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Youngstown water workers to get 8.7% pay increases in 3-year pact
The city could end up paying the union members more through fact finding, the mayor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — With the city’s general fund running in the red, city council approved a three-year deal with water department workers that includes pay increases of 8.7 percent over three years.
While the timing and the appearance may not be ideal, it makes sense for the city to approve the deal, Mayor Jay Williams said.
“We contemplated rejecting it, but it’s highly probably we’d end up with a less-favorable contract” if it went to a fact finder, he said.
Michael D. Esposito of Clemans, Nelson and Associates Inc., the Akron firm that negotiates the city’s union contracts, concurs.
The agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2726, which represents about 40 water workers, calls for smaller raises than contracts the city has with other unions, Esposito wrote in a letter to the city.
There is a “distinct possibility” a fact finder would award a larger pay raise than the one agreed to by the water workers union, he wrote.
Going to fact-finding would cost the city about $10,000 to $15,000, Williams said.
The city’s general fund is projected to end this year with a deficit of more than $3 million — probably 60 jobs or so — if nothing is done.
But the money for the AFSCME members comes from the water department fund, which has a healthy surplus.
Williams acknowledges other unions, paid through the city’s general fund, may point at the AFSCME deal during their negotiations to seek pay raises.
“But it’s an erroneous argument,” he said. “It’s just a completely invalid argument because the money [for the AFSCME deal] doesn’t come from the general fund.”
Council approved the mayor’s recommendation at its meeting Wednesday.
The city administration is talking with all unions, including the one representing water workers, about concessions, such as cuts to salary and benefits, Williams said.
Also, Williams sent a letter to the park and recreation commission formally asking its members to not fill the vacant position of director “at least until we can clarify staffing levels.”
If layoffs occur, the first to go are part-timers and seasonal staffers, who largely make up the park and recreation’s work force, Williams said.
The mayor wrote that “any new director, who would still [be] in probationary status, and with no seniority, could also be subject to a layoff.”
Jason Whitehead, Williams’ chief of staff/secretary, has filled the vacant position since May 2007. That’s when Joseph McRae abruptly resigned.
Council also expressed its intent to provide $2.4 million in water, sewer and related infrastructure funds for the Wick District-Smoky Hollow area.
That money would come from water and wastewater funds once Wick Neighbors Inc. obtained another $7.1 million for those items through federal, state and private funding.
The agency is spearheading the redevelopment project.
The organization’s goal is to develop a $100 million neighborhood with housing and retail businesses in a 66-acre location bounded by Wick, Andrews, Rayen and Madison avenues.
City council also passed resolutions supporting Wick Neighbors’ plans to seek state and federal dollars. There is no timetable for obtaining the funding.
skolnick@vindy.com