paramedic certification for all new hires. Removing Woodburn from the computations lead to a breakthrough in negotiations and ultimately a tentative agreement that offers a fair and equitable package to the firefighters and keeps them positioned well among statutory-driven comparators. Additionally, this contract provides significant improvements in contract language, which will enhance operational issues and clarify current practice.
Attachments:	• Labor Agreement

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