Sheriff’s union receives contract

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The county has reached a four-year agreement with the union for sheriff’s department corrections and communications officers after 15 months without a contract.

The agreement, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007, calls for 3.8 percent raises in 2007 and 2008, and 4 percent raises in 2009 and 2010.

It was recommended unanimously Wednesday by the Board of Supervisors Law and Finance Committee, sending it to the Board of Supervisors for a vote Tuesday in Ballston Spa.

It has already been ratified by members of the Saratoga County Deputy Sheriff Benevolent Association, by an 82-9 vote.

“This is a good contract for both parties,” said county Personnel Director William S. Baker.

Don Stack, president of the union, declined to comment in detail until after the Board of Supervisors votes, but he praised Tony Zumbolo, a state mediator who worked with the parties.

“He seems to knuckle down and get the results both sides want,” Stack said.

The two parties had declared an impasse in their negotiations last year, leading to the intervention of the state Public Employees Relations Board, which assigned Zumbolo. He met with the parties three times, Baker said.

The contract covers 121 people who are in non-law enforcement jobs at the sheriff’s department, including corrections offices, employees of the civil department, and the communications desk officers who handle emergency dispatching.

Under the contract, the base salary of a corrections officer, which was $34,000 in 2006, will rise immediately to $36,641, and other base salaries will rise accordingly.

Baker said the county got some health insurance cost concessions, with the major medical deductible for members rising starting Jan. 1, 2009. With ratification of the agreement, the county will have agreements with all three of its employee unions.

The Civil Service Employees Association represents the majority of county employees, about 1,000 people, and has an agreement through 2009.

The sheriff’s road patrol officers have a separate union, and the county also has a labor agreement with it.

The current employees will receive any retroactive pay they are due in their next paychecks, Baker said.