Cd'A employees, city agree to two-year contract
COEUR d’ALENE — The Coeur d’Alene City Council recently approved a two-year contract with the Lake City Employees Association.
The deal includes cost-of-living raises and a bonus.
Before the council's unanimous approval of the contract, LCEA President Nick Goodwin thanked the council for its support of the organization that represents 127 employees.
He said the contract was supported by 99% of LCEA’s membership.
“We’re very fortunate to have a very professional and good relationship with our administration, with similar goals to make this a great place to work,” he said.
City Administrator Troy Tymesen said the city wanted another five-year contract like the current one, which began Oct. 1, 2018, and ends Sept. 30, but LCEA wanted a two-year deal.
“It is and has been a good contract,” Tymesen said.
Highlights of the agreement include:
Increasing vacation accrual for new employees through the third year of service from eight hours per month to 10 hours per month.
For FY 2023-2024, city employees will receive a 5% market adjustment increase in wages.
For FY 2024-2025, the employees will receive a 3% market adjustment increase in wages.
The existing 9-year wage increase schedule will be amended to a 7-year schedule. Instead of the current 2.5% increases at years 6 through 9, employees will be eligible for a 5% increase at years 6 and 7.
A $2,500 one-time bonus will be paid on Oct. 27.
New employees will be allowed within the first six months of employment to go into a negative 32 hours of sick leave if needed for qualifying reasons.
A two-hour minimum callout pay will go to those designated employees on standby who get called into a work location.
A $500 annual tool allowance will be added for Streets and Engineering mechanics for tools reasonably needed to perform the job duties of their position, with prior approval required by the department head.
American Rescue Plan Act funds of $379,000 were used to help cover bonuses totaling $550,504.
Bonuses are also earmarked for employees who are not represented by LCEA or any other employee group, "due to their classification and/or confidential work duties," wrote Melissa Tosi, the city's human resources director, wrote in an email to The Press.
"Even though they are not represented by LCEA, the city has for many years provided the same benefits as LCEA to keep parity and consistency within benefits," Tosi wrote. "This group of employees, who are leveled amongst LCEA employees, will also receive the one-time bonus."
Councilwoman Christie Wood supported the contract.
“Our city employees, we think they’re the best and we want to keep them,” she said. “We want them to be able to afford to live here. I think any chance we have to be fair and support them in any way we can, I think that’s the right thing to do.”
Councilwoman Kiki Miller said she had some “consternation” about the use of ARPA funds in the contract.
She said she thought Goodwin had said in original conversations that “most of the LCEA group was not housing and financially constrained and they didn’t expect to get all of that ARPA dollar funding. So I had that in the back of my mind.
“I still really support our staff," Miller said. "I’m glad we’ve been able to come through for them in the past. I still disagree with the ARPA dollars being used in this negotiation and in the contract.”
The contract passed by a 6-0 vote.
Before the vote, during public comment, Goodwin said, “We hope you see the value in the employees using the ARPA funds to supplement the cost of living needs that we’ve heard from our members. We think taking that step is going to help people that are dealing with the expanded cost of living in our area get back on the right track and hopefully get them through the winter.”
