The case against New York’s 30-year-old “Triborough Amendment,” whose repeal has been a mandate relief priority of local and school officials throughout the state, is laid out in a new report issued today by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

Entitled Triborough Trouble, the report explains how the law requires public employers to maintain all contractual perks for unionized public employees, including automatic “step” increases in pay, after the expiration of a union contract. Key findings include the following:
The Triborough Amendment gives unions an incentive to resist negotiating structural changes to their contracts, since the status quo will be preserved even if there is no contract.
Pay hikes required by the Triborough Amendment cost the state government $140 million a year and add almost $300 million a year to school budgets.
The requirement to finance automatic pay increases has undermined attempts to stretch taxpayer dollars further in a time of extreme financial stress.
Repeal of the Triborough Amendment will establish a more equitable collective bargaining system in New York’s public sector, preserving basic union rights while giving local officials the tools they now lack to negotiate needed changes to costly and outmoded contracts.
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Triborough Trouble
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Triborough Trouble notes that pay hikes guaranteed by the law can be particularly expensive for school districts, since teachers can spend much of their careers moving up pay steps and across lanes. Using the median Suffolk County teacher pay scale as an example, the report illustrates how a starting teacher can receive pay increases averaging 7 percent a year, even when base salaries are “frozen.”

Contrary to union claims, the report says, repeal of the Triborough Amendment would not expose union members to the unilateral reduction of health insurance or other important benefits. Rather, basic terms and conditions of employment would be protected by the underlying ‘Triborough Doctrine,” based on a state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) ruling dating back to 1972.

The report also debunks claims by union leaders that the Triborough Amendment was a “trade-off” for the legal prohibition on public strikes. In fact, the report points out, public employee strikes have been outlawed in New York since the late 1940s. The prohibition continued, with reduced penalties, under the Taylor Law, enacted 15 years before the Triborough Amendment.

The report was written by E.J. McMahon, senior fellow at the Empire Center, and Terry O’Neil, one of the state’s foremost labor law experts, who heads the Garden City office of the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King. The Albany-based Empire Center is a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a leading 501-c-3 think tank.

Peter Baynes, executive director of the New York Conference of Mayors, said the Empire Center report “clearly and unequivocally demonstrates the inequities fostered by the Triborough Amendment.”

“Rather than protecting the sanctity of public contract negotiations, the Triborough Amendment makes a mockery of the concept of fair and balanced collective bargaining.” Baynes said. “By repealing the Triborough Amendment, but leaving intact the Triborough Doctrine, employees will be protected from unilateral reductions in benefits, and taxpayers will be protected from automatic increases in taxes.”

Timothy Kremer, executive director of the New York State Schools Boards Association, said: “The Triborough Amendment acts as a disincentive for unions to settle new contracts, especially in tough times when district officials are understandably seeking cost concessions. Why accept a new contract when the Triborough Amendment allows for an automatic salary increase while refusing to settle? The Triborough Amendment puts the district’s personnel budget on autopilot.”

Robert J. Reidy, Jr., executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said: “The fundamental challenge for our schools now is to produce the learning our students need with the resources our taxpayers can provide. The state needs to be a reliable partner with local taxpayers in funding schools. But the state also needs to change some of its rules so that we can produce more impact for students with the resources the taxpayers give us. The Empire Center’s report helps explain why addressing Triborough is so important.”

Heather Briccetti, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State, Inc. said: “This report clearly shows the need to repeal the Triborough Amendment. New York can no longer afford public employees’ pay to continue to increase under an expired contract, placing additional burdens on the state school districts and municipalities.”

Brian Sampson, executive director of Unshackle Upstate said: “The Triborough Amendment has long been an obstacle to making our communities more affordable because it guarantees pay increases and continued benefits - even if a contract is not in place. This creates a disincentive for representatives of state employees to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. Further, it ignores a community’s ability to pay, meaning that in these tough economic times, schools are forced instead to cut programs and eliminate teaching positions, and municipal government are curtailing services. It doesn’t have to be that way. It is time for our Legislature to do what is right for all taxpayers: Fix this issue so that we can maintain the integrity of the tax cap and we can continue to afford to live in New York.”

To view the report click here.

Joseph Spector of Gannett News writes:

“New York ranked second in the nation last year in average gross pay for state employees, but it ranked 26th in the per capita cost of the state work force, a report from a Rochester-based think tank found.

The average pay for state workers in New York was $55,662 in 2010, according to the report, released Friday by the Center for Government Research, based on an analysis of U.S. Census of Governments data.

New Jersey topped the list at $56,179, and California was third at $53,926.

Of the six top-paying states, New York had the largest increase in pay between 2009 and 2010, up 3.4 percent, the analysis found.”

To read more click here.

Lawrence Mone, president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, authored the following op-ed in the New York Post:

“Gov. Cuomo, under enormous pressure from public-employee unions and Democrats in the Legislature to extend New York’s “millionaires’ tax,” is considering at least some higher taxes on higher incomes. The big irony here is that much of the money raised from any “millionaire” tax hikes would go to fund the growing phenomenon of public-sector millionaires.

How’s that? Well, most dictionaries define a millionaire as someone with wealth (i.e., assets) of $1 million. By that definition, many New York teachers and the vast majority of police and firefighters are millionaires, because the “net present value” of their retirement benefits is well in excess of $1 million.

That is, if they had to fund their retirements from their own savings, they’d have to set aside seven figures today.

Few who don’t work for the government sector have comparable assets. Over the last several decades, the private sector has moved increasingly to the 401(k)-style “defined contribution” model, which yields a retirement nest egg based on what both employers and employees have contributed to individual accounts.

Public-sector workers, on the other hand, still rely on “defined benefit” pensions, which provide a guaranteed stream of income based on career longevity and late-career peak salaries.”

To read more click here.

This from the Public Employees Federation website.

“By a count of 27,718 to 11,645, members of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) ratified a revised four-year agreement with the state that averts significant layoffs.

The ratification of the new agreement saves the jobs of 3,496 PEF members and preserves the vital services our members provide.

The agreement preserves the pay-scale, the employment and the careers of PEF members. It maintains increments and salary-grade parity, longevity payments and co-pays for doctor visits at their current levels. It calls for no salary increases for years 2011, 2012 and 2013. A salary increase of 2 percent is included for 2014.

The new contract increases the share members will pay of their health insurance premiums, but includes changes to the productivity enhancement program which will allow members greater opportunity to use vacation time to offset health insurance costs. The new contract includes reimbursement for the 9 furlough days payable at the end of the agreement.”

To read more click here.

Jimmy Vielkind writes in the Times Union - “Ideally, the Cuomo administration wants 7 percent of the state workforce working — and getting paid for — less than five days a week.

The Budget Division issued a bulletin to state agencies Tuesday urging them to make fuller use of a program that allows most state workers to voluntarily reduce their hours (and pay). The bulletin says agencies should “aggressively promote” the program, approve requests “expeditiously” and “approve all employee requests if the current program participation is less than 7 percent of the agency’s workforce.”

To read more click here.

In an article on Bloomberg News, Freeman Klopott writes:

“New York state and more than 100 local governments face at least $600 million in extra pension costs after thousands of workers grabbed one-time incentives meant to shave former Governor David Paterson’s last budget.

About 12,000 public employees seeking to retire early fueled a pension-application record in 2010, according to a report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The state processed 30,772 requests for retirement benefits that year, about 50 percent more than average, according to the report.”

To read more click here.

Jimmy Vielkind of the Times Union writes:

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state’s second largest union on Sunday took a major step toward avoiding 3,496 layoffs, announcing a new tentative contract agreement tweaked from one rejected last month.

The executive board of the Public Employees Federation will meet Monday afternoon to consider the new agreement. If the 130-member group approves the contract, it will be sent to PEF’s 56,000 rank-and-file members for ratification. If that happens, the Cuomo administration said Sunday it would postpone all layoffs, which were scheduled to begin Wednesday, until Nov. 4.”

To read more click here.

Erik Kriss of the New York Post reports - “A major state-worker union facing 3,500 layoffs after rejecting an austerity contract could get a shot at voting on a new deal — but only at no cost to taxpayers.

Gov. Cuomo yesterday said he’d return to the bargaining table with the state’s second-largest public-employee union to reopen the contract on the condition that changes don’t cost the state an additional dime.

To read more click here.

Thomas Kaplin writes in the New York Times - “Even as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sent layoff notices to the first of 3,496 employees he is vowing to let go, leaders of New York’s second-largest union of state workers said Wednesday that they did not intend to ask their members to reconsider the proposed contract they had rejected.

At a news conference at its headquarters here, the union, the Public Employees Federation, demanded that Mr. Cuomo suspend the layoffs and return to the bargaining table. The union represents 56,000 state workers.

Asked about taking another vote, as the governor urged on Tuesday, the federation’s secretary-treasurer, Arlea Igoe, said union leaders “haven’t ruled it out 100 percent.” But, noting that 70 percent of union members had cast ballots in the election, she questioned how another vote could be expected to produce a different outcome.”

To read more click here.

The Times Union Editorial Board writes:

“Our hat is off to the nearly 17,000 state workers who voted to approve a contract that undoubtedly will, for many, involve some personal sacrifice.

It is quite likely that five years from now, many Civil Service Employees Association members will look back over the life of the contract and conclude that they are not better off than they were in 2011. That’s not an appealing prospect to vote for.

But this contract was about much more.

It was about a union, and a majority of its members, doing what was best for their fellow workers.

It was about public employees recognizing that the government they comprise has grown increasingly unaffordable for the people of this state, especially when all the taxes New Yorkers pay are tallied up.

And it was about showing that working men and women, the vast majority of them of modest means, were willing to make some rather serious sacrifices in an economic downturn. They’re now in a position to join the ranks of those who want to know when everyone in this state will do the same.”

To read the entire article click here.