Andrew Cuomo signs bill to protect Nassau worker 'step' increases

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo late Monday night signed a bill that will allow Nassau County’s union employees to receive annual “step” raises even if the county’s financial control board imposes another wage freeze.

Cuomo had vetoed a similar bill last year after the control board, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, objected, arguing the law would undermine its authority to oversee county spending.

The governor cautioned in his veto message last year that the bill could hinder other control boards in the state and curtail the powers of future control boards.

Nassau’s Police Benevolent Association, the legislation’s chief sponsor, rewrote the bill this year to tighten its language and clarify that only step increases — contractually defined salary hikes based on time in the job — would continue under a wage freeze imposed during an approved four-year financial plan.

Cuomo’s message this year noted that county employees “provide a valuable service” while NIFA has “important powers at its disposal to ensure taxpayer funds are used properly.” Permanently removing NIFA’s ability to freeze wages “would be unwise,” he said.

The bill was a response to a wage freeze NIFA imposed on Nassau’s public employees in 2011 at the request of then County Executive Edward Mangano.

Rookie police officers and correction officers were held at entry-level salaries of $30,000 for more than three years while new members of the Civil Service Employees Association were frozen at annual pay as low as $24,000. 

Union leaders complained that their members were losing their houses and credit despite labor contracts that promised annual step increases would move them up to full pay after a certain number of years.

The wage freeze saved the county more than $230 million before it was lifted, for most employees, in April 2014 after the unions agreed to new contracts with cost-saving concessions.

NIFA declined to comment on the new law.

PBA president James McDermott said, “I thank the governor for signing the bill and Senate and Assembly for both voting unanimously in favor of it. It’s one that honors contracts and I believe that all the politicians in the state are able to see that clearly.”

County Executive Laura Curran, who wrote Cuomo in favor of the bill after both houses of the legislature had passed it, said in a statement, “I thank Gov. Cuomo for signing a bill today that ensures step increases for our union members during any possible NIFA wage freeze."

 Curran said, "since day one I have supported this legislation and it’s a good day for the men and women who work hard to keep Nassau County safe and moving forward every day. I look forward to collective bargaining that will be acceptable to the NIFA board.”

Nassau’s union contracts expired at the end of December. Negotiations have yet to begin for new labor deals.