For Immediate Release: Wednesday, May 1, 2019
From the Office of Council President Nancy Navarro
ROCKVILLE, Md., April 30, 2019—The Council met today to review compensation and benefits for all agencies in the fiscal year (FY) 2020 operating budget and to indicate its intent to approve or reject the County’s collective bargaining agreements. The Council, by a unanimous straw vote, signaled its intent to accept the collectively bargained contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) and reject the contract for the Municipal County Government Employees Organization (MCGEO). The Council determined that the labor agreement for MCGEO negotiated by County Executive Marc Elrich is not fiscally sustainable and should be in parity with the contracts negotiated with FOP and IAFF because of competing budget demands and the County’s projected constrained short-term revenue growth.
At the same time, the Council discussed steps that need to be taken to reduce compensation costs over the long term. Some of the options include: formalizing a structure for the annual review of compensation cost sustainability and providing that information to the County Executive Elrich to be used in the collective bargaining process; evaluating changes that could be made to the County laws that govern the collective bargaining process; looking for savings by reviewing the benefit costs across all agencies; and reducing the size of the County’s workforce.
“While the Council recognizes that the County’s labor force provides outstanding services to our residents, we must balance our desire to reward our hard-working employees with the County’s overall financial demands both in the upcoming fiscal year and over the long term,” said Council President Nancy Navarro, who also serves as chair of the Council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee. “The Council is directing the parties to go back to the bargaining table to develop compensation recommendations that take the County’s fiscal future into account, while still providing our employees with generous general wage adjustments and service increments albeit at a more conservative level.”
County services for more than one million residents are provided across four County-funded agencies—Montgomery County Government, Montgomery County Public Schools, Montgomery College and the Maryland-National Park and Planning Commission. Employee compensation makes up 80 percent of all agency operating expenditures.
The final vote on the collective bargaining agreements and compensation and benefits will occur when the Council votes on the final fiscal year 2020 budget which is currently scheduled for May 23. The Council staff reports covering the provisions in the collective bargaining agreements and compensation costs can be found at
https://tinyurl.com/FY20Compensation and https://tinyurl.com/FY20CollectiveBargaining.
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