Iowa law officers union says state rejected its counter-offer on skipping pay raise

DES MOINES - Members of a union representing about 600 officers, including Iowa State Patrol troopers, say they didn't reject the state's request to forgo a pay raise they won through collective bargaining.

Instead, the State Police Officers Council said it was the state that declined their offer to return to the bargaining table in order to find a way for union members to assist the state in dealing with a $118 million budget shortfall this fiscal year.

If the state accepted the council's contract offer for the 2018 fiscal year, 'then SPOC's members could be in a position to consider the state's proposal to forego our 1.25 percent pay increase in 2017 and assist the state in meeting their FY17 revenue shortfall,” Sue Brown, the union's executive director, said.

In its initial contract request, the union sought a 3 percent across-the-board pay increase for each of the next two fiscal years.

A spokeswoman for PolicyWorks, which represents the union, said that in the past its members have forgone salary increases in exchange for maintaining some aspects of their health insurance plans.

'SPOC is currently the lowest-cost employee insurance group in the state and contributes 20 percent toward their insurance premiums.” Jessica Maldonado wrote.

The union is concerned that Gov. Terry Branstad's proposal to cover all state, county, city and school employees with one health insurance plan would 'inevitably raise insurance premiums for SPOC members, who have been thoughtful users of their insurance plan,” she said.

SPOC consistently has had the lowest cost family plan of all state employees, and no rate increase last year compared to an average 10 percent rate increase for all other state employee group pools, according to Maldonado.

The Iowa Department of Administrative Services, which represents the state in contract negotiations, confirmed the union's counter-offer was not accepted.

Iowa United Professionals rejected the request to forgo a pay raise.

AFSCME's 19,000 state employees will begin voting in early February on whether to accept the state's request.

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