ELYRIA — City leaders resumed talks of altering longevity pay for city employees Monday night and ended up in nearly the same place as when the idea was first broached in April.
The practice of paying city employees 1 percent of their base salary for every year they work up 20 years started decades ago, and doing away with it will not be easy — even if that is what voters say they want to see before they will pass an income tax increase. Several factors can’t be overlooked in the city’s quest to rid itself of the benefit that costs about $3 million annually across all funds.
The collective bargaining agreement the city has with more than half a dozen unions is the biggest, said Mayor Bill Grace. In addition, the city actually saves money with the current longevity pay model, he said.
“We get away with paying our employees less in the beginning because mediators and arbitrators factor in 20 percent longevity when looking at salaries,” he said. “Really, it works in our favor. When you speak directly to longevity, it’s a bargain for our community. It allows us to pay our employees less in the beginning.”
A look at comparable cities, provided in a spreadsheet to council members during the Finance Committee meeting, showed that police and fire employees, for example, are near the middle of the pack in terms of compensation, Grace said. However, “it takes 20 years for our Police Department to get to those levels when it takes other departments three or four years to reach the same point,” he said.
If the city eliminated the current longevity pay model for union employees, it would have to increase base salaries 10 percent to 14 percent, Grace said.
“While it does even out or maybe even save a little money in the end of careers, it will mean we are paying more to employees in the beginning,” he said. “An arbitrator will never take this away from them unless we buy them out at 14 percent or more.”
Nonetheless, the city has to be willing to deal with the unions, said Councilman Larry Tanner, D-1st Ward.
“If you wanted to stop longevity, you could and you would just have to get that agreement with the unions,” he said. “Everyone at General Motors or Ford can tell you things have changed. I’ve dealt with arbitrators. You just have to be strong enough to go after them.”
But with state and federal employment laws in place, Grace said just telling the unions longevity pay is changing is not as simple as some would believe.
“You would think the argument ‘we don’t have enough money’ is a good argument, but not in the state of Ohio,” he said.
Councilman Garry Gibbs, R-3rd Ward, still suggested the city take steps toward altering the longevity pay for nonunion employees as the city is not held to a contract with those employees. Current full-time nonunion employees would see their longevity frozen and new nonunion hires would go on a different longevity schedule, under Gibbs’ recommendation.
“Sure, you are not going to see an impact tomorrow, but at least we can finally get our hands around it,” he said.
Gibbs questions if longevity pay — long said to be the benefit that keeps city employees from seeking employment elsewhere — is doing what it’s supposed to do. However, a number of Elyria police officers are currently looking for employment in other police departments, he said.
“I think that stands to reason there are other things at play when it comes to why they are leaving,” he said.
Law Director Terry “Pete” Shilling has been pegged with the responsibility of researching the legalities of Gibbs’ recommendation and crafting council legislation pertaining to the changes. He will present his findings at the first Finance Committee meeting in November when city leaders will discuss the idea of changing longevity.
“Those who think it is easy to do away with it with a wave of a magic wand are wrong,” he said. “It’s been around a long time and it’s complicated.”
Still, Gibbs said the city will be in a more complicated position with voters if they don’t do something to the current model, which also has the lack of employee evaluation attached to the benefit.
“Where the public has a problem — as do I — is it is not contingent on performance,” he said. “We are giving 1 percent just for coming back every 12 months and 20 percent for 20 years. But there is nothing to say that experience is the best experience.”
Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.
