Concessions include givebacks on two holidays
By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
UPPER FREEHOLD Municipal employees, whose 2 percent raises were voted down in May by the Township Committee, appear likely to get their increases after all.
Three Township Committee members who had opposed the raises signaled a change of heart at the governing body’s Sept. 20 meeting provided the raises were retroactive to July 1, not Jan. 1, and two paid holidays were abolished.
”We’ve been hacking this over for seven or eight months now and I’ve come to the conclusion that if we could get the employees to give up a couple of things, I could go along with this 2 percent,” Committeeman Bob Faber said.
”Then I can bend a little and I think everyone else can bend a little bit,” Mr. Faber said.
On May 17, the Township Committee had voted 3-2 to withhold the budgeted raises, which would have collectively cost the municipality $16,000 if the increases had been retroactive to Jan. 1. This led to an unusual public plea from some of the 26 affected nonunion municipal workers at the June 21 Township Committee meeting and assurances from elected officials to meet with them and revisit the issue.
Last week, the three committee members who voted no Mr. Faber, Stan Moslowski Jr. and Mayor LoriSue Mount said they would no longer oppose the raises provided they were only retroactive to July 1 and personnel policies related to paid holidays were changed.
Municipal Clerk Dana Tyler was directed to prepare a resolution authorizing the pay increase for the Oct. 4 meeting. Changes to the employee holiday schedule would have to be done by a separate personnel policy resolution effective in 2013, but the timetable for committee action on that wasn’t clear.
Mr. Faber argued employees should not get Good Friday and the Friday after Thanksgiving as paid holidays because municipal offices are closed Fridays.
Mr. Moslowski and Mrs. Mount agreed.
”If there’s a holiday on Friday, and we don’t work on Fridays, it really shouldn’t be a holiday,” Mr. Moslowski said.
Committeeman Robert Frascella, who voted for the pay increase in May, said the township had a “good core group of employees” who gave up vacation time, a paid holiday, and took a 10 percent pay cut during the 2009 budget crisis.
”I am restating my position that I am in agreement with a 2 percent increase and no more removal of holidays,” Dr. Frascella said.
Mayor Mount took issue with comments about the staff’s 10 percent pay cut, noting they also received a corresponding reduction in work hours.
”It wasn’t a 10 percent cut, but we want you to keep working,” Mrs. Mount said. “That’s a point that needs clarifying.”
Upper Freehold employees are currently furloughed two Fridays a month (the 10 percent pay cut) and work extended hours Monday through Thursday to make up the 16 hours missed the other two Fridays in the month that the municipal building is closed. The staff use Good Friday and the Friday following Thanksgiving as “floating holidays” since the municipal building is already closed those days.
Mr. Moslowski said he had previously opposed the raises because he felt the money was better spent filling positions left open by layoffs and retirements. The numerous vacant positions have significantly increased the workload for the township’s remaining employees, he noted.
”The employees have been doing a good job with less and I was just hoping to help them out to see if we could get more people,” Mr. Moslowski said. He changed his mind, he said, because “when you have employees that are doing that kind of workload, and doing a good job, they deserve to be rewarded.”
Deputy Mayor Steve Alexander reiterated his support for the 2 percent increase and tried unsuccessfully to get his fellow committee members to make the raises retroactive to April 5 when the $5 million municipal budget was adopted, not July 1.
Mr. Alexander also agreed the Friday holiday issue needed to be corrected.
”Government doesn’t exist for us on Fridays, so we have to catch up with the committee’s previous actions,” he said, referring to the 2009 decision to close municipal offices on Fridays to save money.
Mr. Alexander, however, also pointed out that taking back Good Friday and the day after Thanksgiving as paid holidays would only help from a productivity standpoint; it wouldn’t much change the bottom line.
”If you have a (salaried) employee who is making $35,000 and you take away two holidays, the employee still makes $35,000,” Mr. Alexander said. Most township employees draw a salary and are not hourly workers, he said.
Mrs. Mount said she would like the committee to have a discussion Oct. 4 about moving to a “paid time off” system used by some private companies that lumps together sick time, vacation time and personal days into one category called “paid time off.” She did not suggest a specific number of total paid-time-off days, but said workers with seniority should be given more paid time off than newer employees.
On the matter of the salary increase, Mrs. Mount took issue with handing out automatic raises without a work performance evaluation. The township’s personnel policies need to be updated to incorporate this practice, she said.
”We have no performance review here,” Mrs. Mount said. “I don’t believe we should give an across-the-board raise ‘just because.’ I think we have good employees who deserve to be rewarded for the work they do and it shouldn’t just be a ‘give me’ because we budget 1 percent or 2 percent, whatever it turns out to be.”

