The Concord City Council took a step toward transparency when it decided to allow the public to review contract cost items before voting to approve or reject them, something other cities in the state do as a matter of routine business.
However, some officials say there is still room for improvement in the process, including making the actual cost of the changes more clear to the public and giving residents an automatic chance to make comments prior to a council vote.
“It’s important that people do understand where their tax money is going and what city employees are making,” said at-large councilor Mark Coen, a member of the Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee that recommended the city provide a summary of cost items in tentative labor agreements on its consent agenda before city council meetings. “I think the council should be supporting any effort to make sure the process is as clear as possible.”
The council’s Nov. 12 meeting was the first time the public was able to review such cost information before a vote. In the past, the public had no notice of when the city council would vote on a new contract, no opportunity to comment before a contract was passed, and learned how much a contract would cost only after it was a done deal.
The city council would vote on city contracts at the end of their meetings after reviewing the cost items in nonpublic session.
Outgoing councilor Allan Herschlag, who has pushed for greater transparency prior to council votes on labor contracts, wrote a letter to his constituents saying he was disappointed in the way the process went at the last council meeting. The two contracts were placed on the consent agenda – meaning they were passed by the council along with a slew of other items. There was no discussion by councilors or the public.
Herschlag said he thinks that once the union, the administration and city council agree in principle on a new contract, there should be an opportunity for the public to comment before a vote, like during a public hearing.
“It shouldn’t necessitate a magnifying glass and a fine-toothed comb for you to find out what we are doing and what we are spending your money on,” he said. “Open government should mean exactly that. Hide and seek is a children’s game that you shouldn’t need to be playing to find out what your city government is doing in your name.”
Several councilors said they felt Herschlag’s comments were unfair. A public hearing could have occurred if any councilor had decided to pull a contract from the consent calendar by motion.
Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee chairman Keith Nyhan said residents could have reached out to councilors if they wanted to speak on the contract.
At-large councilor Byron Champlin, also a member of the Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee, agreed.
“There are 15 members of the council and any one of them could have pulled them off the consent calendar,” Champlin said.
The first report detailing cost items, created by the city’s attorney Jim Kennedy and Deputy City Solicitor Danielle Pacik, became public on Nov. 7, giving the public several days to review the changes.
That report provided the wage increase – 2.75% – for supervisors in the Concord Police Department over four years, increases to the amount of vacation time they can earn through years of service; changes to health insurance; and an allowance of three sick days during the last two years of employment without affecting severance pay upon retirement.
A second contract with a larger bargaining unit that covers employees in the general services, recreation and engineering department also contained proposed 2.75% annual wage increases for three years, changes to health insurance, and eliminates one step at the bottom of the pay scale and adds a new step at the top.
Yet the report left out the actual cost of the changes in dollars and cents.
In response to a Monitor request, the city’s legal department reported that in the first year of the contract, the raises for 19 police supervisors were expected to add $43,600 to the city budget. In the fourth year, the raises are expected to cost $51,400.
Raises for the 87 members of the employees in the other bargaining unit were expected to cost the city $126,700 in the first year of the contract and $137,200 in the third year, according to the city’s legal department.
The Monitor requested that the financial impact on the city’s budget be reflected prior to each council vote.
Nyhan, the Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee chairman, said it’s something the committee could discuss further as a group.
Coen said it sounded like a good idea.
“My experience as a city councilor is, especially when it comes to budget, there are people that call me that don’t realize what a big percentage the labor is to the overall tax rate,” he said. “The biggest share of it is through the police and fire department.”
The committee considered how to make the cost items of contracts available to the public prior to a vote at its meeting in October by looking to the way other towns and cities do it.
“They did an extensive review of how each and every city takes up their contracts,” Concord’s mayor, Jim Bouley, announced last month.
However, committee members discussed that information privately with their attorney. Kennedy said he couldn’t reveal the extent of the city’s study because it would violate attorney-client privilege.
Councilors said they are open to discussing how the process can be improved at the next Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee meeting in December. Bouley said he would motion for the city’s research into other municipalities’ practices with contracts to become public then.
“It was the first time we did this, any time you try something new you want to review if it’s been successful or not,” Bouley said Friday. “We’ll talk about if there are better ways of approaching things, and what did we learn from doing this. If there are ways to improve the process, the council will bring those up.”
“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” he added. “Is it perfect? I don’t know. But I think we are moving in the right way.”