The meeting was almost over, but the Concord City Council had one more item to consider. It wasn’t on the agenda for April 11.
“I’d like simply to read a motion, if that’s okay,” Mayor Jim Bouley said.
He moved to approve a newly negotiated contract with the Concord Police Supervisors Association, which he said would be retroactive to Jan. 1. Without any further details, Bouley thanked the union, the city solicitor’s office and other city departments “for putting together what I consider to be a very fair agreement for the taxpayers in the city of Concord.”
The agreement passed unanimously and with no discussion. The group adjourned.
State laws governing collective bargaining and public records protect contract negotiations as confidential. Those statutes, however, don’t provide clear guidance on when a tentative agreement should be made available for public review.
A look at five New Hampshire cities – Concord, Laconia, Manchester, Nashua and Portsmouth – shows the capital city provides the least amount of public information when it comes to approving collective bargaining agreements. Three of those cities make the proposed contract available for review before a vote; and all of the other cities give the public a chance to comment before a contract is approved. Concord, by contrast, doesn’t make the proposed contract available before a vote, or even publicly announce when that vote will take place.
But Concord officials say residents do have a time to speak up: now.
City Manager Tom Aspell recently presented his budget proposal for fiscal year 2017, and the council has begun a series of hearings about his spending plan.
That proposal would allocate $81.9 million for operating costs, special revenue funds and enterprise funds. Of that figure, $50.4 million – roughly 62 percent – would go to compensation and benefits. In other words, a majority of the budget was already determined before the public had the chance to weigh in.
Still, Aspell said this forum is the right one for public comment on future contracts.
“That would be the people’s opportunity to comment in a very effective way about what the issues are related to the budget,” Aspell said. “It’s really in the context of the budget that affects the taxpayer.”
Yet, all four of Concord’s at-large councilors said it’s time for the city to review its process and consider making changes to be more transparent.
In Manchester and Nashua, officials said the full text of a draft contract is attached to a public agenda and published online. While that agenda does not include a designated public hearing on a proposed contract, members of the public in both cities can – and do – take advantage of an open comment period at that meeting.
“When it is introduced to the board of aldermen, it is a public document,” Nashua corporation counsel Steve Bolton said.
In Nashua, Bolton said the document is usually referred to a budget committee, which would hold a public hearing and include a financial analysis of the overall costs of the agreement. Once that committee has rendered a recommendation, the contract is returned to the board of alderman for a final vote.
“The opportunity for the public to comment is there,” Bolton said.
Manchester’s lead negotiator, Dan Cocuzzo, is new to the city. But in 14 years of experience as a labor attorney, he said most cities do not solicit a lot of public input on these agreements. Either way, he said, his job is done by the time the agreement heads to the board of alderman.
“If the public comments have some type of influence, then so be it,” Cocuzzo said.
Those two cities, however, operate under a different form of government than Concord. The mayors of Manchester and Nashua are paid employees of their cities and run day-to-day operations; they also both have veto power over a collective bargaining agreement.
In Portsmouth and Laconia, like Concord, a city manager handles the daily grind of city hall. He or she reports to a city council; its mayor and members are responsible for approving cost items and shaping policy.
On the Seacoast, the Portsmouth council reviews a tentative agreement in a non-public session, then posts the document online. The city used to post the document with the rest of the agenda just few days before the next meeting, when it would be approved. But a couple of years ago, human resources director Dianna Fogarty said community members asked for it to be posted more quickly. Now, she said, that review period is about two weeks.
“We heard from taxpayers, they wanted more time to review it,” Fogarty said. “The taxpayers wanted more transparency.”
Laconia does not publish a draft document, but City Manager Scott Myers delivers a report to the council about the financial terms of the contract.
“When it’s on an agenda, the council is authorized to speak to cost items, but not to specific items within the contract,” Myers said. “Because if the contract is not approved, not ratified, then we’re back in negotiations again, and those details should not be made public.”
That spreadsheet from Myers is also not available to the public, but the vote is listed on the agenda. That’s when citizens can offer comment about a contract.
“We’ve had very few folks comment on collective bargaining agreements during my time here, which is almost five years,” Myers said.
Concord’s four at-large representatives suggested the council should evaluate its process for approving collective bargaining agreements. Bouley did not respond to a request for comment.
“If there was a way to modify the process in some way, I would love to have a bit more transparency,” at-large Councilor Fred Keach said. “Because I think we do a good job. It’s a balancing act, but at the end of the day, I think the taxpayers have the right to see that their taxes are being spent prudently.”
At-large Councilor Steve Shurtleff called the comparison between cities “enlightening.”
“I’m a big believer it’s better to give people too much information than not enough,” Shurtleff said. “I think it would be only right for Concord to look at its procedures and see what we can do to make it even more transparent.”
Shurtleff suggested making draft agreements available before a vote, like Manchester or Portsmouth.
“I like the idea or possibility of allowing some more public comment when we come up with an individual contract,” Shurtleff said. “Maybe we won’t change any of the contracts. But we want to have that input from the public. I think it’s something we should take a look at.”
Councilors noted the benefits of keeping negotiations confidential, which has been upheld in court.
Opening up the process for greater public review hasn’t come up often.
“Maybe we should look at it and modify it,” at-large Councilor Mark Coen said. “The 12 years or so I’ve been on the council, I never remember seeing this as an issue to our process. . . . It’ll be kind of interesting to say, why do we do it a certain way, and other towns and other cities do it in a different manner?”
They also said the council strives to be as open as possible; at-large Councilor Amanda Grady Sexton said Concord is “known as a leader in transparency.”
“We meet and exceed expectations in transparency in all of our proceedings,” Grady Sexton said. “I have to say that we can continue to be a leader in that regard. If there are things that other communities are doing better than we are, that certainly warrants a discussion.”
The councilors, like Aspell, encouraged residents to attend upcoming budget hearings. Despite the weight employee benefits and compensation carry in the budget, few residents come to testify on those items. Instead, they often focus on more tangible services, such as neighborhood paving.
“Compensation, it’s a little bit ignored during the budget process, and it’s a big-ticket item,” Keach said.
Concord has 481 full-time and part-time employees, in addition to 108 seasonal or temporary employees. Of that number, 365 are covered by one of Concord’s six collective bargaining agreements.
Three of those contracts will expire at the end of December. One ends in summer 2017, and two others are in effect until 2018. The compensation and benefits packages outlined in those agreements can’t be changed in the budget process.
Aspell noted all contracts are online, as well as many other city documents
Once the April 11 city council meeting concluded, Aspell had a press release ready for the Monitor, which noted the police supervisor’s contract included a 2½ percent raise for each of the next three years. The entire statement was two paragraphs.
After the council’s unanimous vote, the city declined to release the full contract until it had been signed by a union representative and Aspell.
They posted the document online April 25 – two weeks after the council meeting.
(Megan Doyle can be reached at 369-3321, mdoyle@cmonitor.com or on Twitter
@megan_e_doyle.)