11/08/2006 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 11/8/2006 9) Civil litigation: • Common Pleas case regarding city's motion to vacate several management rights arbitration awards, in particular, the arbitration award which ordered city to reinstate a callback policy the administration feels had been unlawfully negotiated outside of the collective bargaining process by a former fire chief and Local 1267. The city was required to alapeaz in court on October 25 on a union motion. The issue was whether or not the city was in contempt of a court order in revisiting an issue indirectly related to the callback policy in that the city was revisiting the question of when do fire fighters qualify for overtime, when does work mean work. It was an issue that the fire fighters grieved and also presented to Judge Sutula as the city potentially being in contempt of the court's order. He assured the judge that the city had no intention of acting in contempt of the court's order and offered to direct city officials to pay the overtime as the fire fighters desired if, in fact, that was the judge's intent. The judge did not make a ruling at that time, but he asked the parties to put together stipulations of fact and submit them to him. The department has done so and also asked for the opportunity to brief the case for the court. Whatever the court rules in that case will be followed. • A couple of years ago, the city filed an unfair labor practice charge against (IAFF) Local 1267 claiming it violated State law when it approached City Council to talk about collective bargaining matters and pending grievances. SERB found in the city's favor and has ordered the unions to refrain in the future from engaging in such an unfair labor practice. He has provided confidential advice to Council on this issue as the city prepazes for a new round of collective bargaining with Local 1267 beginning tomorrow. • Two union grievances have gone to arbitration-one from Fire, one from Police. Both were handled by Asst. Law Director O'Malley. One was completed, and briefs will be presented to the azbitrator. Arbitration on the other has been continued to a date later this month. 10) Prosecutor's report for October: 246 cases handled-174 traffic and 72 general offenses; 142 pleas of guilty and no contest; 2 trials and 2 convictions. Finance Director Copfer: 1} PERS has given notification that employee and employer contributions are going up January 1, 200'7 and January 1, 2008. In 2007, the rate for employers goes from 13.7% to 13.85%, and 9% to 9.5% for employees. 2) Distributed the September 2006 financial reports to City Council. Detailed revenue and expenditure reports were e-mailed and are on the shared Finance drive. She has perused those summaries and noted September brought nothing out of the ordinary, so the projections made at the end of August still stand for the end of the year. 3) Mayor began the budgeting process with directors and has scheduled meetings for the next two weeks. 4) Traveled to Findlay, Ohio with Asst. Finance Director Leslie Bruxvoort to attend the Ohio MUNIS users group meeting to discuss not only the new annual release but also common problems and concerns. They did determine the city could yield a little clout with MLTNIS since the company is currently marketing to Ohio municipalities. Another meeting will be held to come up with a list of items to be improved to better serve future Ohio clients. 4