Comptroller: Set It Aside
COs' Back Pay Is In Nassau Coffers

By REUVEN BLAU

Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman said Sept. 25 that the district has set aside and reserved funds to pay its Correction Officers and other employees money the county withheld as part of a lag payroll plan to help reduce costs and prevent layoffs during the county's 1999 fiscal crisis.

HOWARD WEITZMAN: Funds available to pay.

A Federal judge recently ordered the county to pay the 1,100 Correction Officers. That award will likely cost Nassau $2.6 million, sources said.

Other Unions Might Claim

But the ruling could have far greater ramifications and affect every county employee, insiders have asserted. The other Long Island-based unions may argue that their members should also be paid, because their Lag Payroll Agreement (LPA) included a provision that specified the deal was only valid if all the county's main labor organizations were included. Compensating those workers would cost the county as much as $20 million next year, sources said.

Mr. Weitzman, however, asserted that the county was prepared for that possibility. "That will not have a negative impact on the county," Mr. Weitzman said. "I don't believe this will create a major problem no matter what the decision is."

The county wasn't expecting the court ruling, Mr. Weitzman said, adding, "When we assess the risks that are outstanding, this was clearly always a risk that the county knew it faced."

According to Mr. Weitzman, the county took a "conservative approach" and immediately set aside the $2.6 million after the Nassau County Sheriff Officers' Association (ShOA) filed the suit in 2003. "Just in case we lost the lawsuit," he explained. "It's standard procedure when we have the money."

'We Can Cover It'

As for the possibility of having to pay the other unions should they file similar claims, the Comptroller's Director of Communications, Allen Morrison, said, "Although this is a large amount, if the county were required to pay, it could cover the liability from existing reserves."

Brian Sullivan, ShOA's first vice president, said he was "intrigued" by the Comptroller's comments. "We were never notified that the money was kept in abeyance," he remarked. "If they set aside the money, to me that shows that they obviously knew they were going to have to pay everybody back."

He continued, "They willfully took our money illegally."

Mr. Weitzman explained that a recently released a report generated by his staff, which found that the county has a projected $100-million structural gap, did not include the lag pay issue. In December 1999, then-Nassau County Executive Tom Gulotta met with all the county's unions and advised them that employees would be laid off unless they could agree to certain cost-saving measures.

Lone Holdout on Lag

The unions agreed to a lag payroll, which allowed the county to defer 10 days of pay for each union member over the course of 10 bi-weekly pay periods. The deferred money was to be returned only after employees left their jobs.

At the time of that discussion and subsequent agreement, ShOA was in the midst of negotiating a new contract. The LPA for the ShOA stipulated that it would only be valid after a new accord was ratified. But the union's deal was never finalized, and ShOA's renegotiated contract did not include any mention of the LPA.

Nonetheless, in September 2003, the county moved to lag the pay of ShOA members, contending that the union had been given proper notice. The union objected and sued, charging that withholding pay from its members violated the contract. "Our argument was that lag was only tied to our first contract, and that was turned down," Mr. Sullivan said.

In a Sept. 12 decision, U.S. District Judge Arthur D. Spatt of the Eastern District of New York ruled in favor of the union. "The actions taken by the county were clearly unauthorized," he concluded. The decision noted that the county acknowledged that its authorization was based solely on the LPA, which lower courts ruled was not part of the ShOA deal.