By Peter H. Milliken

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The Mahoning County commissioners unanimously rejected a factfinder’s report concerning unionized employees of the county’s Child Support Enforcement Agency.

The factfinder’s recommendation that each member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3577 receive three additional paid personal days off in 2014 is too costly for the agency, which faces a $260,000 budget shortfall this year, said Commissioner David Ditzler.

“You can’t open the door for three additional personal days because then, every department looks at it, and you could end up with 1,800 employees with three additional personal days” throughout county government, he added.

The local members now get four paid personal days off annually.

The commissioners acted Thursday concerning the report from Robert G. Stein of Kent.

Stein also recommended the union members pay all of their employee share of Public Employees Retirement System contributions and receive pay increases that would evenly compensate for that change.

The extra three paid personal days off in 2014 were intended only to compensate for any compensation losses the employees would suffer during the transition.

“We were dumbfounded and extremely disappointed,” said Jack Filak, regional director of AFSCME Ohio Council 8. “We did not ask for a wage increase.”

Currently, the county pays all but 0.50 percent of the 10 percent of salary designated as the employee share for these workers.

The employer’s share is 14 percent of salary.

The factfinder’s report pertained to contract re-openers in 2012 and 2013, and not to negotiations for a successor agreement to the local’s contract, which expires the end of this year.

Filak said he hopes to extend terms of the local’s current contract until Jan. 31 and revisit that extension every 10 days thereafter.

The local has 53 members at CSEA, whose annual salaries range from $30,888 to $51,438.

Their functions include clerical specialist, customer-service representative, support specialist, data-entry specialist, account clerk, cashier, intake specialist, customer inquiry support specialist and audit specialist.

At their meeting, commissioners also ratified a new three-year labor agreement with Teamsters Local 377, retroactive to Jan. 1 of this year, for 10 employees of the county treasurer’s office, in which the county is giving the workers pay raises to compensate for their agreement to pay the entire employee share of PERS.

“The net change to their take-home pay will be minimal” in this transition occurring in the first year of the agreement, said county Treasurer Dan Yemma.

Until now, the county has been paying all but 0.50 percent of the 10 percent employee share for this group.

The Teamsters’ contract allows for an annual wage re-opener in the event that the county’s budgetary situation changes, Yemma said.

The union members at the treasurer’s office earn between about $32,000 and $41,000 annually, he said.

The commissioners entered into a $15,000 contract with Burgess & Niple Inc., consulting engineers, of Columbus, to provide engineering services for the single-lane roundabout that will be built at Mathews and Sheridan roads in Boardman.

The entire intersection will close for 60 to 90 days for the construction, which is planned for next summer to minimize the impact on school buses.

The roundabout will be a traffic circle designed to improve traffic flow and safety.

When the circle is completed, there will be no traffic lights or stop signs in the intersection, and traffic will be encouraged to move counter-clockwise continuously.