Review of the county’s collective bargaining agreement was pushed back until May 4 as councilmembers strive to approve a balanced operating budget for Fiscal Year 2027.
Council President Natali Fani-González proposed a uniform 2% general wage adjustment for compensation for employees. This flat rate enables all county employees to receive salary increases “while helping eliminate an increase to the property tax,” according to her statement.
Elrich Agreements on Hold
Councilmembers were supposed to indicate by May 1 whether they would approve or reject the collective bargaining agreements made between County Executive Marc Elrich and union representatives. Under Tuesday’s vote, members now have until May 4.
Elrich’s proposed budget includes differing general wage adjustment for employees depending on department. All are all higher than 2%. Some salary schedules also include service increment raises.
Bargaining Process Raises Questions
Compensation for employees totals $4.9 billion in the executive’s proposed budget. That represents a 4.5% increase from the current year, according to Craig Howard, Executive Director of the County Council.
“We are really in a tough situation,” said Fani-González. She said Elrich’s proposed operating budget “is not sustainable. It’s not.”
Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe said that she doesn’t support a property tax increase and therefore must find items to cut. Because employee compensation is a major chunk of the budget, she said it must be reviewed.
She questioned the way the union contracts are approved. Currently, Elrich and his staff hold sessions with the many unions representing county employees. After both sides come to an agreement, the amounts are included in his proposed budget, without input from councilmembers, Balcombe explained.
“It just doesn’t make sense” that promises are made to employees before the dollars are approved, she said. “It is a bit of a chicken and the egg” situation.
Jawando Weighs In
Councilmember Will Jawando said he wants to honor the bargaining agreements. “That’s what I will be supporting,” he said, adding the agreements were made “in good faith.”
Gino Renne, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers MCGEO Local 1994, strongly criticized reducing already agreed upon bargaining agreements. He said that would be “terrible” for recruitment and retention of workers.
“The whole idea is to keep us competitive,” Renne told councilmembers.
Councilmembers will begin taking straw votes on individual parts of the proposed budget May 4 before approving the FY 2027 operating budget.
Comments are closed.