Nassau should post labor contracts on its website so taxpayers aren't left in the dark

Nassau County taxpayers face what could be a $109 million bill. When will they be allowed to see the details?

The largest county employee union, the Civil Service Employees Association, contends taxpayers owe members the equivalent of $109 million in paid time off for working during “extraordinary circumstances.” The issue centers around contract language meant to reward workers for showing up during hurricanes, winter storms, and similar emergencies. CSEA wants to apply that rule to the county’s monthslong COVID-19-related emergency. The union made its claim by submitting a grievance.

Unfortunately for Nassau taxpayers, CSEA’s grievance, which threatens to dynamite the county’s brittle finances, isn’t posted anywhere on the county website. Neither is the contract with the language CSEA is disputing — or the process for resolving the grievance.

That’s a big problem, considering the contract is more or less the law of the land, legally binding on local officials and, by extension, taxpayers. Albany forces local governments to negotiate every term and condition of employment that isn’t figuratively bolted to the floor, meaning union deals cover much more than pay and benefits. They can control everything from the length of the school day to the process for disciplining employees. The state also doesn’t limit how long contracts can last, meaning taxpayers can be stuck with the terms long after elected officials who negotiated them are out of office. 

When a grievance is settled, the result often produces new rules to which current and future local officials — and taxpayers — are also bound. 

For instance, a union might grieve a town supervisor moving chairs between offices, arguing this task is to be done by people represented by the union. The resulting settlement might be an explicit ban on anyone but unionized employees handling furniture. But unlike a local law or other legislation, the public would have no way of knowing these rules had been created. 

The lack of transparency around labor issues isn’t a new problem for Nassau. In 2016, the county’s control board blocked legislators from approving new labor union contracts until officials could produce copies of existing agreements — raising the question of whether anyone in county government had a copy.

Nassau shouldn’t be singled out as a unique offender. Counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts routinely fail to share contracts, and few if any post grievance information online, either when one is filed or settled.

Taxpayers, employees, and even some elected officials are left in the dark about much if not most of what happens at the negotiating table — by design.

Both unions and managers generally feel they’ll get better outcomes if the public doesn’t see what they’re demanding or offering, whether it’s in contract talks, disciplinary matters, or grievance adjustments. It makes it more difficult for the public to connect the dots between New York’s high taxes, low service quality, and extensive unionization of its public workforce. And it papers over the massive conflict of interest for public officials who deal with unions on the taxpayers’ behalf, then seek their endorsement in the next election.

County Executive Bruce Blakeman should take the lead and put all county labor contracts, grievances, and other union-related agreements and records online for taxpayers to review, and encourage area school districts and municipalities to do the same. It would help residents understand why they pay some of the country’s highest property taxes — and might even let them spot the next problematic contract provision before it pushes those taxes higher. 

This guest essay reflects the views of Ken Girardin, a fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany.