Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (New York), November 2, 2008, Sunday
Copyright 2008 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
All Rights Reserved
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (New York)
November 2, 2008, Sunday
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 1A
BYLINE: David Andreatta DANDREAT@DemocratandChronicle.com
BODY:
{}More than $1.6 million in taxpayer money was paid last year to municipal employees in Monroe County for work they performed strictly for their unions, including to dozens of labor leaders who have not toiled in their government jobs in years, a Democrat and Chronicle investigation has found.
{}Sanitation workers, teachers, receptionists, firefighters, mechanics, and police officers were among the beneficiaries of "release time" clauses in labor contracts that allow them to devote hours, days, weeks or months to union business while employed by taxpayers.
In addition to receiving government paychecks, those union executives also got salaries and other compensation totaling about $430,000 from their members, according to payroll records obtained through the Freedom of Information Law, unions' tax returns and federal Labor Department filings.
For instance, a city of Rochester sanitation worker who has not collected trash in 37 years collected more than $58,300 in city pay last year on top of almost $192,000 he received as head of two unions. The head of the Rochester teachers union was paid $101,200 by the Rochester School District last year although he has not taught in a city classroom since 1981. He also received more than $40,000 in compensation from his union.
Nothing suggests that double-dipping union officers are breaking any laws. Nor are release-time provisions uncommon in labor pacts within the public and private sectors, according to labor historians, who trace release-time's roots to the middle of the last century.
Nonetheless, such arrangements have rankled budget watchdogs mindful of the souring economy and are now on the bargaining table as cash-strapped Monroe County and Rochester governments negotiate pacts with several unions representing large portions of their work forces.
The county is negotiating with nine unions whose contracts expire next month; the city is in contract talks with the firefighters and police unions.
"Release time is not found in the laws - employers and unions work out the provisions themselves," said Paul Clark, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University. "If things like double-dipping are happening, it's because the parties created a system that allowed that to happen. These things are negotiable."
{}Reining in release time
Release time is not busting any public budgets in Monroe County.
In fact, the more than $725,000 that the Rochester School District paid 12 employees on full- and part-time release last year and the $590,000 that Rochester spent on 38 workers last year represented barely one-tenth of a percent of their respective budgets.
Monroe County last year released 82 workers, two of them full time, at a cost of about $238,000, according to payroll records. That represents about two one-hundredths of a percent of the county's $1 billion budget.
The purpose of release time is to foster good will between workers and management by allowing unions to handle grievances and bargain without disrupting the flow of business. Labor advocates contend the associated costs are a small price for employers to pay for such a benefit.
Still, as the county searches for ways to trim its budget in lean times, it is looking to shift the burden of funding release time from taxpayers to unions. Indeed, some labor contracts elsewhere in the country do not guarantee released employees full pay and benefits. Some only ensure job protection for released workers.
"In our contract negotiations, it is well known by all the unions that we have not supported any expansion of release time and feel that it is a high priority discussion item to have it paid for by union dues and not taxpayer dollars," said Brayton Connard, Monroe County's human resources director and lead labor negotiator.
Connard acknowledged, though, that a substantial effort to modify release time would be contentious and that, ultimately, the county is more focused on reducing heftier expenditures, such as health care costs.
"We recognize that union release time is very important to unions, and that it's unlikely that they would unilaterally give it up," he said. "They're not going to give it up without expecting something expensive in return."
Cristal Zaffuto, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, which represents about half of the county's 4,600 employees and whose contract often sets the pattern for collective bargaining for other unions, declined to comment.
Like the former CSEA president who retired this year, Zaffuto heads the union full time and receives a county salary as well as a union stipend. County payroll records show Zaffuto's salary as a nurse's aide to be $28,000. The former president, James Volpone, was paid $6,750 by the union last year and around $60,200 by the county, payroll records and tax returns show.
Taxpayer dollars are not being squandered on release time arrangements, said Linda Donahue, a Rochester-based associate faculty member at the Industrial Labor Relations School at Cornell University.
"It's to the benefit of the employers, as well, to have a level playing field where both workers' interests and employers' interests can be represented by people who are equal players," Donahue said. "The union would be severely disadvantaged if the only people who could represent workers had to do it as volunteers on their own time."
{}Double salaries for leaders
Anthony Gingello stopped collecting trash as a full-time sanitation worker for Rochester when he was elected to lead the municipal employees union in 1971. But he never stopped collecting a city paycheck.
The longtime labor leader picked up $58,321 in salary from the city last year, on top of the $191,939 that tax returns and federal Labor Department filings show he received as president of two Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees unions.
Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, has not taught in a city classroom with any regularity since leaving John Marshall High School in 1981 to head his union.
Yet Urbanski was paid $101,200 by the Rochester School District last year for being a teacher in addition to receiving in excess of $40,000 in salary and other compensation from his union, payroll records and tax returns show.
The union bosses offer vivid examples of how release-time provisions commit taxpayers to paying municipal employees for union-related work - even if the workers draw union wages at the same time.
A review of public payroll records and tax returns found that Gingello and Urbanski are among 23 labor officers in the region who collectively received more than $1.1 million in government salaries while simultaneously drawing about $430,000 in pay, benefits and other compensation from their unions.
Among them were four full-time officers of the Rochester local of AFSCME headed by Gingello. His daughter, Jean Coia, a receptionist in the city's Department of Recreation and Human Services, was one of them.
Like her father, Coia held full-time positions in both the local and statewide unions, which tax returns show paid her $31,536 in salary and other compensation in addition to the $33,146 city payroll records show she received from the city.
Gingello said the multiple salaries he and others receive are authorized, and defended them as necessary to fulfilling duties to union members and city employees. The local AFSCME represents about 1,300 non-uniformed city workers.
"The city doesn't compensate us when we work nights and weekends," Gingello, said. "We work sometimes 10, 12 hours depending on what our members need. We have meetings at six o'clock in the morning. We get calls at three in the morning. We're not getting the money for nothing."
He said his union position has kept him from advancing within the city Environmental Services Department, and thus, elevating his pay and "padding" his pension with overtime, which his contract forbids. Gingello also said he has declined raises from the local for years - a claim the union's tax returns support.
{}School release
Although it can be perfectly legal for unions to pay officers who remain on government payrolls, the practice has drawn scrutiny.
In 2003, former Rochester Association of Paraprofessionals President Linda Nash was indicted for, among other things, receiving unauthorized stipends from RAP while remaining on the Rochester School District payroll. Nash pleaded guilty to stealing $100,000 and was ordered to repay the union, according to court papers.
Today, the union's three full-time officers receive authorized stipends from the union in addition to paychecks from the school district. They represent more than 700 members.
"My day doesn't stop at 3 o'clock like it would at a school," said RAP President Margie Brumfield, who was paid about $48,100 by the district last year and $8,000 by the union. "My day doesn't end until 8 at night sometimes, and that's what our union has agreed to compensate us for. It's when we're off the clock."
The union is currently fighting to retain its third officer on full-time paid release. Its contract with the district stipulates that the treasurer be reduced to part-time paid release if the pact is not renewed by September 2008. A new agreement has yet to be struck.
Under the contract that governed RAP before its embezzlement scandal, the union was permitted to have only the president on part-time paid release.
Release time has been criticized in some local district, but has not faced any serious challenges.
"School boards don't want to touch it because they're going to tick off the union," said Charlie Hubbard, formerly of the Greece Board of Education, which released two teachers on a part-time basis last year at a cost to the district of about $60,000. "I never saw the educational benefit to it. If unions want to do union business, let the unions pay for it."
When Urbanski was elected president of the Rochester Teachers Association in 1981, only the union's president was fully released by the school district. Today, the union's contract allows for up to five full-time officers to be released and paid by the school district.
District payroll records show the union last year had four officers on full release and one released part time. The contract requires that the district be reimbursed about $44,500 for the president and $39,000 for each of the other officers. All of them are veteran teachers who are paid by the district. Four receive union salaries.
The RTA's current contract with the school district expires in June 2009. Asked whether he would like to see release time reduced, Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard replied: "The answer for us is yes. But to the union it will be no. There are going to be some difficult discussions."
Urbanski, who won national recognition in the 1980s and 1990s for negotiating agreements that gave Rochester teachers among the highest salaries in the country, said he is open to taking up the topic.
"Our goal is to have sufficient release time and the kinds of terms and conditions that permit us to serve our members competently and to serve as an effective partner for the district," Urbanski said.
"The bottom line is it's negotiated and if Superintendent Brizard would like to raise this matter in negotiations he should and we would certainly discuss it with him. We've got much more important matters, quite frankly, to negotiate than that."
{}City at the table
The city's contract talks with police and firefighters are the first bargaining sessions for Mayor Robert Duffy, who handily won election in 2005 with the help of strong labor support.
But Duffy's popularity with unions has waned in recent months with his moves to cut jobs, recall workers' city-owned cars and offer performance-based bonuses to employees in the name of curtailing spending.
Trimming taxpayer-funded release time would likely elevate tensions, city and union officials acknowledged.
"Philosophically, we would like to reduce the amount of release time," City Hall spokesman Gary Walker said. "That said, it is part of the collective bargaining agreements that have been built over decades and decades.
"If you want to roll it back or modify something that is standing, you have to give something up at the bargaining table that is of equal or greater value."
Under their current contracts with the city, the firefighters and police unions are permitted one and two full-time released workers, respectively.
They also can each dispense another 1,000 hours of paid release to members to tend to union business, in addition to offering members time off to attend annual conventions and participate in union elections and contract negotiations.
Some independent budget-watchdogs criticize such contract demands as outdated and excessive.
"It really should be examined from a cost-effectiveness point of view," said Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director for the Albany-based Citizen's Budget Commission.
"Given the diminishing tax base in Rochester, the city cannot afford the kinds of practices that are traditional for their unions."
City payroll records show the city last year spent about $252,800 granting paid release time to 10 police officers, including four who combined received about $36,200 in compensation from their union, the Locust Club of Rochester.
The Locust Club president, Michael Mazzeo, did not return phone calls for this story.
Thirteen firefighters took paid release time last year at a cost of about $114,400, including $77,842 paid to the union president, James McTiernan. Recent tax returns for the union show it paid $26,600 collectively to four officers, including $8,000 to the president.
McTiernan said he would never entertain a reduction in release time, calling the notion "nonsense" and claiming his union has already shouldered more than its share of spending cuts.
"If anything, we need more time," McTiernan said. "We have the public in mind. We have been at the forefront of yelling and screaming about unnecessary cuts to the Fire Department. Public safety is in the public interest."
DANDREAT@DemocratandChronicle.com
What's at stake
Balancing the need to conserve taxpayer dollars against the need to provide government workers with adequate union representation.
LOAD-DATE: November 4, 2008
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