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Legislature approves CSEA contract extension

Photo by Katrina Fuller Lt. Kirk Lyon of the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office was presented with an accreditation award by Sheriff Joe Gerace at Wednesday night’s county legislature meeting. The Sheriff’s Office is one of six in New York state that is accredited.

MAYVILLE — Many Chautauqua County employees will greet the holiday with a new contract extension after it was approved Wednesday night by the County Legislature.

A one-year contract extension, which secured a 2 percent wage increase and changes to health insurance benefits was approved during the last meeting before Thanksgiving. The legislature approved the resolution unanimously.

County Executive Vince Horrigan said the approved contract extension focused mainly on two issues: wages and health insurance.

“For 2018, people that switch over (to a high-deductible plan) — only for 2018 — 100 percent of the deductible will be covered,” Horrigan said. “That’s to incentivize people to do that and to build up their health savings account. Now, after that, then we’ll go back to the normal contribution we make where the employees have a contribution to the deductible and the county has one.”

Horrigan said many employees had concerns regarding the high-deductible plans in case they had a major health issue in January or February before they had contributed to the health savings account. It was then decided to have the county cover the cost of the first year’s deductible if the employees choose to switch to the high-deductible plan. However, employees are not forced to switch plans.

“What we’ve done is say, ‘Hey, look, for the first year, we’ll cover that,'” Horrigan said. “That way, it’s an incentive to get over, get on and experience the plan, not pay the premiums. For most people, they’re going to build up money in their health savings accounts, so they’ll be in much better shape going forward when we go back to the split contributions.”

The legislature also approved a resolution to amend the 2017 budget for the Office of Child and Family Services custody invoices, which are the bills that OCFS sent the county for the children that are currently in their care. The bill was recently received by the county in September, just as the budget process was getting underway.

The resolution called for an appropriation of $3.8 million in unassigned fund balance to cover the excess cost.

Before the vote, Legislator Chuck Nazzaro, D-Jamestown, expressed concern over the change in rates that was recently revealed by OCFS which was retroactive back to 2015.

“This hit us totally by surprise,” he said. “Basically, there are many factors to this, but one of the main factors is that the state retroactively almost doubled the rate they charge per day for custody services to almost $1,000 per day. The county, as we know, pays 50 percent of that.”

Nazzaro said he understands that the county Department of Health and Human Services and the county executive have asked for an explanation of why there has been such an increase to no avail. He suggested that the 2018 administration could ask the state comptroller to look into the situation.

“We as a county, and any other county who has been hit with this, has a right to know how this rate was calculated,” he said. “I think we should hold the state accountable.”

Other legislators including Ronald Lemon, R-Frewsburg; P.J. Wendel, R-Lakewood; and Dave Wilfong, R-Jamestown; agreed with Nazzaro and said something must be done regarding the increase.

Legislator George Borrello, R-Hanover, said as the incoming county executive, he would look into it and would “hold the state accountable.”

Lemon was the only legislator to vote “no” on the resolution.

A brief ceremony was held regarding the re-accreditation of the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office. The award was presented to Lt. Kirk Lyon, accreditation manager, by Sheriff Joe Gerace.

Legislator P.J. Wendel, R-Lakewood, said it is a statewide accreditation program that recognizes law enforcement agencies that meet or exceed the standards. Wendel is the Public Safety Committee chairman.

“There’s 110 different standards in three different categories: administration, training and operations,” he said. “Only 149 of 540 police agencies are accredited and we’re one of only six sheriff’s departments that are accredited, so it’s pretty significant.”

In other news, during the public comment session, Karen Engstrom Harvey of Mayville spoke regarding three wind turbine projects. According to Harvey, the New York state constitution requires that “local officials protect the health, safety and welfare of the community.” Harvey said electrical energy sources should be chosen due to reliability, true cost to rate and taxpayers, proximity to demand centers and dispatchability – not based on “short-term, economic gain to host communities.”

Harvey said studies in the U.S., Canada and Europe have shown that turbines placed near living spaces have a negative impact and can negatively impact weather radar, air traffic control radar, marine radar, radio navigation, terrestrial television and fixed radio links. She asked if the wind companies would pay for those services if and when they fail.

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