Consolidation: A Dispute Over Employee Benefits

A discussion about employee benefits has members of the Princeton’s Consolidation Commission questioning if the Transition Task Force has overstepped its mandate when it comes to Princeton's impending consolidation.

But the chairman of the TTF says there is simply a misunderstanding about what is actually happening.

At issue is the TTF personnel subcommittee’s recommendation that non-union employees in the new Princeton change from their current benefit package to a bank of days off called “personal time off” or PTO.

PTO would encompass sick, personal and vacation time, said Commision Member Alice Small, who provided an update on Wednesday. Under the PTO, employees would be able to accumulate fewer total days off than the current plan and would have to use the time within a certain period, as opposed to being able to carryover days from year to year- an option that exists today.

The PTO model doesn’t appear to offer any savings over the current plan, Commission members said.

“What I remember from the Commission was that it wasn’t about making people’s lives worse, it was about evening things up,” Carol Golden said, adding that if employees become disgruntled and contemplate leaving, municipal services could suffer.

Township Mayor Chad Goerner agreed, saying the goal was to combine the Township and Borough plans, not overhaul the entire benefits model.

“I will not vote to support a PTO program, after hearing feedback from the staff,” Goerner said. “We have already put our staffs through a tremendous amount of stress this year.”

The Commission voted Wednesday to have Chairman Anton Lahnston attend a June 26 joint meeting of Borough Council and Township Committee to express the group’s concerns.

But TTF Chairman Mark Freda said the TTF heard the personnel subcommittee’s recommendations, but referred the issue back to the two administrators to work with the staff and return with recommendations.

“I think Consolidation Commission's discussion maybe wasn’t totally aligned what was actually happening,” Freda said Wednesday night. “The personnel subcommittee made a recommendation to the TTF and the TTF said, 'Go talk to the staff and come back to something that’s acceptable to them and something that we should consider.’ So that’s what we’re doing.

“We’re trying to be extremely considerate and staff is very actively involved in what will be the final outcome,” Freda said. He said the administrators have not yet come back with a suggestion from the employees, but will soon.

The final recommendation may not even be a PTO model, Freda said, noting that some of the concerns expressed by Commission members are shared by the TTF.

On Tuesday, Lahnston will also discuss placing an open space tax referendum on the ballot, after the TTF declined to forward the recommendation to the governing bodies.

The tax would equalize the existing open space taxes in the Borough and the Township starting in 2013, but still collect the same total amount of money.

Money would go to preserve and maintain Princeton’s open space. Commission members are concerned about the tight deadline to get the question onto the November ballot.