Trumbull sheriff’s employees approve wage freeze for 2009

By Ed Runyan

Most county workers received pay increases of 3 percent or more the last three years.

WARREN — Employ-ees of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department have voted 103-14 to accept a wage freeze in 2009.

The move, along with a freeze for the department’s 14 management employees, including the sheriff, will save around $255,000 this year, said Don Guarino, chief of operations for the department.

Members of the Ohio Patrolman’s Benevolent Association approved the freeze Thursday.

Lt. Pete Lucic, a director for the OPBA, said employees felt that taking a freeze was “in the best interest of the employees as well as the county.”

He added, “If we don’t take these steps now, we’ll be looking at staff reductions sometime this year.”

Trumbull County commissioners told Guarino in December during budget hearings that they felt a 2009 wage freeze was necessary.

The contract for the sheriff’s employees and county 911 workers expired at the end of 2008. Negotiations are continuing with county 911 workers.

“We want to keep all of the employees in the county, and the only way to do that is to watch the spending,” Commissioner Frank Fuda said, adding that he hopes no county layoffs will be necessary in 2009.

“We want to avoid the cycle of layoffs,” Commissioner Dan Polivka said.

“The union has been working with us, and as long as they work with us, we’ll keep people working,” Fuda said.

Fuda and Polivka said they are also hoping to secure a wage freeze this year from three other union locals that represent county workers.

The three other locals are all part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and their contracts expire around the middle of the year, Fuda said.

A fourth AFSCME union, which represents workers in the county’s Department of Job and Family Services, expires in 2010.

The agreement between the OPBA and the department has a “me, too” guarantee, Guarino said.

If any of the county’s AFSCME unions gets a pay increase in 2010, OPBA workers will get the same pay raise, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009, to be paid in a lump sum by March 1, 2010.

Sheriff’s workers will still get step increases in 2009 based on service time, Guarino said.

Commissioners approved a 2009 budget last week of $46.1 million, which was $2.2 million more than the 2008 spending plan.

The 2009 sheriff’s budget was $10.3 million, a $664,570 increase over the $9.6 million spent in 2008.

Polivka said economic problems that have resulted in job losses locally and reduced sales tax and other revenues in recent months are the reason for the wage freezes.

The last contract governing OPBA members — approved in 2007 — gave raises of 3.25 percent, 3.5 percent and 3.75 percent to sheriff’s employees through 2008. The contract was retroactive to October 2005.

Members of the AFSCME unions all got 3 percent raises in each of the three years of their last contract.

runyan@vindy.com