Health-Care Buybacks Reinstated As City, School Officials Disagree

By Alisha A. Pina, The Providence Journal, R.I.

Jan. 25–EAST PROVIDENCE — After city and school officials failed to agree last night, payments to teachers, support staff and janitors who enrolled in the health-care buyback provision of their contracts will be reinstated.

An arbitrator ruled recently that the city should pay, and expects checks to be disbursed by the end of the month. The City Council, in a 3-to-2 vote, decided to appeal the arbitrator’s decision to the state’s Superior Court and Supreme Court, if necessary. The School Committee, also in a 3-to-2 vote, didn’t.

The buyback provision allows school employees to receive up to $5,100 each if they choose to opt out of taking the school’s health-insurance plan. The checks are given in two payments, one this month, the other in June. It costs East Providence about $660,000 a year through the life of the contracts, which don’t expire until next year.

The majority of both boards had to agree to involve the courts and continue refusing payments under the argument that the option’s language conflicts with the department’s insurance plan. The agreement, if it had occurred, would have been in line with the memorandum of understanding that was signed last April between the previous council and committee.

Although there were nine points to that pact, the then-council essentially agreed to take on the burden of a projected $500,000 shortfall from the School Department’s budget in exchange for the committee’s commitment to stop the buyback payments immediately and jointly fight the city’s refusal through all the necessary courts.

Nearly all the residents at last night’s more-than-two-hour joint meeting, which was held mostly in closed session, wanted the agreement followed.

“Just get that straight,” Councilman Bryan Silva told The Journal after the votes were announced to the public. “I voted to take this to court. I think the taxpayers asked us to. I think we owe it to them.”

Council members Robert Cusack and Valerie Perry, as well as committee members Robert Faria and Steven Santos also voted to continue with a court appeal. Mayor Isadore Ramos Jr., committee Chairwoman Mildred Morris and committee members Eileen Lovett and David Medeiros disagreed. Councilman Bruce DiTraglia also voted against an appeal, but emphasized his vote was made “under protest.”

“I just don’t want people to think this is an open-and-shut case,” DiTraglia said. “We are still trying to talk with the [the unions representing the school employees]. Not appealing gives us a window of time.”

If the arbitrator’s ruling is followed, however, the city will have to make the missed payments from June and January’s payments by Wednesday.

The city doesn’t have the nearly $660,000 budgeted, nor does it have funds identified to cover the June payments, an additional $330,000 or so. Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes said the City Charter states that all rulings against the city are the city’s responsibility, meaning the School Department would not need to find the money within its budget.

She also said it was her hope that the union would “help the city” and allow payments to be delayed. She said the unions have honored such requests in the past and she and others will be in contact with union leaders today.

Members of the council and committee met with union leaders this week to “open dialogue and bring back a camaraderie that has been missing for quite some time” because of tension created by Mayor Joseph Larisa Jr., who led the city’s opposition to buybacks, Ramos said. He said Larisa’s “politicking” put the city in this position.

“There has been so much time spent on this and we just needed to move on,” Morris said. “We violated their contract.”

Although she emphasized she wasn’t “coerced” into signing the pact, Morris also said, “The City Council made it very clear to [the committee] that we wouldn’t have our budget if we didn’t sign that memorandum of agreement. We needed that budget…. It was the best way to go at that time.”

Faria said he believes the committee was coerced to sign, but he voted to appeal. When asked why, he said, “I felt that it was very important to show [the city that the two boards had] unity and leadership.”

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