Layoffs may follow SB 5 defeat, local officials say

Both sides say talks key to solutions.

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By Ed Richter, Staff Writer 12:37 AM Sunday, November 13, 2011

While Senate Bill 5 would have changed the collective bargaining process for Ohio’s public employee unions, local officials say Tuesday’s defeat of Issue 2 won’t have much effect on how they do business.

The leaders said “the system is broken” to negotiate contracts with unions, but they’ll work with what they have.

Hamilton City Manager Joshua Smith said the defeat of Issue 2 is “irrelevant” because the city still has to have a balanced budget.

Smith said if local governments don’t get collective bargaining concessions at some point, “we’re going to have fewer employees.”

“My hope is that we can work with employee unions to have common sense reductions in employee costs,” he said.

Opponents to Issue 2 said they hope proponents will take a bipartisan approach to collective bargaining reforms, if they’re needed.

“When this whole thing started, my big fear was that they would rush this bill through and we would have to do what it takes to get it repealed,” said Eric Abney, president of the Hamilton firefighters union. “Now, 20 some million dollars later, nothing is solved. If there are true issues that need fixed, hopefully they can come to the table and work together for a solution.”

Smith said the city is currently negotiating two contracts. Overall, the city has 11 contracts with its nine unions.

He said there needs to be reforms in the binding arbitration process. Smith said arbitrators tend to look at a local government’s ability to pay through their fund balances and not from a more global perspective of the budget. He also believes City Council, not arbitrators, should be the ones to decide when the city and union negotiators are at an impasse.

Smith said there needs to be a balance between treating employees fairly and making sure residents are getting the services they are paying for.

Jon Harvey, president of International Association of Fire Firefighters Local 336 in Middletown said the collective bargaining has worked for 30 years but also said there’s always room for improvement.

He said the public employee unions wanted to come to the table with state officials early on before SB 5 was enacted. However, he said Ohio Gov. John Kasich said “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”

Harvey said the governor and leadership in the Ohio House and Senate bought in because they thought they had wide support to do this.

Middletown City Manager Judy Gilleland said she doesn’t discount the value of unions or the collective bargaining process.

“However, I firmly believe the system is broken and needs to be fixed,” she said.

Some of the Senate Bill 5 provisions are already being implemented in Middletown, such as employees paying 15 percent of their health care costs starting Jan. 1. She said direct financial impact will be minimal and won’t impact the city’s 2012 budget. The city is also currently negotiating with its firefighters union.

But the indirect financial impact will come when future contracts are negotiated.

Gilleland said she’d like to see changes in the process, particularly with binding arbitration, which is one limitation that affects local governments.

“There is no perfect system in the way the negotiation process works and it’s very difficult to come up with a solution to a problem with divergent opinions,” she said.

Warren County Administrator David Gully said “it’s business as usual.”

“We’ll continue to negotiate contracts. Contracts will go to binding arbitration, and union members will continue to get better wages and benefits than nonunion employees,” he said. “That’s how it’s been done for the past and that’s how it will be in the future.”

Gully said local governments have a finite amount of money and have heard voters say to keep taxes low and reduce spending. He also said voters said to give union members better raises and benefits with the defeat of Issue 2.

“Eventually that will mean fewer employees,” Gully said. “It’s basic math and we only have X dollars to give out to employees.”

Mike Campbell, interim Butler County administrator, said the county has already been going through budget cuts for the past few years and has been implementing some provisions that were contained in Senate Bill 5.

“We’ve already been heading down that path,” he said.

Campbell, who has been on the job for the past six months in addition to being executive director of the Butler County Port Authority, said county departments have conducted performance audits, centralized purchasing and looking at health care costs.

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