FARRELL, PA. City council ratifies pact with pay raise for union

Employees agreed to pay 4.5 percent of their annual health-care insurance cost.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- City hourly and salaried employees will get a $1,000 pay raise in 2004, but most of them won't be taking all of that money home.
For the first time in the city's history, the employees will be picking up a percentage of their health-care costs.
City council voted Monday to ratify a one-year contract with Local 200 of the American Federation of State, County & amp; Municipal Employees union.
That pact affects only five street department and office staff employees, but its terms are also used as the wage and benefit scale for the city's 12 salaried employees, said City Manager LaVon Saternow.
That list includes her, she said.
The contract grants hourly workers a 50-cent per hour pay increase, which amounts to $1,000 a year.
Therefore, salaried employees will be getting a $1,000 raise as well, she said.
The union agreed to pick up 4.5 percent of their health-care costs, which translates into $40 a month, Saternow said, noting that the salaried employees will make the same contribution.
It comes to nearly $500 a year per employee, essentially cutting the pay raise in half, she said.
Four or five city employees will take home the full raise, however, as they opt not to take the city's insurance package. Some, for example, may have better insurance coverage through a spouse's employer.
Incentive offered
As an incentive not to take city insurance, Farrell pays them one-third of the health-care premium cost in cash. That will amount to about $300 a month next year, she said.
Councilman Lou Falconi said he recognized how difficult it was to negotiate premium sharing into the new contract and suggested that it will be used as a precedent in negotiations with other city-funded employees, particularly police officers employed by the Southwest Mercer County Regional Police Department.
Farrell provides the bulk ($887,000) of the funding for that police agency.
The pay raises resulted in a slight increase in the proposed 2004 general fund budget also introduced by council.
It shows spending of $2,208,544, up about $20,000 from the original budget proposed by Saternow in October and is about $140,000 higher than the 2003 spending plan.
The budget will operate on the same 22.67-mill property tax base that funded the 2003 budget.
Council also gave first reading to a proposed $752,408 sewer fund budget for 2004, an increase of about $18,000 over this year.
Farrell raised sewer fees in March, increasing the average residential rate from $169 to $193 a year, generating about $78,000 in new revenue.
Final passage of the budgets is set for Monday.
gwin@vindy.com