Summary of Nov 18th Personnel Appeals Board Hearing

Thanks again to everyone who came and showed their support at the last meeting. This was a preliminary hearing where we were going to try and convince the Personnel Appeals Board (PAB) to force Human Resources to release the evaluator notes and score sheets. Obviously our guys who filed appeals need these documents to help make their case for why they think the process should be done over. As you can imagine it's pretty hard to make a case for an appeal when you're not allowed to see what you're appealing, this is why they have discovery in the Court system. Unfortunately that doesn't exist in our appeals process.

Our Union attorney Steve McEleney wrote a lengthy brief for the PAB members before the hearing explaining his argument for why he believes the Board has subpoena power and can force the release of the documents. The PAB members were supposed to get these briefs a few days before the hearing so they would be prepared beforehand. However once the hearing got started we found out the Board members never received the briefs that were supposed to be sent to them by HR Director Santiago Malave, because he never forwarded them along. Shocking I know.

So as a result Attorney McEleney had to make his case from scratch at the hearing. He had several citations including the Town Charter, Town Ordnances, and State Law to support his case that the PAB does have the authority to subpoena documents from the Town. However the Town's Corporation Counsel Scott Chadwick agreed with the Town's other Attorney Meredith Diette that the Town Charter and Ordnances Attorney McEleney cited are actually illegal and advised the PAB that they don't have subpoena power. His decision is binding upon the Board.

I suppose we should'nt be too surprised that the Town's lawyer agreed with the Town's other lawyer that the Town shouldn't release documents that might get the Town sued if they uncover some sort of mal/misfeasance. But it's still pretty shocking that they went so far as to claim their own Town Charter is illegal to make their case.

What this reveals to us is that this appeals process is inherently stacked against the appellants. How can it be considered a fair process when an employee who files an appeal isn't allowed to see any documentation related to what they're appealing and has to make their argument solely from memory? Yet the Town is able to manipulate the evidence by only showing things that benefit their argument, and hiding facts that aren't in their favor? This entire process needs a complete overhaul if it's ever going to be considered fair.

Attorney McEleney called one of our members who took a different promotional exam recently to testify. Our member testified that she had doubts about the score she received on her Oral Board so she contacted Director Malave and asked to see her evaluator's notes to help make sense of her score. In that case Director Malave invited her to his office and showed her all the evaluator notes, and as a result she understood why her score was what it was and ended up not filing an appeal. That's what we've been asking for from the beginning in this case that could've avoided all this mess. So why did it suddenly become such a secret with this particular test?

Attorney Diette claimed the Town has a right to not show the test documents and in the previous case they chose to waive their right and show our member her results, but in this case they chose not to. She didn't offer any explanation as to why they changed their policy. Ms. Diette told the PAB that she plans to bring the panel members to testify and that is all the evidence that they need to see, and absent a Court order she has no intention of showing the documents to the Union or the PAB.

Attorney McEleney rebutted that while he would love to question the evaluators, he can't effectively form questions for them without seeing the documents that he's questioning them about. Therefore he requested the PAB postpone all hearings until he has an opportunity to try and force the release of the documents in Superior Court.

At that point the three members of the PAB spoke. They unanimously agreed that they want to see all of the evidence including the notes, not just the hand selected bits that HR chooses to release, and agreed to hold off on any future hearings until the Superior Court process plays out. Thankfully the PAB members seem to see through the Town's charade and understand what appears to really be going on here, an attempt to conceal something unfavorable to HR.

With that the meeting adjourned. Check our other post with the dates of the future hearings if you're interested in coming. Dates may be cancelled if the Superior Court hasn't ruled yet.

Arbitrability of Promotional Test Grievance Won

We were notified yesterday of the resolution to the hearing we attended last month to address the Town's challenge of the validity of our grievance over the Sergeant's oral board exam. The panel of three arbitrators unanimously sided with the Union that the case is arbitrable and must be heard. The fact that even the Town's arbitrator sided with the Union demonstrates how ridiculous the challenge was to begin with.

This is not a decision on the merits of the case, it simply means that the case can proceed to a "step 3" hearing where a decision one way or the other will be issued. Concurrently we also have our MPP filing to try and get the associated documents working it's way through a separate process which will need to be resolved before we can have the step 3, we're still waiting for that decision to come down.

Personnel Hearing Schedule

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Personnel Appeals Board hearing Monday night. We'll discuss it at the meeting Tuesday and I'll try to get something posted up here about it as soon after as I can. Here is the schedule for the remainder of the hearings, all PAB hearing are open to the public and anyone can attend to witness. They will be at Town Hall in Town Council Chambers unless another venue is found.

Wednesday Jan 8th at 1700 (This date may be cancelled if a Suprior Court issue is not resolved before then.)

Wednesday Jan 22nd at 1700

Monday Jan 27th at 1700

Monday Feb 10th at 1700

November Meeting

Our November meeting will be on Tuesday the 26th at 0830 at the usual place. Topics of discussion will consist of the latest on the Sergeant's test, CHRO, passage of the pension deal, and anything else that comes up between now and then. We will also open the floor to anyone who wants it.

New Pension Contract for EHPOA.

We're excited to announce the new pension agreement we have come to with the Town that has been approved by Town Council and will go into effect January 1st 2020 and is valid until December 31st 2029. Shortly after the current Executive Board took office this past April the Administration approached us about two policies that they needed to enact to complete their CALEA Accreditation process. These policies constituted a significant change in working conditions are were therefore subject to collective bargaining.

We met with the Chiefs and discussed their draft policies, they were very open to the suggestions we had to modify the policies to make them work better and reduce their negative impact on our membership. In exchange for not contesting the implementation of the new policies, we asked for an extension to our pension contract which was due to expire on December 31st 2021. Chief Sansom relayed our request to then Finance Director Mike Walsh who responded that the Town did not want to extend our contract because they were looking to reduce benefits and costs in upcoming negotiations. He did however offer to enter off the record negotiations on a new contract that would offer reduced benefits for new hires while locking in benefits for current employees. We took this offer and began working out the details off the record.

These are the details of the final agreement we came to after negotiations:

All current employee's pension benefits shall remain unchanged and not be opened to renegotiation for the duration of their employment. Neither the Town nor the Union can request to re-open the terms for that group of employees.

The following changes will apply to new hires starting after Jan 1st, 2020. The annual multiplier will be reduced from the current 2.5% per year to 2.33% resulting in a 58.25% payout after 25 years as opposed to the current 62.5%. Additionally lump sum payments for comp time, and sick leave will no longer be calculated into final average salary.

Cost of living adjustment will also be reduced from 2% per year starting 4 years after retirement for current employees, to 1% per year starting 6 years after retirement. Finally, new employees will contribute 9% of their salary annually instead of the 8% current employees will continue to pay.

Other than those four changes everything else will stay the same for the new employees, the term will remain 25 years maxing out at 30 years, vesting is still at 15 years, the DROP plan remains, and overtime except PJs will still be included in final average salary.

All in all, this plan is a win for everyone involved, current employees will still be able to collect the benefits we were promised when we were hired. Our new hires will still have a great pension plan available to them that's better than what many competing Departments are currently offering. Additionally our pension plan should become more sustainable over the long term which is a huge win for all our members past, present and future, and for the Town which should experience significant savings.

We also negotiated some small changes to our time off policies that should make it easier for our employees on minimum staffing to use their time off without causing any extra overtime so there's no penalty to the Town. The MOU for that has been signed and is in effect, we'll incorporate the new language into our next labor contract.

Thanks to everyone who helped to make this deal a reality including Chief Sansom and his Administrative team, Mayor Leclerc, and Former Finance Director Mike Walsh. I especially want to thank all of the members of our Executive Board. This really was a team effort and the deal we have was shaped by everyone's input and I'm really proud of this board and the contract we put together. Thank you all.