NORWICH – A solution to overlapping job responsibilities and the need for bulk purchasing at the Chenango County Public Safety Facility kitchen may have been found.
When planning to build the $26 million facility in the late 1990s, county leaders had hoped to save efficiencies by combining the meal preparation for inmates and seniors in one spot. The Chenango County Area Agency on Aging moved to the new kitchen about 18 months ago, however varying meal schedules, differing menus and a lack of proper storage have kept any integration and cost savings at bay.
Five food service workers, food, supplies and other expenses totaling more than $300,000 that have traditionally fallen under the Agency’s budget would be transferred into the Sheriff’s Department budget next year. One of the positions would become managerial.
Health and Human Services Committee members reviewed the new measure during a meeting with Agency Director Deb Sanderson last week. Members of the Personnel Committee last week tackled the problem of the two labor unions involved. A discussion of differing salary levels went into a 15 minute executive session.
Health and Human Services Committee members James B. Bays of Smyrna and Richard Schlag of German questioned whether the higher employee compensation levels that non-law enforcement personnel in the Sheriff’s Dept. receive would eventually eat up any savings.
“They would become Sheriff’s Department employees. That union makes more than Aging’s food service workers. It great for them, but it could eat up our savings,” Schlag said. Members of both committees met prior to this month’s Board of Supervisors meeting in order to “hash this out,” Schlag said.
“I think it’s the way to go. It may take a year to work it all out, but it’s the right thing to do,” Town of Afton Supervisor Robert D. Briggs said.
“Whether in our budget or theirs, we would be receiving the same amount of state revenues (to cover the Agency’s meals),” Sanderson said.
Sanderson added, however, that a staff nutritionist works with just an estimate of the number of meals that may be needed each year, and menu adjustments are routinely made if food selection costs need to be tweaked during the year.
“Making the same kind of adjustments might not go so easily,” she said.
Briggs told Sanderson that she shouldn’t expect to make those types of adjustments any longer due to long-term bulk orders.
“You’re not going to do a lot of those types of things that you normally do,” he said.
Health and Human Services Chairman Jeffrey B. Blanchard, who also sits on the Personnel Committee, has been urging his fellow lawmakers since the spring to tackle the problem of integrating the food service manager into the Sheriff’s Department budget and its non-law enforcement union, the Sheriff’s Employees Association Inc. Area Agency on Aging employees fall under the Civil Services Employees Association.
The Sheriff’s Employees Association, Inc. was split off from the Law Enforcement Association late last year after two years of operating without a contract. The latter union’s contract was ratified in June. Negotiations continue for everyone not in the road patrol division.
“We are close to being resolved. It’s the last open contract that we have,” Richard B. Decker, chairman of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors and chief negotiator, said.
Banchard said yesterday that he would like to see the food service manager under the Sheriff’s budget and union and allow that new hire to make the decision on what employees he or she may need afterward.
Personnel Director Bonnie Carrier said union negotiations would take time.
After the executive session in Personnel, Town of Smithville Supervisor Allan I. Johnson made motion to set an undisclosed salary level and to negotiate taking the position out of CSEA.
Town of Plymouth Supervisor Jerry Kreiner made a motion to look at removing the position from any union and placing it on the regular compensation schedule. Both motions were seconded and carried.
Sheriff Thomas J. Loughren commented during the Personnel Committee gathering that he would rather not work with any union. “This has been a strange budget year for me. I have two unions rather than one now, I’m separating the old jail’s budget, and now this kitchen thing. I don’t want to deal with three unions,” he said.