By Brian Meyer
The Buffalo News
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo’s control board voted Wednesday to block an arbitration award that would give firefighters $13 million in retroactive raises.
The union vowed to continue a legal fight, accusing the control board of overstepping its bounds.
The oversight panel determined that firefighters are not entitled to raises from mid-2002 through mid-2007, because the salary increases were not in effect when the control board imposed a wage freeze in 2004.
In a 6-1 vote, the board blocked payment of the back pay dating to 2002. Under the arbitration ruling earlier this year, many firefighters were in line to receive $14,000 to $20,000 in back pay.
The retroactive payments would have cost Buffalo $13 million when raises, payroll taxes and pension payments are tallied, city budget officials said Wednesday.
Control board Chairman R. Nils Olsen Jr. said the board discussed the six-year legal fight during an executive session. It voted to deny payment of the raises at its public meeting.
“We really do need to keep our eye on our ability to play a meaningful role in the future, and if we fail to defend the integrity of the wage freeze, we don’t have very many other tools left,” Olsen said.
Union President Daniel Cunningham assailed Wednesday’s action after a reporter told him about the vote.
“This is just another attack on the integrity of the laws and the court system by the control board,” he said.
Cunningham maintained that a 2.1 percent raise effective July 1, 2002, and a 3.4 percent raise effective the following year should be paid retroactively through mid-2007, because the wage freeze was not in effect until two years after the first raise was to take effect.
The city already paid firefighters the 5.5 percent in raises for the period after April 2007, when the wage freeze was lifted. But firefighters have long maintained that they are owed retroactive raises for a 57-month period that began in mid-2002.
Voting against the plan to deny the raises was board Secretary George K. Arthur, who has two sons who are city firefighters. Arthur said Wednesday’s decision will likely prolong court fights over back wages.
“Sometime we’ve got to cut these lawsuits. We have to stop them,” said Arthur. “This is not helping the morale of the city employees, and city services are going to suffer.”
Arthur added that he doesn’t believe the control board should even have the power to block the raises, arguing that the panel should have morphed into a “soft” advisory mode earlier this year.
Mayor Byron W. Brown, who rarely misses monthly control board meetings, did not attend Wednesday’s session. But his proxy, Finance Commissioner Janet Penksa, voted to deny the payments to firefighters and insisted that additional legal wrangling can be avoided through negotiations and collective bargaining.
Cunningham countered that firefighters have been trying with no success to jump-start negotiations since 2009. He added that the city’s credibility has been undermined by numerous actions, including its “illegal” imposition of a health insurance plan with only one insurance carrier.
As Penksa left the meeting, she told a reporter the mayor was absent due to a schedule conflict.
“How convenient he skipped the meeting and had someone else sit in for him when there’s a controversial issue,” Cunningham said.
Back in March, teachers and some city police officers lost a legal fight that made its way to the state’s highest court. The Court of Appeals ruled that the employees are not due the salary step increases they lost during a 38-month wage freeze that the state control board imposed.
Brown hailed the court edict as a “big win” for city taxpayers. School Superintendent James A. Williams called it a victory that takes children’s well-being into account.
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