Yesterday afternoon, the Senate passed its FY2017 budget bill.
The following senators voted for the bill:
Ashe, Ayer, Balint, Baruth, Bray, Campbell, Campion, Cummings, Flory, Kitchel, Lyons, MacDonald, Mazza, Mullin, Nitka, Riehle, Rodgers, Sears, Sirotkin, Starr, Westman, White, and Zuckerman
Follow the rocky path three VSEA Bargaining Teams have had to follow in recent negotiations with the State of Vermont and learn why it’s so important for VSEA members and all supportive Vermonters to be contacting your lawmakers right now to tell them to fully fund the VSEA contracts.
Late this afternoon, the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved full funding for the “Pay Act,” or, translated, full funding for VSEA’s contract last best offer, which the VLRB ruled in favor of earlier this week.
To meet the funding obligation, the Committee left in a proposal by the State to save $500,000 by privatizing the Office of Risk Management; a real bone of contention that WIA has written about several times in past issues.
“This continues to be a very bad idea, and VSEA will be working very hard to prevent this privatization from ever happening, because we do believe it will lead to a reduction in services and a loss of more than one hundred years of combined experience and dedication,” says VSEA Executive Director Steve Howard. “VSEA has provided lawmakers with privatization alternatives and other ideas to stop this from happening. It’s going to be a fight, but it’s one VSEA is prepared to participate in until we are able to protect these jobs and this critical service.”
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The Fifth Floor sabres are already rattling. Nothing says support and respect for the process, for state employees and for Vermont, like this lovely musing from Secretary of the Administration Justin Johnson:
“At the end of the day, the biggest challenge, particularly this late in the year, is that this proposal … adds something like $11 million to costs. If someone has $11 million stashed away somewhere, I’d be really interested in knowing where it is.”
You see now the posturing that your VSEA Bargaining Teams were up against this entire way.
BTW: The Teams are only "this late in the process" because the Shumlin Administration couldn’t see the writing on the wall weeks ago (or months ago, as Brother Bob Stone points out), which most likely cost taxpayers thousands by dragging out the process.
