Board of Aldermen 12-26-2018 Page 10
Alderman Dowd
Just to make a clarification when | was talking about the union contracts | was thinking if we develop a
policy it is from this point forward, except for the unaffiliated which aren’t on the union contract. If they
union voted to come back to us with their contact, it opens up every bit of the contract to renegotiation and
they could lose more than they gain. As far as the sick leave, that is a cost item, so we have control of
that, we can’t make changes to the policy but if it comes through and it is not what we like or it is not in
accordance with what the Committee comes up with going forward, for the next iteration of the contract,
we turn the contract down. It goes back to the bargaining unit and they know why it got turned down and
they either get in line or they don’t.
If the referral vote goes around | will vote for re-referral so we can try to get a path going forward, if the
referral is turned down | will vote to overturn the Mayor's veto.
Alderman Tencza
Madam President, just a question for either Madam President or Alderman Dowd. These budget line
items for the payout upon retirement, the sick leave payout, those are part of the School, Fire and Police
Budget, it doesn’t come out of the general City fund?
Alderman Dowd
Right, it is when they do their budgeting and they have to allocate the funds that they will have to pay out,
it is part of their budgeting. Because they have to have the money to cover the contract that was
approved.
Alderman Lopez
| just wanted to comment that with regards to the unaffiliated employees who are the ones we are actually
voting on, this might actually move us forward because it says in the legislation they have 20 days to make
their decision, then we will have made the decision for all of the outlying. So with regards to unaffiliated
we will have set a policy and a line in the sand — ok we did this, we did that, you got this, and you got that.
And then, again, it comes back to us as Aldermen that we can’t just let contracts go by and thumbs up
them all; we have to consider the ramifications and this is a pretty good case in point that if certain
conditions are put in there that we think are going to open the door to a whole bunch of other issues, then
we need to be aware of that.
President Wilshire
The Motion before us is to re-refer.
Alderman Jette
| would just like to say that when this came before us the last time, | made a plea to go back to the original
legislation which was to give the people who were hired prior to 2001what they had earned up until that
time. The argument was that this was unfair to them because it went back retroactively 6 years and took
away from them what they had earned up until 2001. So | was in favor of correcting that inequity, that
unfairness by giving them what they had earned up until 2001, but then from 2001 forward they would be
subject to the new policy. That failed, and what was adopted was not only to provide these people with
what they had earned up to 2001 but to allow them from 2001 forward to accumulate up to 720 days of
sick leave and cash that out at 100%. | understand that the argument was that when they were hired, they
were offered this benefit, but | think the City had the right in 2001 to change that policy, they shouldn’t
have gone back retroactively but from then on, but they should have given those people what they had
earned up until that point in time but now this legislation gives them the ability to earn 720 hours and cash
that out at 100% after 2001.
