Most of Slate Returns
SCOA Officers Give McKillop 2nd Term

By REUVEN BLAU

Supreme Court Officers' Association President John McKillop and the majority of his slate were unopposed for new three-year terms.

JOHN McKILLOP: One good term deserves a 2nd.

"I think it's a tribute to the administration that the membership has essentially already voted to continue with this administration," Mr. McKillop said in a phone interview after the April 26 union meeting. "It tells us that we are certainly headed in the right direction after a number of years of difficulty with leadership with this union."

A Smoother Transition

In 2004, Mr. McKillop replaced former SCOA President James T. Carr, who took over after the prior president was involved in a fistfight at the union's lower Manhattan office.

Mr. McKillop initially vowed to serve only one term, but in January he said he changed his mind after his delegates urged him to run again. "They unanimously did so," he said shortly after announcing that decision.

This is his second stint heading the union, which represents 1,495 Senior Court Officers, Court Officers, and Sergeants who work at state courts in the city and several upstate counties. Mr. McKillop also served as SCOA president from 1989 to 1992. In the interim, he worked as a Captain in the 9th Judicial District in Westchester County.

Three of the five union officers on Mr. McKillop's slate were also re-elected without opposition. They are: Richard Krulish, first vice president; David M. Gregson, treasurer; and John Strandberg, recording secretary.

Two Face Opposition

The union's incumbent second vice president, George Serrano, is being challenged by James McDonagh and Sonny Tannenbaum. In addition, incumbent Secretary Timothy Kenny is being opposed by Frank Mangano.

Ballots will be mailed out May 10 and counted on June 1. The election is being administered by the American Arbitration Association.

As with all the state's other public-employee unions, the SCOA is currently working to negotiate a new contract with the Spitzer administration. The SCOA's contract expired on March 31.

It recently joined a coalition of eight unions representing court employees, which is being chaired by Dennis W. Quirk, president of the Court Officers' Association.

The coalition includes: The Association of Surrogates and Supreme Court Reporters, the Court Officers' Benevolent Association of Nassau County, the Communications Workers of America, the Suffolk County Court Employees Association, the Court Attorneys Association of the City of New York, The Ninth Judicial District Court Employees Association, and the union representing law assistants.

A Change of Heart

Initially, Mr. McKillop indicated that the SCOA would negotiate separately, as it had during the last round of bargaining. "After internal discussions, we just thought it would be in the best interest of our membership to be in the coalition," Mr. McKillop remarked.

Under his leadership, the SCOA negotiated a contract with the Office of Court Administration in March 2006 that provided most incumbent officers with a retroactive "senior officer series differential" in lieu of placing those titles higher on the pay scale as part of the court reclassification plan.

The deal, which was overwhelmingly ratified, was announced after Mr. McKillop spent his first 18 months in office arguing that his members should be included in reclassification just as their colleagues represented by the Court Officers' Association were.

OCA had discussed upgrading the Senior Court Officer title from Judicial Grade 18 to 19. But Mr. McKillop rejected that offer because it did not include boosting the salary for the more-than 200 Sergeants he represents.

Got It At Table

The SCOA, Mr. McKillop said, instead used collective-bargaining negotiations to obtain additional raises for its veteran officers. "Other unions like the COA were able to achieve their goals through classification," he remarked at the time. "I attempted to get to the same place by another route."

Last June, the SCOA and other court unions also finally persuaded OCA to increase geographic pay by $1,950 for Court Officers and Clerks assigned to work in the city and surrounding counties. The court unions had been lobbying the state for that raise since 1998, when a fact-finder made a non-binding recommendation that the unions' members were entitled to 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.