Smithtown approves union contract for town employees
About 450 Smithtown workers will receive raises under a new contract. Credit: Raychel Brightman
Smithtown approved a union contract that will offer pay raises over five years for most town workers and raise insurance costs for new hires.
About 450 blue collar and clerical staffers represented by the Civil Service Employees Association had worked for a year under an expired contract. The five-year deal approved by the town council on March 21 grants them a retroactive 2 percent raise for 2018 with 1.5 percent increases every January and July for the next four years, town Supervisor Edward Wehrheim said in an interview.
“This is both fair to the workforce and taxpayers,” Wehrheim said.
Smithtown CSEA president Christopher Downer said in an email that 90 percent of union members voted in favor of the contract, which he called “beneficial to both the membership and the town.”
The contract gives workers the option to sell as many as five vacation days back to the town, a plan Comptroller Donald Musgnug said would help offset possible workforce shortages as employees accrue vacation days that can’t be carried over year-to-year. “This way they will be able to sell their time and not have to take off during peak time periods such as during snow removal,” he wrote in an email.
The contract also includes two provisions intended to curb town spending on worker health insurance, Wehrheim said. Health insurance is a significant expense for many Long Island municipalities, and Smithtown officials to pay approximately $14.7 million in 2019 to insure current and retired employees.
New hires will pay 15 percent for insurance, up from 10 percent, and the town will pay $8,000 yearly to workers who opt out of family coverage from the town in favor of coverage from a spouse’s job. Those cash payouts are expected to save the town 70 percent on insurance premiums for participating employees, Musgnug said.
The council also approved a $5,000 raise for public information officer Nicole Garguilo. Garguilo was paid $74,206 in 2018, according to town payroll records.
“This was based on her performance,” Wehrheim said.
Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.
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