City Unions Tentatively Agree on Contracts for Next 3 Years

Tentative contracts for Kent's public employee unions will see no increase in wages for the first year for about 140 full-time city union members.

Negotiators on both sides have agreed to tentative, three-year contracts for the Kent Firefighters Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that would take them through 2014. 

The city's Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, representing police supervisors, has not finalized talks.

Kent Safety Director William Lillich said the OPBA has verbally agreed to the same deal as the firefighters' and AFSCME unions, which will see a 1 percent raise in the second year of their contracts and a 2 percent raise in the final contract year.

Lillich said the city's three Fraternal Order of Police unions representing police officers, dispatchers and civilian employees tentatively agreed to the same zero-percent wage increase in the first year, but the city will reopen talks with those three unions in the second and third years.

"Our employees have really stepped up at this point, where they recognize the condition the city's finances are in, and they know the city's administration is working hard to improve that with all the new development work and new businesses that we've been working hard on," Lillich said. "So they're willing to do their part."

The tentative agreements were approved within the past two weeks, and Kent City Council will vote on the contracts Wednesday — except for the OPBA contract, which likely won't go to council for a final vote until Nov. 2.

Employees will see no raises in the first year under the tentative contracts, but they also won't see an increase in employee healthcare contributions in the first year. Employee contributions to healthcare coverage will increase in the second and third years.

Liz Zorc, Kent's human resources manager, said the city's unions approached Kent's administrators with that deal.

"S.B. 5 being on the ballot in November, I think both the city and the unions felt it would be advantageous for us to have the contracts in place before the election took effect," Zorc said. "The unions can feel they have a safety net of the next three years with the same contract, and for the city we also feel comfortable having a contract in place because there’s probably going to be some legal issues. Whether or not (Issue 2) passes or doesn’t pass, there’s going to be some lawsuits fired out there, and we would prefer not to have to be involved in those."

Kent Service Director Gene Roberts, who was part of the negotiating team for the city, said having a contract in place before the Nov. 8 vote on Issue 2 helps the city avoid having to wait possibly years for court cases to settle out and determine the effect of the law, if passed.

"Regardless of the outcome, we’ll know what we need to do three years from now," Roberts said. "Both the management and the unions are going to have to spend a lot of money to determine what the law means."

Jeff Coffee, vice president of the Kent Firefighters Association, said the contract talks went well and the union members were happy to reach an agreement with the city.

"I think in this climate we're quite pleased to have accomplished that," Coffee said.

The negotiations did not encompass the entire contract. This year, the city and unions only dealt with wages and healthcare benefits.

"Wages and healthcare are expensive items, and those are also items that the city was most concerned with, given the economy," Zorc said.

Formal negotiations didn't start until August, representing about two months worth of formal talks. Preliminary discussions with the unions have been ongoing for about six months. That represents a significantly shorter time frame compared with years past when the entire contract also would have been on the table.

"It was not uncommon to take a good six months from start to finish" for formal negotiations, Lillich said of past contracts.

Zorc said Kent City Manager Dave Ruller was part of early talks to set the tone for the contracts, but he did not take part for the entire formal negotiations. Earlier this year, Ruller asked council as a gesture towards the .

Lillich said the city is not as bad off financially as other communities, and that allowed for the raises in the second and third years — and for adminstrators to maintain good relationships with city employees.

"We’re trying to deal reasonably with our employees because they have earned that," he said.