Kane officials say 'embarrassing' mistakes made in union contracts

A move to rescind union contracts approved by the Kane County Board in December failed Thursday during a meeting that featured an admission of "embarrassing" mistakes and calls for someone to be fired.

The problems began in December, during the first full board meeting after the November elections. Seven new board members, along with board veterans, were advised by the county's legal team to approve new union contracts for employees in the county clerk, health department and workforce development offices.

The board approved those deals. However, the information about what they were approving did not match that in the contracts.

Board members thought they were approving four-year contracts that provided 2 percent raises for each of those four years. No retroactive pay. No changes to health benefits. The actual contracts, the ones ratified by the union members, called for three-year deals and raises retroactive to the end of 2017. The impact amounted to 4 percent raises for the first two years and a 2 percent raise in the final year.

The contracts involve a relatively small number of employees and less than $50,000 of impact to the county's general fund. But the county has an informal policy of extending raises that union employees get to its nonunion workers.

Over three years, Board Chairman Chris Lauzen said, the impact of the more generous contracts would add $1.2 million to the budget.

The additional cost and initial confusion fueled Lauzen's decision to not sign off on the new union contracts. Instead, he called on the board to rescind its vote and reopen negotiations Thursday.

"We're trying to progress toward a meeting of the minds," Lauzen said. "It was the clear and unanimous consensus of three months of labor management meetings that what we received in those preliminary contracts and what was presented to all of us were not consistent."

But several board members pointed to six unfair labor practice lawsuits already filed by the AFSCME union representing those employees as evidence to keep the existing contracts in place. The employees have already operated for three months under the idea that they have a new deal. And, if the Illinois Labor Relations Board sided with the employees, the county would have to pay all the legal fees plus the raises called for in the contract.

"Someone needs to be fired," said Angie Thomas, the board's vice chairman. "For us to get to a meeting where we are considering something so important as a labor contract, and for the people of the (negotiating) committee plus the chairman and the attorneys in the room to recognize that it was not right? That is unacceptable. It's very embarrassing. Now we're being asked to roll the dice. Do we want to pay now? Or do we want to pay more later?"

The board voted 11 to 9, with four members absent, to rescind the contracts.

But board members in favor of proceeding with the contracts as is protested the outcome. They said parliamentary procedure requires a two-thirds majority to rescind a previous decision. Lauzen attempted to block a ruling by the state's attorney's office on the vote by ending the meeting. After a short recess, attorneys ruled the 11-to-9 vote was insufficient to rescind the board's action from December.

Lauzen said he will seek further clarity on the ruling.

"You know me," Lauzen said. "There's more to come."