2016 NJ State PBA Collective Bargaining Seminar
‘How the revenue comes into the municipal budget’
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
Ray J. Caprio, PhD
Marc H. Pfeiffer, MPA
Research and Consulting Services
Having taken over as State Delegate for Howell Local 228 just in
the path month, Ryan Hurley knew he was in for a bit of an awakening from the Financial Analysis seminar. But what he learned
during this session might keep him up at night.
“This is going to open the eyes of some of our members who
think it’s easier than it is,” Hurley stated. “The information we got
will let them know what the atmosphere is regarding salary increases. We can now give them real hard facts. And it’s going to be hard.”
The Financial Analysis presentation has been one of the jewels of
the Collective Bargaining Seminar; an opportunity for members to
get knowledge and wisdom from the great Vince Fote, who passed
away in 2015. Ray Caprio and Marc Pfeiffer from the Rutgers University School of Management stepped in this year and provided
substantive education about revenue streams into municipalities,
the primary elements that make up municipal finance and how to
be on the lookout for a town’s potential budget surplus at the end of
the year.
Caprio particularly emphasized what a Local negotiating a contract would need to do if it wanted to avoid going to arbitration, as
well as how to know that if the municipality claims that it doesn’t
have the revenue, whether it really doesn’t have the revenue.
“I think it’s very critical to have a full understanding of how the
revenue comes into the municipal budget because you can’t negotiate without knowing as much about their positions as you possibly
can,” Caprio added. “But I would say the most important takeaway
is appreciating the difficulty of the environment in which they now
have to negotiate and the realism that they can get more than 2 percent (in salary increase), but they have to give up something.”
Hurley noted how the session provided a realistic look at what a
Local might have to do to get a 2-percent increase.
“For me, the biggest takeaway was the calculations of where the
2-percent increase will come from,” Hurley continued. “It’s about
how to find the funds and how to break up that number among all
your officers so everybody gets a piece of the pie.”
‘These are valued employees and they deserve
to be compensated’
INTEREST ARBITRATION
James Mets
Mets, Schiro, McGovern, LLP
If your Local’s contract negotiation is heading for Interest Arbitration – and it’s probably coming because nearly 80 percent have
wound up there since the advent of the 2-percent cap – what can you
do?
Attorney James Mets advised members that the negotiating
process in this “Interest Arbitration Era” continues to evolve, and that
the tipping point comes when finding out if you are going to be held
to the 2-percent cap.
Getting that information, he continued, can be accomplished via
the new law that makes it an unfair labor practice to not have three
negotiating meetings with the muni