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The current
term of office for all the positions on the Superior
Officers Association Board of Governors ends on June 30,
2008. The
Board of Governors is composed of the five members of
the Executive Board and the fifteen individual trustees
representing various commands.
The President appoints the Retired Member Trustee
and that trustee does not vote on matters that affect
the association. Nominations
for the July 1,2008 to June 30, 2011 term were held at
the May 6, 2008 open meeting.
All the members of the Executive Board and ten of
the fifteen voting trustees ran unopposed and will
continue in their current positions for the upcoming
term. There
will be elections for the trustees that represent the
First, Second, Third, Fifth, and Sixth Precincts.
The results of these elections will be announced
at the June 3, 2008 open meeting.
I would urge the members who are voting in these
races to consider all the issues that affect them as
they decide whom to vote for.
I also hope those candidates who are running
against incumbents have carefully considered what they
have to offer to their membership.
Trustees are responsible for resolving the issues
that affect their members, not merely expressing their
opinions on those issues.
If you are voting, please evaluate the
candidate’s problem solving abilities.
Your trustee will be the first person you contact
for help.
I am
honored to be serving as your President for another
three years. I am also pleased that Brian Hoesl, Jim Ward, George Hassett
and Anthony Gambino will be remaining with me.
We have all worked together as a team for the
last six years and will continue to do so for the next
three. When
we started on July 1, 2002, there were many challenges
that faced us. I
am sure that you remember the battles with the County
Administration at that time. Their goals for the Nassau County Police Department were not
a secret. They
were vividly outlined in the County’s 2002 Multi Year
Plan. When
I started my campaign for SOA President, I studied this
document and reviewed it continuously.
It was my belief that I, along with my team,
would do a better job in preventing the County’s goals
from becoming a reality.
I knew this would be hard to accomplish.
The fiscal crisis of 2001, the 100 million dollar
state bailout and the creation of a fiscal watchdog,
NIFA, all provided the County Administration with
justification for implementing the Plan.
Fortunately,
the plan was never fully implemented.
This wasn’t the result of luck; it was the
result of hard work.
The Multi Year Plan affected all of the six major
Nassau County labor unions and all of them realized the
need to unite. In
response, the SOA, PBA, DAI, CSEA, SHOA and the Nassau
County Community College Adjunct Professors Association
formed the Nassau County Coalition of Labor.
In addition, the three police unions, all members
of the coalition, met separately to work on issues that
only affected the members of the Police Department.
There is no doubt in my mind that this spirit of
co-operation prevented disaster for all the coalition
members. We
should all remember some of the many proposals of the
Multi Year Plan. The
size of the Department was scheduled to be 2440.
It is now budgeted at 2750.
Let’s not forget the Five Precinct Plan.
We still have eight precincts.
The Multi Year Plan also contained a section
entitled, The Menu of Labor Saving Options. This section
contained proposals for police givebacks.
Among the things mentioned were a three-year wage
freeze, member contributions to health insurance and
pension plans and an increase in the amount of days
worked each year. Many
other givebacks were also outlined. We all know from the
SOA 2002 to 2007 Arbitration Award very few of these
givebacks occurred.
In addition, the Nassau police unions, working in
conjunction with other police unions throughout New York
State, were recently able to obtain the passage and
signing of the 32-year Tier Two Bill. I cannot overstate how important it is for labor unions to
work together to resolve these types of issues.
Even though from time to time relations can
become strained, resolving differences should always be
attempted.
We now are
faced with negotiating another contract.
Once again preparation and a dedication to detail
is critical to success.
Your Executive Board will do everything possible
to achieve success.
Once again, thank you for your support.
Winter
2008 article ......
I would like to wish all of you a healthy and happy
New Year. The
start of each New Year has always presented new
challenges. This
year will be no exception.
The concern for the predicted deficit in the 2008
Nassau County budget has caused attention to be focused
on the Police Department budget.
The reluctance of the Nassau County Legislature
to raise the County Portion of property taxes has
intensified this scrutiny.
The efforts to control police spending will
affect us in two ways.
The recent PBA and DAI arbitration awards are
evidence of the first.
While we are currently in the preliminary stages
of negotiation, we can expect the County will be looking
for givebacks with monetary value to offset the increase
in base pay we will be attempting to obtain.
While this condition has occurred before, the
fiscal monitoring by NIFA and the lack of a state bail
out has caused it to be magnified.
The second area of review from West Street will
be the overtime budget.
While it would be unreasonable to criticize the
Administration for attempting to ensure that overtime is
incurred only when necessary, history has shown us that
this pressure often produces bad decisions.
Certainly, the return of the policy of
redeploying patrol supervisors on a daily basis to
reduce short roll call overtime is a good example of
one. The
SOA is still committed to ending this practice.
As the year continues, the implementation of
other ill-advised overtime reduction policies might
occur.
In the past, concerns for the Police budget
were often met with proposals for reductions in the size
of our job. Fortunately
for us, Commissioner Mulvey is taking a different
approach. He
has obtained support from the County Executive for a
unique hiring program.
I am sure this was not an easy task.
Instead of waiting to start an academy class when
we are 100 to 150 members below our budgeted strength,
we will hire smaller recruit classes on a more frequent
basis. This should keep us closer to our budgeted strength
throughout the year.
This should result in a reduction in short roll
call overtime without a reduction in service.
With a reduction in short roll call overtime
obtained, the Administration will be less likely to
overreact when attempting to reduce overtime in other
areas.
In the first paragraph I mentioned that the
Nassau County Legislature was reluctant to raise
property taxes. There
hasn’t been an increase in the County portion of the
total tax bill since the County Executive raised it 19.4
percent during his first year in office.
While the county portion of the overall tax bill
is only around 20 percent, and increases in this portion
are not costly to the residents, the political pressure
against raising that portion is overwhelming.
This is true even though school taxes, which are
at least 60 percent of the overall tax bill, increase
yearly. In
the past, I believed that educating the public on how
little the cost of increases in the county portion
actually is would overcome their resistance to the
increase. I no longer believe this will be enough.
Once the current contract negotiations are
settled, all the County labor unions should focus on
supporting ideas and programs that alleviate the other
property tax burdens on residents. Otherwise, our health
benefits and pension contributions will be in jeopardy.
Certainly,
the ideas expressed by Nassau County Controller Howard
Weitzman have merit.
While the residents of Nassau County want to
retain the control over the services they receive, his
proposals to consolidate many of the districts providing
these services deserves further exploration.
As a parent of children in one of Nassau
County’s many school districts, I would be against the
consolidation of these districts, but would support a
plan to consolidate the services and supplies that each
district purchases.
On the other hand, I do not believe it is in the
interest of labor unions to support proposals that would
cap property taxes.
I believe municipalities would raise taxes up to
the cap before the start of contract negotiations, and
then claim they did not have the ability to pay for any
increase in benefits unions may be seeking.
More and more, municipalities are seeking to
provide defined contributions to employees instead of
providing them with defined benefits.
This change affects health insurance and pension
contributions. Under
this type of program, the employer only contributes a
defined dollar amount towards the above benefits.
The employee must pay any difference necessary to
obtain them. In
order to maintain the current system of defined benefits
in Nassau County, labor unions must take an active
interest in proposing and supporting programs that will
overcome the resistance to yearly tax increases in the
County portion of the tax bill. The time has come to be innovative.
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