Fact-finder’s report up for vote at election

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Staff photo by Don Himsel Motorists are allowed to pass other cars in certain zones on the bypass on Route 101 in Milford. The passing lanes on Route 101 in Milford will get rumble strips when the state resurfaces the highway this year. Now there are only rumble strips in non-passing lanes.

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2010 Amherst Town Meeting
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AMHERST – Voters will choose on March 9 whether to accept a fact-finder’s report filed last month in connection with the impasse in contract negotiations between the town and the union that represents the police department’s patrolmen and sergeants.

Town Administrator Gary MacGuire said the report, referenced in Articles 28 and 29 of the warrant, may be the first time that such a report has been included on a town warrant since the so-called SB2 form of town government was created in New Hampshire, in 1995.

At least one other SB2 town, Milford, is facing the same situation this year, with two contracts – one for the police employees union and the other for town employees in the Teamsters Union – going before voters March 9.

Hollis, which operates under traditional town meeting rather than SB2, also faces a similar issue this year,

In Amherst, disagreements on three issues – wage increases, the cost and issuance of protective body armor and an upgrade of radio communications equipment – led to the impasse. In late 2009, the union requested a fact-finder, which led to a Jan. 4 hearing before George R. Shea Jr., who issued his report on Jan. 8.

Now that the issue has gone on the town warrant (Article 28), residents will vote whether to accept the report, then, in the following article, choose whether to give selectmen authority to call one special meeting to address the cost-only items in the report in the event that Article 28 is defeated.

If voters accept the report, it clears the way for the town and union officials to return to the bargaining table. But even if an agreement is reached, MacGuire said, the new contract will still have to wait until next year’s elections to be voted up or down by voters.

The union that represents the department’s patrolmen and sergeants, chapter 001 of Local 3657, is affiliated with the Police and Safety Employees arm of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council. It currently represents six patrolmen, seven senior patrolmen and two sergeants.

Members, who rejected a tentative agreement on Jan. 5, have been working without a contract since its last agreement expired on June 30, the end of the 2009 fiscal year.

In his findings, Shea, the fact-finder, sided largely with the union on the issue of wages. He supported the union’s request for a 4.95 percent across-the-board increase, retroactive to July 1, 2009; zero increase on July 1, 2010, the start of the contract’s second year; recommended continuing the step-increase formula used in the previous contract pursuant to the employee’s anniversary date of hire, also retroactive, all of which were proposed by the union.

In Milford, Town Administrator Guy Scaife has gone so far as to speak out against a proposed contract for police, because it includes a provision for sick-time buyouts, something not available to other town employees, including members of the Teamsters union.

The 1995 passage of Senate Bill 2 allowed towns to scrap the old Town Meeting form of government, where voters typically attended a day-long session at which each warrant article was discussed and voted on one by one.

Towns that chose to adopt SB2 hold deliberative sessions for the town and school warrants several weeks in advance of an actual voting day, when they elect candidates and vote on the articles.

Unlike Town Meeting, voters in SB2 towns needn’t attend the deliberative sessions in order to vote, and they can also vote through absentee ballot, factors that many consider a substantial benefit for the town as well as residents.

The town warrant and the entire fact-finder’s report can be viewed online at www. amherstnh.gov/townhall/ voters.html.