Trumbull commissioners approve child-support contract

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The Trumbull County commissioners have approved a new collective-bargaining agreement with 48 workers at the Child Support Enforcement Agency.

It includes raises of $1.05 per hour over the three years of the contract – 40 cents, 30 cents and 35 cents – but removes the pension pickup for new hires effective Jan. 1. It also increases the employee contribution to health care from 10 percent to 11 percent.

The percentage of the raises varies depending on the wage of the employee.

Under the old contract, the county paid 9 percent of the 10 percent employee’s pension share, in addition to the county’s 14 percent share.

County officials have said recently Trumbull is one of only four counties in Ohio that pay a part of the employees’ share of their pension, referred to as “pension pickup.”

A citizens budget review committee this year recommended the county commissioners end that practice, and the commissioners have instructed human resources director, Richard Jackson, to try to eliminate it in contract negotiations.

“It’s going to have a positive effect on the taxpayers,” Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said of the PERS change.

Anna Loney, human resources administrator for Job and Family Services and CSEA, said the hourly increases will cost the county about $39,900 more the first year, $29,900 the second year and $34,900 the third year.

The wage schedule in the new CSEA contract says the pay for a receptionist with five years experience will rise from $12.72 per hour under the old contract to $13.77 per hour in 2019.

The pay rate for a public-assistance specialist with five years experience will rise from $16.79 per hour in the old contract to $17.84 per hour in 2019.

Stephan Stoyak of Liberty, one of the members of the citizen budget review committee, said he’s been learning bits and pieces of what the commissioners are doing with the committee’s recommendations, including the PERS pickup, but he’d like to know more.

Stoyak said it’s been six months since the committee made its recommendations, and he wishes the commissioners would meet with the committee to discuss more of the issues they raised.

Stoyak said he and a majority of the committee members felt the PERS pickup should be eliminated over time because it could have a significant impact on the county’s finances.

Last month, county commissioners approved a contract with 62 corrections officers at the jail that increased pay 95 cents per hour over three years but will increase the PERS pickup for people hired after 2010 from 4 percent to 8.5 percent over the next two years.

That decision was ordered by a conciliator who said he felt it was unfair for one set of workers to get 8.5 percent PERS pickup and the other set to get 4 percent.

County Commissioner Frank Fuda said it’s an example of how the commissioners lose control over what happens when a labor matter goes to a conciliator.