Hevesi: Still Figuring
NYSCOPBA Seeks Pact's Retro Payout

By REUVEN BLAU

The State Comptroller announced last week that state Correctional Officers will have to wait a bit longer before they receive their complete 11-percent retroactive raises awarded by an arbitration panel in April.

ALAN G. HEVESI: Checking things twice.

Alan G. Hevesi said the delay is because the "extremely complicated" award requires his payroll staff to determine which portion of salary represents base pay and which stands for longevity.

Partial Payment Aug. 31

In an unusual move, Mr. Hevesi has agreed to make an advanced partial payment on Aug. 31 of as much as $7,500 to the 23,000 officers covered under the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association arbitration decision.

NYSCOPBA President Larry Flanagan said the union has pushed Mr. Hevesi to expedite the process, to no avail. "While we are discouraged that the Comptroller's Office appears to have given up on speeding the process further, we will continue to fight and make every effort to get every member every penny they are owed in as short a period as possible," Mr. Flanagan said in a message posted on the union's Web site.

LARRY FLANAGAN: Lights fire under Hevesi.

In a press release announcing the advanced payment, Mr. Hevesi pointed out that he has hired additional employees and approved overtime to help his staff properly calculate base pay as well as increases in uniform allowance, longevity payments, and a security law-enforcement differential (SLED) for NYSCOPBA members.

"We've responded to their sense of urgency," said David Neustadt, a spokesman for the Comptroller. "We would not have done the advance payment, but there are also limits. We are not going to do something irresponsible with the taxpayers' money."

Complicated Process

According to Mr. Neustadt, separating the base-pay percentage increases and the flat longevity hike is a difficult and tedious process.

Under the unanimous three-person arbitration decision, which runs through March 31, 2007, officers receive a 2.25-percent hike retroactive to April 1, 2003, and a 2.75 percent raise retroactive to April 1, 2004. Officers will also receive 3-percent raise retroactive to April 1, 2005 and another 3-percent hike April 1, 2006.

On the last day of the contract, the uniformed allowance will be rolled into base pay and increased to $1,075. Also, the SLED fund will be boosted to $1,550 at the end of the deal.

Too Long to Wait

According to Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Hevesi initially said it could take until April 2007 for members to be fully paid. "We told the Comptroller's staff that this news was simply unacceptable and that we could not, in good conscience, endorse such a schedule to the membership," Mr. Flanagan said.

NYSCOPBA members have not gotten a raise since April 2003. The award was the first time the union moved to have its contract decided by a Public Employment Relations Board panel.

"We are completely sympathetic to the problem that the Correction Officers haven't gotten an increase for a long time," Mr. Neustadt said. "We are pushing our systems to the maximum to get this done."

Over the past three years, many officers have experienced several changes in their salaries due to promotions, performance advances, transfers in and out of the bargaining unit, and location adjustments. Those modifications must all be carefully calculated, Mr. Neustadt noted.

The Comptroller's Office has a complete fact sheet detailing the advanced payment and other related issues on its Web site: www.osc.state.ny.us .

Hissing Contest

Mr. Hevesi said that it is normal for it to take months to implement back pay from arbitration decisions. For instance, the Management Confidential award was affirmed by a court on Sept. 23, 2005, but was not paid until March 2006.

Notably, Mr. Hevesi's release said that Mr. Flanagan asked him not to announce the advance payment plan while talks to speed the final payments continued.

"After this morning's meeting, President Flanagan broke this agreement and publicly criticized the Comptroller's Office for not providing a date," he added. "Since one of the reasons that Correctional Officers are angry is a lack of information, we feel it would be unfair to continue to withhold this information at President Flanagan's request."

Mr. Flanagan said that reasoning "seems a bit of a stretch." He acknowledged that the union requested that the Mr. Hevesi not announce anything until the negotiations of the implementation of the award were completed. "There is no reason that our demands cannot be met other than a complete disregard for our members," he charged.