Gilroy
– As negotiations with fire union representatives remain
deadlocked over costly retirement benefits, city leaders are
debating a ballot measure that could end binding arbitration.
Gilroy – As negotiations with fire union representatives remain deadlocked over costly retirement benefits, city leaders are debating a ballot measure that could end binding arbitration.
Mayor Al Pinheiro and other council members would not comment on the issue, but Pinheiro said that “obviously, any time you put the city’s financial situation in the hands of an arbitrator that doesn’t have to balance what the city can and cannot afford, that’s a frustration.”
Gilroy voters added binding arbitration to the city charter in 1988, when fire and police unions used a petition to get the measure on the ballot.
“I think it’s an excellent thing for the city and the fire company,” said Art Amaro, president of Firefighters Local 2805. “If two parties can’t get together, you need a third to help out.”
City Council members have quietly discussed the possibility of asking voters to reconsider binding arbitration, according to sources who requested anonymity.
Binding arbitration kicks in when either the city or the union declare the negotiations at impasse, according to the city charter. Each party then appoints a representative to a Board of Arbitrators and they work together to select a third arbitrator to serve as chair. A state committee selects the chair if the initial representatives cannot agree. Once the board is appointed, both sides submit a final settlement plan and the three-member board votes to confirm one of them. The 34-member fire department came out a winner the last time negotiations reached binding arbitration in late 1998, when a private arbitrator helped settle a two-year debate over staffing fire engines with four firefighters instead of three. Local 2805 won approval for the additional position and the department grew by nine employees to cover the additional staffing.
At the time, firefighters insisted they needed the extra position as a matter of safety. City officials argued Gilroy could not afford the additional hiring.
Six years later, the city and fire union are again at loggerheads, this time over the department’s push to receive a retirement package that would allow firefighters to retire at age 50 with 90 percent of their salary.
The 3 at 50 program, as it is known, would grant union members three percent of their final year’s salary for every year they worked, up to 30 years.
Firefighters can reach the 90 percent target under their current benefit system, but they must first work at least 36 years. In theory, a firefighter who starts his career at 18 could receive the maximum benefit by age 54, according to actuarial charts. But fire officials have complained that modern education and training requirements means many younger firefighters cannot start their careers until their mid- to late twenties, forcing them to work into their sixties to receive the maximum retirement benefit.
“It used to be you could come in at the age of 18 and get hired,” said Jim Buessing, fire union secretary and treasurer. “That’s no longer the case. Now you have to have college. The majority of people are coming in with a two-year degree, one year paramedic training, plus a year of training on an ambulance.”
Buessing said the average Gilroy firefighter joins the department at 27 with no prior experience, the age he started.
In arguing their case, firefighters say they simply want the same benefits package afforded to police, who negotiated the 3 at 50 program in 2001.
Since the program took effect for police, the city’s payouts for public-safety retirement benefits have spiked from $895,615 in 2001 to $3.2 million for the upcoming fiscal year, according to figures provided by the city.
The vast majority of the increases went to cover the police department’s retirement payments, according to City Administrator Jay Baksa. He and other officials have said the city budget cannot sustain additional benefit increases without cutting into funding for other departments or programs. The city is now in the process of putting together a “zero-increase” budget.
If the city is successful in bringing the issue back before the voters, Gilroy could return to a system of collective bargaining, without binding arbitration. It appears unlikely that a vote would take place in time to affect current negotiations and for the moment, both sides remain hopeful of an agreement. The city and fire union expect to sit down at the negotiating table again on Thursday.
“We’re still talking,” union president Amaro said.
Pinheiro said that the city is “working to find a solution.”
