In a 2007 decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that final,
pro-rated longevity payments earned by two retiring assistant attorneys general
had to be included in their pension calculations
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While most
veteran unionized employees are forfeiting their longevity pay as part of the
labor concession deal, thousands of non-union workers, including several top
officials in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration,
will share millions of dollars in seniority bonuses next month.
The Department of
Administrative Services declined Thursday to release a preliminary list of
staff slated to receive longevity payments next month. Department spokesman
Jeffrey Beckham said it still was being adjusted to reflect resignations,
retirements and layoffs over the past six months. But longevity pay is issued
twice yearly and 3,599 non-union staff received such bonuses, worth about $7 million in April.
Malloy's budget chief argued that a new
longevity cap imposed on non-union employees earlier this year will save more
money over the next 30 years. But he conceded that the administration
executives and managers with the most years of service will sacrifice nothing.
Non-union workers
would have shared in the longevity pay cutbacks had union workers approved the
first labor concession deal. After that deal was rejected in June, however,
legislation cutting bonuses for non-union workers was repealed, and it wasn't
reinstated when the deal passed in a second vote.
Key lawmakers
from both parties were surprised to learn that the cuts in longevity pay for
non-union workers had been revoked.
"This is not
apples and apples," said House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, R-Norwalk, one
of Malloy's most vocal critics. Cafero noted that
while Malloy imposed an across-the-board longevity bonus cap on his top
executives in January, many of those same executives will collect thousands of
dollars in bonuses in a few weeks. "What looked like a grand fiscal
gesture in January has turned out to be a windfall in October for Malloy's
senior staff," he said. "Where is the shared sacrifice?"
"Oh my
God," said Sen. Edith G.
Prague, D-Columbia, co-chairwoman of
the Labor and Public Employees Committee. "It's outrageous."
The longevity pay
system, first created by statute in 1967 and subsequently
guaranteed in most union contracts since then, rewards most workers with
biannual bonuses after they have achieved 10 years of service. The statutes
also call for higher bonuses after workers hit their 15-, 20 and 25-year
anniversaries, after which longevity pay is capped.
The bonuses, paid
to most eligible workers in April and October, have been an increasing
source of controversy at the Capitol amid the fiscal crises of recent years.
Prague, who chastised state employee unions for initially rejecting a concession deal in June
before ratifying on a second vote in August, added Thursday that non-union
workers should have to make some immediate salary sacrifice.
That appeared to
be the plan on June 7 when the legislature enacted a budget policy statute that the administration
"shall implement changes to longevity payments for such (non-union)
officers and employees comparable to the longevity payment provisions of the
agreement" with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition. Malloy
signed that into law on June 21.
But on June 30,
that language was repealed in another budget policy bill adopted in special session and
also signed by Malloy. Instead the administration was directed to apply the
longevity pay cap it had imposed on to executives to all non-union staff.
The executive cap
was ordered by Malloy on Jan. 21, and applied to about 50 top officials. It
said the officials could not earn higher payments in future years, even if they
had fewer than 25 years of service.
The order also
stipulated that those who hadn't received a longevity payment in October
2010--such as legislators who left that branch in January to join his
administration--would not be eligible for bonuses in the future.
By expanding
these ground rules to all non-union workers, the June 30 legislation did two
things:
·
It blocked all non-union staff who have not yet qualified for longevity
payments from ever receiving them.
·
And it also locked those who do receive them from receiving any future
increase in their bonus, regardless of how many years of service they accrue.
By comparison,
the concession deal means about 39,800 unionized employees will forfeit their
entire longevity payment this year. Another 5,200 union members, primarily
involving higher education faculty and Judicial branch
professionals, will forfeit 25 percent of their October payment.
About $13.2 million in longevity
payments went out to more than 28,640 unionized employees in April.
"The current
system has been unfairly skewed towards management--but we have always said
that on the merits longevity bonuses make good fiscal sense," State
Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition spokesman Matt O'Connor said. "They
encourage the workforce to continue their public service careers. And we
believe that longevity bonuses also justly reward workers for decades of
service to their employer. Plus they save millions in retraining costs and improves the quality of services that we all count on.
But Malloy's
budget director, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin
Barnes, noted that while these groups
will lose money now, they and any other unionized employees hired before June
30 this year remain in the longevity pay system and will be able to qualify for
increasing bonuses down the road.
By comparison,
all non-union workers shy of 10 years of experience never can qualify for
longevity pay under the new system, and those that are eligible to receive them
next month won't see those bonuses increase in the future.
"We believe
that the savings we are imposing here is significantly greater over the
long-term," he said.
But 38 out of the
41 salary groups for unionized workers call for longevity bonuses ranging from
$75 to $998, and the last allow workers to earn between $1,000 and $1,100 after
they reach 25 years of service. Bonuses in the middle three salary groups range
from $114 to $568.
By comparison, 18
of the 20 bonus levels Malloy executives can qualify for top $1,000, ranging as
high as $5,600.
And Barnes
conceded that those executives who already topped out under the old system
because they had more than 25 years of experience -- such as deputy OPM
Secretary Mark Ojakian, who negotiated the concession
deal -- aren't penalized at all under the new system, which simply reinforces
an existing cap.
Ojakian, who received a $4,800 payment
in April, will not lose his in October and his payments weren't slated to
increase under either the old system or the new one. A former deputy state
comptroller before moving in January to the Malloy administration, Ojakian declined to comment Thursday.
And even those
executives who have fewer than 25 years of state service might need to work two
to four more years, Cafero noted, before the capping
system would cost them enough to equal what they otherwise would lose if they
had to forfeit their October payment instead.
"This is the
problem," Prague
said. "Executives and managers already make good salaries. There's not a
balance here."
For example,
three top scientists at the state's agricultural experimental station qualified
in April for bonuses above $4,100.
Over 18 non-union
staffers in the state auditors' office earned bonuses in excess of $4,000 last
time.
"Of course
there are examples where management salaries -- and as a result, their bonuses
-- are out of whack," O'Connor added. "The solution is to do the hard
work of transforming state government so that resources are redirected to the
people who need services and the workers who deliver them."
"And that's
our focus right now -- holding the Malloy Administration to their obligation to
work with us to make state government work better and be a better place to
work," he added.
Barnes added that
even though the administration signed legislation in early June that would have
required non-union longevity pay to be adjusted comparable to any unionized
concessions, it believes such a move might be challenged in court as an illegal
taking of salary.
In a 2007 decision, the Connecticut
Supreme Court ruled that final, pro-rated longevity payments earned by two
retiring assistant attorneys general had to be included in their pension
calculations
http://www.ctmirror.org/story/14055/thousands-non-union-workers-receive-longevity-bonuses-next-month