The City Council ratified a number of new city contracts for Madison’s major public unions through the end of 2014 at a meeting Tuesday evening as some of the Council’s members questioned the mayor’s ethics in pushing the contracts forward.
Cieslewicz announced March 15 a tentative agreement had been reached between the administration and the unions to provide a number of proposed concessions in exchange for a 15-month contract extension.
Days after Cieslewicz agreed to move the contracts for final approval in front of the Council, AFSCME Local 60, one of the leading parties in the negotiation, announced its official endorsement for Cieslewicz’s campaign. Ald. Michael Schumacher, District 18, said the mayor had an obligation to turn down the endorsement to avoid ethical concerns.
Although the resolution to extend the contracts passed the council with only two opponents, Schumacher said he could not vote for the extension because of fiscal concerns and because of uncertain ethical boundaries he alleged Cieslewicz might have crossed.
“I want to mark a very, very fine line – we have previously been asked to recuse ourselves on this council when there is a perception that something maybe just is too close for comfort for us,” Schumacher said. “I wish [Cieslewicz] would have either not accepted the AFSCME endorsement or not accepted the endorsement so close to when this ratification happened.”
Schumacher said he had no evidence that Cieslewicz did anything wrong or with negative intentions but said there was an issue of integrity that pulled him away from a vote in favor.
Cieslewicz said the allegations were not grounded and said he was in favor of the ratifications only because the unions took a $5.3 million hit in the negotiations, giving the city extra money to work with while working on its next budget.
“This gives us $5.3 million to work with, and if you add in the current situation in regard to unrepresented employees, it’s about $7.5 million,” Cieslewicz said. “This actually gives us a fighting chance to balance our budget next year – that is why we did this.”
City Comptroller Dean Brasser said the ratifications would overall save the city a net total of $1.8 million. He said up through the contracts’ 2014 sunset date, there would be no year in which the city incurred an additional cost when the negotiations are looked at as a combined package.
The council also referred to its next meeting a resolution to provide for a wage increase in the last pay period of 2013 and to establish a policy on avoidance of layoffs for non-represented employees.
Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway, District 12, said the council was not yet in a position to make a decision on the resolution that would represent all of its constituents to the best of its ability.
“I will be very clear about this – I very sincerely care about making sure we are treating all of our employees equally, but I think to vote on this tonight would only be a gesture to show that,” Rhodes-Conway said. “I hope that no one doubts our commitment on this front, and I hope we can take the time to do this right but I am not hearing any sort of unanimity [from the non-represented employees] on this resolution yet.”
