2009-10-30-FTF-rpt - Laserfiche WebLink

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us to maintain services and our public workforce at current levels without such significant changes. 3. It is essential that the community come together in concerted, focused efforts to address the escalation of total employee compensation costs (of which health benefits are a component of particular concern), in mutually beneficial ways that recognize fully both employees’ needs to provide for their families and residents’ payment for the services those employees provide so well – in the interests of sustaining quality services now and in the longer term. The success of those efforts will necessarily depend on the quality of both: --the process of negotiating over the components of compensation (wages and benefits); and --the information and analyses brought to bear on those negotiations. 4. At present, both town and school compensation policies look beyond salaries to some, but not all, employee benefits in making comparisons to other communities and calculating rates of growth in “total compensation.” The task force recommends that both town and schools focus on a true measure of the economic cost of all employee compensation, including salaries, leave and vacation benefits, healthcare and pensions, etc., and use this true measure of total compensation costs for comparisons to other communities and calculation of rates of growth in employee compensation. 5. The task force recognizes that the current division between coalition bargaining over health benefits and unit-by-unit bargaining over other elements of compensation – with the two subjects kept rigidly divided – makes it exceedingly difficult to arrive at agreements for changes in health benefits, even if such changes might be mutually beneficial to town and employees if coordinated with changes in other elements of compensation. In light of the real and increasing problem of health-benefits costs, the task force recommends that the town and the employee bargaining units seek advice from all available sources to devise and use strategic solutions within existing law to coordinate the two aspects of bargaining over compensation. The task force also recommends that the town work with state-level organizations, our legislative delegation, the employee unions, and other interested parties to seek prompt revisions to state law, aimed at eliminating this impediment to linking wage and benefit bargaining in the context of overall negotiations about compensation. 6. During a period of recession, reduced state aid, and likely use of and the subsequent need to replenish town financial reserves, the task force advises the Selectmen not to seek a Proposition 2½ override for regular town and school operating costs until the town has reached agreement with employees on health benefits – such agreement intended to keep the growth of total compensation (as defined above) in line with inflation and the growth in town resources. To the extent that the need for such an override is attributable to growth in health-benefit costs not offset elsewhere in total - 2 -