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GREENBURGH, N.Y. – In a meeting full of screams, applause and very little order, the Greenburgh Town Board sat silently as almost 20 employees of the town's Department of Public Works stepped forward to address their complaints.
Greenburgh residents who attended Wednesday night's board meeting were greeted by a sea of red, as almost 50 Public Works employees stood outside Town Hall, 177 Hillside Ave., dressed in matching T-shirts and carrying protest signs.
DPW employees have been without a contract for several years, while other town workers have been offered "substantial increases since 2008," according to a statement by the DPW employees, and this isn't the first time they have voiced their complaints.
"You disrespect us to the fullest by giving us that little bit of contract you give us, when you know we work harder," said Sidney Sweeney, a sanitation and highway worker. "It's time that you respect us."
During the public comment portion of the Town Board meeting, many of the employees said they just want to be treated fairly, while some personally attacked Town Supervisor Paul Feiner as the rest encouraged and clapped loudly.
"Is this the way you reward your employees? With threats and intimidation and no wage increases?" asked Louis Picante, a DPW employee.
Feiner attempted to defend the board – barely getting a word out before a screaming match ensued between him and Picante.
Feiner said the board did present an offer to increase DPW wages, but the workers argued it was nothing compared to increases received by other employees. Feiner then suggested they release all the contract details publicly, as there may be "some misinformation going on."
"I appreciate all the hard work all you guys do. But I don't want the people to feel like we're offering zeroes," Feiner said. "Maybe if they knew what we were proposing they would support it."
The workers insisted the contract was impossible to approve because it would require them to pay an additional 12 percent of medical bills, which Feiner denied as being true.
The workers left the meeting early as a group, claiming that Feiner still wouldn't entertain their contract options, which were not made public. The workers said they would return at the next Town Board meeting, scheduled for Oct. 10 in the Town Hall auditorium. The CSEA union represents the town employees.
Comments (4)
The $9,000 buy-out is for family coverage and it was increased to this amount either last year or the year before. There are several Town employees who are afforded this buy-out as well. This is why the Town's health insurance cost is so out of control. It's the same with the retirement system - it allows people to legally double dip. In NYS you can retire, collect your pension & social security and also work full-time with a full-time salary if your 65 or older. Granted the Town doesn't have to pay into your retirement anymore or pay benefits but they are paying the high salaries when they could be bringing in new employees at significantly lower salaries. Town Board members are the ones imposing tax hikes - they should not be able to collect $9,000 in lieu of health benefits. They are part-time employees who should not be eligible for health insurance coverage unless this is offered to every part-timer working for the Town. What's good for the goose....
What most citizens don't know is that the Town Board members give themselves the best perks before anyone else. Only in Greenburgh would part-time employees (Town Board members) be given 100% family health insurance coverage. No other part-time employee in the Town is offered this perk. And wait, it gets better. All four Town Board members take the buy-out, $9,000 each! Can you imagine that they take our tax dollars and claim to be entitled to it?
The Town, the County and the State keep blaming civil servants for the rise in taxes when in fact, it's the managers, administrators, elected officials, etc. who set up the system so that they could benefit from insurance and retirement perks and then they blame it on those at the bottom of the pay scales.
Shame on them and shame on us for buying into their lies and deception. They freeze the salaries of CSEA employees for years and years and then pass a modest increase and hold that for more than a year even though they raised our taxes to pay for it. Many CSEA and Teamsters live in the Town and have had their taxes raised year after year after year yet the Town doesn't seem to think that they are entitled to even a 2% salary increase and they want them to pay into their health insurance while elected officials are stealing the buy-outs on the insurance right from our pockets.
These elected officials fall just short of being criminals.
I agree 100%. I wasn't aware that the buyout was so high (I had thought $2500 but have no reference point).
However lay readers need to understand that "buyout" means the option of not assuming the Town's health insurance plan which would duplicate policies that they or their spouses may already have from their own employment elsewhere.
This "right" was voted by an earlier Town Board and never revoked by subsequent Town Boards who see no problem in bleeding the Town further. Yes the Town Council are part-time employees in every respect except when it comes to sticking it to the taxpayers.
Note that the salary for the Town Council members is currenty $28,332.
It is for this reason that the Town Board, at its Tuesday work sessions, sets the meeting start time at 9:30 and rarely begins before 10:00 or much later. Then Feiner calls the meeting to order and for the archives announces that the meeting has started around 9:30 -- thus cementing for the record the hours put in at their job. Certainly Council member Ken Jones owes the Town mucho hours for both his absences and tardiness.
In the most extreme example, Kevin Morgan double dips: choosing the buyout option because as a retired Police Officer, he already qualifies for Town health coverage.
But let's not leave Feiner out of the picture. He is the one full time employee as member of the Town Board and thus is absolutely entitled to health insurance. However his wife is a NYS employee and is similarly covered. I am not aware of whether either Mr. Feiner or his wife accept a buyout as either person's coverage includes family members. Certainly Mr. Feiner, out of his concern for the Town's taxpayers, would not be burdening them with his own insurance cost when the richer NYS (through his wife) could pick up the health cost. Certainly Mr. Feiner would not accept a buyout from the Town under these conditions. Likewise, he wouldn't affix the cost burden to the Town just so his wife could accept a buyout from the State.
It would be interesting to find out.
Especially since Feiner is setting in motion his plan to blame higher taxes on full time union members who are being asked to share the cost burden while the Town Board or Town Council get a free ride...free since not taking the Town's health insurance means not contributing to its cost. This known as "no skin off their back!"
Hal Samis
"The CSEA union represents the town employees."
Let me hazard a guess.
The CSEA represents the OTHER town employees; it is the Teamster's that represent the DPW employees.
However, whichever union, is not the issue. Both unions are suffering from Feiner's financial improprieties. And both groups of workers have been harmed from years of frozen wages. It ain't cheap to live in Greenburgh with its rising taxes (Feiner) while gas, food and the housing markets rise without local intervention.
Personnel is and historically has been the lion's share of the Town Budget. Thus it should come as no shock when Feiner rides those rails looking for voter support. Which is why it seemed to many that Feiner's attempt last year to hire two of his friends to newly created positions was counter productive to fiscal realities. Fortunately, the departure this year for personal reasons, of Feiner's former running mate, Allegra Dengler, returns these bucks to the Town's coffers -- another patronage position vacated.
But it is in the non-personnel areas that Feiner delivers his worst. Exisiting monies that could be used for personnel ends up in the toilet. The Town is spending more and more each year on litigation defending Feiner and the Town Board in Court. With the big payout (Fortress Bible) not yet announced. The $4 million loss at the Water Department is not due to the cost of staff: rather it is due to not passing on costs to consumers. And, the $4 million has not been paid back; it has been "borrowed" from the Town's fund balances without any plan in place for its repayment.
But hasn't Feiner been trying to find relief by his recent attempts to lease Town property? It is true he has been trying to lease Town property but each proposed lease brings with it a different set of problems. In the controversial sports bubble lease (GameOn), Feiner may incur new legal problems costing the Town even more money while the revenue the lease provides is but a fraction of its true market value.
The tennis bubble lease, for all its bi-polar problems, will bring in a few $thousand LESS for its nine month tenure than the sports bubble will bring for its proposed size and 12 month annual use. And then we get to the WESTHelp/Ferncliff blunder which Feiner has woken up to "belatedly" and is in the process of white-washing. Here Feiner delayed FOR OVER A YEAR responding to what was then the County's request to renew the expiring lease. By the time Feiner was ready to respond (Feiner wasn't eager to renew because his friends in Mayfair-Knollwood were no longer getting their payoff), interest on the part of the County may have been on the decline and the new County Executive was certainly not in favor. The result: a $1,200,000 annual loss of lease rent to the Town (the second highest revenue source). The three leases that Feiner has been pushing total less than $1,200,000. And, the WESTHelp lease which ended Spetember 2011 and remains vacant since, means that the Town has now irretrievably lost one year's rent of $1,200,000 which increases each month the property remains vacant by $100,000. Finally, not one of the three leases will bring in immediate lease revenue as they depend on construction completions.
While there may be some relief coming from higher mortgage and sales tax collections (not due to Feiner), the Town is in deep trouble while the AAA bond rating offers no tangible benefit since Feiner runs in the opposite direction when infrastructure needs (requiring bonding) problems arise. The leasing of Frank's to GameOn is such an example of the existing need for a new Court/Police campus being being delayed -- for at least 15 years by a proposed lease.
The problem is not with the unions. The problem IS Feiner and he is positioning them as the whipping boy to hide the real problems. Unions are, after all, just neighbors who happen to be employed by the Town. They, too, have kids that need to go to college; mortgages to pay; food to buy. It is a shame that their boss is Town Supervisor Feiner.
The Teamsters may now want to take a second look at all those $1,000 annual PAC contributions to Feiner's election campaigns.
Hal Samis