Dane County officials have secured additional tentative collective bargaining agreements with the Service Employee International Union and several other unions.

The agreements are similar to those the county reached with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees last week, a county statement said.

According to Dane County Director of Administration Travis Myren, the county has now reached tentative agreements with six of its nine public employee unions.

“I’m extremely grateful to our county workforce for their hard work and their unwavering commitment to be a part of the solution during our difficult budget times,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said in the statement.

The talks come in reaction to Dane County Judge Juan Col?s striking down Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s state law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public employees, save for police and firefighters.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen requested a stay of the decision to keep Act 10’s provisions in effect until after the appeals process, but no decision has yet been handed down.

The agreements allow the county to save nearly $5 million in personal saving, according to the statement. 

According to Myren, that assumes all nine unions will eventually reach similar deals.

“The three that are outstanding are the attorneys unit and the law enforcement units, … so we anticipate that we’ll be able to, when their contract ends in 2014, still be able to negotiate a 2015 agreement with them.”

A surviving element of Col?s’ decision is the provision limiting contract talks to cover one year at a time.

The Dane County Board of Supervisors ratified a deal that will run through 2015 with AFSCME last Thursday, which was then extended toward the other public unions. The board passed the measure by a vote of 29-8.

AFSCME members ratified the contract Tuesday, the statement said.

Those board members voting “no” criticized how fast the county representatives reached a tentative agreement, and Sup. Kurt Schlicht reiterated those sentiments Thursday in reaction to the additional tentative deals.

“I don’t believe we did our due diligence,” Schlicht said. “Furthermore, that’s three years out, and who knows what position the county will be in in three years.”

The savings from the agreements would come from wage reductions of up to 1.9 percent and employees participating in an unpaid voluntary leave program, according to the statement. 

In the statement, Parisi said savings can still be found for Dane County residents if done right.

“In Dane County, we continue to find savings for tax payers while protecting core services by using the right tools for the job – mutual respect and cooperation,” Parisi said in the statement.