Cities League, Mayor Urge Police and Fire Be Added to Collective Bargaining

State Senators today should amend the proposed state budget to add existing police and fire personnel to new pension, health and collective bargaining provisions, Brookfield Mayor Steve Ponto and a cities advocacy organization say.

The League of Wisconsin Municipalities and Ponto praised the state's budget-writing committee for making improvements to the two-year $66 billion state budget. But they urged that last-minute changes be made on the Senate floor today.

The state Assembly passed the budget at 3 a.m. on a 60-38 vote, sending the 2011-13 budget to the Senate where approval also is expected, possibly in another late-night vote.

The state budget does not contain the language from the controversial budget repair bill that requires public employees to pay 5.8 percent of their pensions and 12.6 percent of their health premiums and eliminates future union contracts for most workers except for bargaining over inflation-capped wages. Police, fire and state troopers were exempted from the changes.

State lawmakers felt they didn't need to add those provisions to the state budget after the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the budget repair bill was legally passed and lifted a lower court's injunction banning its implementation.

But the League of Wisconsin Municipalities is pushing state lawmakers to amend the biennial budget to lift the exemptions for police and fire personnel, whose labor costs comprise large portions of municipal budgets. 

The state Joint Finance Committee did amend the budget to require newly hired police and fire officials to make the same contributions as other public workers. Lawmakers, however, now have exempted public transit workers so the state will not lose federal transit funds.

"We urge the Assembly and Senate to make the more sensible policy choice and include all municipal employees," said Dan Thompson, the league's executive director.

The League's statement also said:

"We are pleased that the Joint Finance Committee made many changes to the budget bill beneficial to municipalities, including: 

• Reducing the cuts in shared revenue
• Reducing the cuts in general transportation aids
• Restoring the recycling grant program, albeit at a reduced funding level
• Requiring newly hired police and fire employees to contribute to their  pension
• Making it unnecessary to bargain with police and fire unions on the choice and design of health insurance plans
• Repealing minimum spending requirements on police and fire budgets
• Increasing the Wisconsin Retirement System eligibility threshold from 600 to 1,200 hours in a year

"These changes reduce the impact of the cuts to municipal funding programs and restore some management rights."

Another issue raised by the League was partially addressed Wednesday by an Assembly amendment to accept $37 million in federal grant money for rural broadband access and keep WiscNet internet access for at least two more years. 

But the League and Ponto said the exemption for existing police and fire personnel continues to create salary and benefit inequity among employees and fails to cover losses in state aids to local government.

Gov. Scott Walker has denied charges that he exempted public safety unions because they backed his gubernatorial election and said adding them would have endangered citizens had the workers walked off the job.