Legislatures around state consider freezing public salaries

Public workers from the federal government to New York’s smallest school districts and towns facing hard times are considering a proposition that was once nearly unthinkable politically: Freezing public salaries.

A month after President Barack Obama proposed a two-year standstill on the pay of 2 million federal employees, New York’s Conference of Mayors last week suggested the state to freeze on all
public sector wages. The state School Boards Association, meanwhile, sought state authority to stop raises nowguaranteed under law through annual “step” increases even when a labor contract expires.

On Thursday night, the Sullivan County Legislature froze salaries despite labor contracts that called for 4-percent raises on Jan. 1.

“The legislators have declared war on workers of Sullivan County by doing what they’ve done,” Adrian Huff of Teamster’s Local 445 told the Times Herald-Record of Middletown.

Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo may have forced the issue in his campaign by proposing a freeze for the state’s nearly 200,000 employees.

“I think the chances are good,” said Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, a Buffalo Democratic. Nearly a year ago he pushed the idea of locking teachers’ salaries to avoid thousands of possible layoffs, only to be strongly opposed by most public worker unions in the November elections.

Salaries account for about 70 percent of government and school costs. The last two years of fiscal crisis and fund shortfalls have already tapped reserves and non-personnel spending in government and schools.

Now, after months of refusing to reopen labor contract for concessions sought by Gov. David Paterson, Hoyt thinks the time for public union contributions has come. Paterson had said delaying
4-percent raises for many unionized employees for one year would have saved about $250 million and avoided 900 layoffs he has since ordered.

“I think that not only the general public thinks the public employee unions ought to be flexible, I think the people within the Legislature are becoming increasingly impatient with the lack of flexibility shown by the public employees to be part of a solution,” Hoyt said.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as, ‘We’re open to it,’ but you have to negotiate in good faith,” said Stephen Madarasz, a spokesman for the 300,000-member Civil Service Employees Association union.

“Things brought up to a negotiating table, you have an obligation to negotiate,” he said. “We certainly understand the state has considerable financial issues ... it’s certainly about as difficult a set of circumstances CSEA has seen in a generation, no doubt about that.”

The union had refused Paterson’s attempts at concessions this year because it would have set a precedent for reopening labor contracts. The state’s contracts with unions including CSEA are up in March, where a freeze could be negotiated.

“Anything is possible,” said Assembly Majority Leader Ronald Canestrari, an Albany County Democrat. “I think most want to begin with the new governor with a positive working relationship so he has some good will built in ... but it’s going to be a tough year.”

E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy said the state could enact a freeze on all public wages, from the state work force to schools. 

“A freeze is a job saver,” he said, saying he thinks a three-year lock is probably needed. “I think the whole state needs a period of time to dig out from the wreckage of the fiscal crisis and reset budget lines.”