Boost Location Pay $2G For Court Workers; Compromise Benefits Officers, Clerks In City, L.I.

Boost Location Pay $2G For Court Workers;
Compromise Benefits Officers, Clerks In City, L.I.

By REUVEN BLAU

After nearly eight years of haggling with its unions, the Office of Court Administration June 14 agreed to increase geographic pay by $1,950 for Court Officers and Clerks assigned to work in the city and surrounding counties.

LAWRENCE K. MARKS: Saw signs from Albany. Five unions representing court employees in the metropolitan area had argued that employees assigned to areas where the cost of living is higher should receive an additional $3,000 a year.

Retroactive to April 1

The unions persuaded the Legislature to convene a special hearing in April to address the issue. Last week, the Legislature passed a pay bill allocating the added funds for the supplemental location pay, which will be retroactive to April 1. Each of the unions must still ratify the proposal.

"This is finally resolved after an eight-year impasse," said OCA's Administrative Director, Lawrence K. Marks, noting that it will cost the state $14.2 million this year. "The Legislature made clear during its hearing in April that it wanted the court system and the five unions to resolve this long impasse now."

The Office of Court Administration had contended that the location pay issue should be addressed during the next round of contract negotiations.

JOHN McKILLOP: Will press issue in future. The offer may lead to location pay hikes for all court employees working in the downstate area. Under the current proposal, court officers, reporters, and attorneys working in Suffolk and Nassau counties will likely receive the additional location pay while their colleagues based in the five boroughs who are represented by other unions will be left out.

Grist for Contract Mill

"This is not the most logical approach," Mr. Marks acknowledged. "There are some inconsistencies here that we are going to have to address during the next round of negotiations."

The issue dates to January 1998, when a fact-finder made a non-binding recommendation that the unions' members were entitled an additional $3,000 geographic differential pay boost on the grounds that past wage increases had not kept pace with inflation and that expenses are much higher downstate. The court coalition, which includes four of the unions, had cited that report's conclusion as the basis for their argument.

DENNIS QUIRK: 'Got what could be gotten.' "I'm very disappointed that there was no retroactivity involved, even though this issue has been out there since 1998," asserted John McKillop, the president of the Supreme Court Officers' Association.

Nonetheless, he endorsed the agreement. "I'm accepting the reality of this settlement," he said. "I think if they vote it down, that would be a worse outcome for our members than the settlement. We will continue to pursue this issue during collective bargaining."

'Best We Could Get'

Dennis W. Quirk, the president of the Court Officers' Association, noted that officers already make $1,302 in location pay. "It's going to bring our total location pay to over $3,000," he said. "I think we reached the best settlement we could have gotten. It would have been nice if we got what the original fact-finder said."

The court coalition, which includes four of the unions, had cited that report's conclusion as the basis for its argument. The court coalition includes the COA, SCOA, the Court Officers' Benevolent Association of Nassau County, and the Suffolk County Court Employees' Association. The Court Clerks' Association filed a separate grievance on the matter.

"I think the best thing to do is to compound what we got," said COBANC President Patrick G. Cribbin. "We can't look back, we have to look forward."

In April, Lauren DeSole, OCA's Director of Human Resources, contended that location pay increases are not necessary because there is no recruitment or retention problem in those areas. "To the contrary, more than 43,000 candidates sat for the New York State Court Officer Trainee exam in the fall of 2005," she testified, noting that the majority of those officers are assigned to work in the city. "Routinely, advertisements for non-competitive positions with the court system yield numerous qualified applicants in this region."

Harry Greenberg, the attorney representing the COA, countered at the hearing that the issue had nothing to do with recruitment and retention problems. "Our premise for geographic pay was and continues to be that it is more costly to live in the metropolitan region than in other areas of New York State," he asserted.

Mr. Greenberg and other attorneys for the unions noted that State Police Officers and other titles receive a similar location pay differential. State Police Officers have a four-tiered geographic pay system based on the cost of living in different areas throughout the state. Officers assigned to Nassau County can receive as much as $7,750 a year more than their counterparts stationed in other areas.