Saratoga County supervisors plan vote on jail contract

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The Saratoga County Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday on a proposed four-year contract with the union representing corrections officers and others who work at the county jail.

The deal, approved last week by the board’s Law and Finance Committee, calls for wage increases retroactive to 2011, and new health care cost contributions from the employees.

The settlement is with the Deputy Sheriff’s Benevolent Association, which represents 128 people, including corrections officers and sheriff’s desk dispatchers.

The union has been without an agreement since Dec. 31, 2010. The new deal runs through Dec. 31, 2014.

The employees will receive a $600 additional salary payment for 2011, and a 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment for 2012. For 2013, the salary increase will be 1.75 percent, and in 2014 it will be 2 percent.

County officials said the contract also includes higher health care premium contributions from employees, including some who have never contributed before.

“The health care concessions obtained in this agreement are unprecedented,” said county board Chairman Alan R. Grattidge, R-Charlton.

He said health care is one of the county’s fastest-rising costs, and a goal in contract negotiations will be getting higher contributions from employees of all three unions.

Under the settlement, new employees will pay 20 percent of their health insurance premiums, up from 15 percent. All, employees hired before 1998, who have paid nothing toward health care coverage, will start paying 5 percent. Employees hired between 1998 and now will continue to pay 15 percent.

The Deputy Sheriff’s Benevolent Association has also ratified the contract.

The Deputy Sheriff’s Benevolent Association is the first to reach agreement in the current round of negotiations. Neither the Civil Service Employees Association or the union that represents the sheriff’s road patrol deputies has a current contract.

The Deputy Sheriffs Police Benevolent Association, which represents road deputies, has been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2009; the parties are currently in arbitration. The CSEA contract with 900 county employees in other departments expired on Dec. 31, 2012.