Mayor: Explaining the Impact of Public Employee Pension and Health Care Contributions

As we all know from the tumultuous events at the State Capitol in Madison earlier this year, legislation was enacted which made very substantial changes to the relationship between the State and local governments and their unionized public employees.  Public employee collective bargaining was essentially eliminated except for agreements on base wages capped by increases in the Consumer Price Index.  Police and firefighter unions were exempted from these changes and continue to have most of the collective bargaining rights which they had previously.

The State legislation which was enacted required public employees to contribute to their pensions and health care costs.  City of Brookfield employees had been contributing significantly to their health care costs and the changes made at the State level did not affect their health care contributions because the City has found it more cost effective to use its own plan rather than the State health care plan. 

City employees were subject to the requirement of contributing to their pensions.  Except for new hires, the state legislation exempted police and firefighter unions from this requirement as well as police and fire management.  For other unionized City employees, the pension contribution requirement becomes effective when existing contracts expire.

I have been critical of the exemption for police and fire personnel because it treats these protective service employees differently than other municipal employees.  This difference in treatment struck me as hard to justify and could be damaging to the morale and cohesiveness of the City’s workforce.

Non-unionized City employees began making their pension contributions in August of 2011.  I was surprised and very pleased when the City of Brookfield’s Fire Department management voluntarily began making contributions to the City equal to the pension contribution required of other employees.  The City’s contract with the firefighter union expires at the end of 2011.  I am pleased to report that the City has now reached agreement on a new three year contract with the firefighter union which does provide for the firefighters to make pension contributions despite the exemption provided to unionized firefighters under State law.  The firefighters will be receiving wage adjustments of 1.25% on January 1^st and July 1^st of each of the three contract years. 

The City’s contracts with the public works union and the library workers union were not due to expire until the end of 2012.  We have reached an understanding with each of these unions that their contracts will be amended and extended with the provision that they begin making pension contributions as of January 2012.

These agreements with respect to pension contributions reflect well on these City employees and their desire to be part of the solution to the fiscal challenges facing local government.  The pension contributions made by City employees will save the City of Brookfield approximately $750,000 next year.  These contributions will help the City in its efforts to maintain a high level of services within our financial constraints.

It is my hope that soon all City of Brookfield municipal employees will be making pension contributions and contributing to the cooperative spirit which exists generally between the City and its employees.