City, unions for Hornell firefighters, police agree to contracts

Sep. 22--HORNELL -- The City of Hornell has wrapped up new contracts with the unions for the fire and police departments' rank and file, insuring labor peace with firefighters until 2027 and with Maple City police officers until 2026.

The Hornell Common Council voted 10-0 on Monday to approve -- An eight-year contract with the Hornell Firefighters Association Local 835 that is retroactive to April 1, 2019, and ends March 31, 2027. The contract gives department personnel an average annual pay increase of 2.1 percent over the eight years. -- A six-year contract with the Hornell Police Local 3515, Council 82, retroactive to April 1, 2020, and ending March 31, 2026. The contract provides police officers an average annual pay increase of 2.5 percent over the length of the deal.

Both the fire and police unions have ratified their contracts. The pacts were approved by the Common Council's Finance Committee before being brought before the full board.

Hornell Mayor John Buckley was asked about the length of the agreements. Buckley acknowledged that in the past, labor deals were generally for three to five years, but he defended the paradigm shift.

"Since I have become mayor, I like to go for longer term contracts," Buckley told the Common Council. "I think it provides more stability for the employees and more stability in financial planning for the city because we can kind of plan down the road a little further than you could otherwise.

"When you have a collection of contracts that are three or four years, they are always popping up. And you don't know what those contracts are going to look like at any given time when they are coming up so having contracts that are extended, five, six, seven or even eight years in this case really gives us the ability to lay out the roadmap fiscally so we know where we are going to be.

"Also on the employee side, it takes some uncertainty off of them."

Buckley said the city has been "negotiating for quite some time" on the contract with firefighters.

The firefighters contract calls for no pay increase for 2019-2020. The remainder of the contract provides a 1.5 percent increase for 2020-2021; a 2 percent increase for 2021-2022; a 2.5 percent increase for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024; a 2.75 percent increase for 2024-2025 and 2025-2026; and a 3 percent increase for 2026-2027.

The police contract provides a 2 percent increase for 2020-2021 and 2021-2022; a 2.5 percent pay increase for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024; and a 3 percent pay hike for 2024-2025 and 2025-2026.

Alderman Jeff Brown mentioned a recent email from "Friend of the Firefighters" and asked Buckley if he wanted to talk about the issues brought up in the communication. Officials indicated the email was sent to each member of the council, as well as Buckley. The specifics of the email were not disclosed, however sources told The Spectator the email raised concerns about staffing for out-of-town ambulance transfers.

"If you want to address that, that may be a better conversation for an executive session because there are some details in there negotiation wise," Buckley said. "If you want to do that, we can do that. I don't know if it would be really proper to discuss that in an open meeting setting because it does touch on negotiating and we don't negotiate in open meetings."

In other business Monday, the Common Council -- Approved the designation of Mitch Cornish as Labor Standards Officer for the $567,000 Community Development Block Grant being used to make improvements to the Delaware-East Avenue sanitary sewer trunk line. In a related matter, Buckley said the city received eight bids for the work. He noted the winning bid came in lower than the estimates, which will allow the city to accomplish additional work with the money. -- Re-appointed Margaret Lynch, of 24 Erie Ave., to the city's Board of Assessment Review. Lynch's new five-year term runs from Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2025. -- Approved the appointment of Mark Kelly, of 34 Fulton St., to the Zoning Board of Appeals to fill a vacant, unexpired term. The appointment became effective immediately and will expire on June 13, 2025. -- Accepted the Drescher & Malecki LLP external audit of the city's financial condition. The auditor filed an "unmodified, clean" opinion of city finances for the year ending March 31, 2020.

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