City manager to Hopewell council: Collective bargaining too 'risky' to implement right now
HOPEWELL – There is one hurdle standing between Hopewell city staff and collective bargaining, and it is one the city manager says is unscalable for the foreseeable future.
Simply put, the city cannot afford to do it now. And if it were to be enacted right now, citizens could see major tax increases to foot the bill.
That was the synopsis of City Manager Dr. Concetta Manker’s presentation to City Council Tuesday night. Despite its positives – increased communication among department management and staff, a sense of making a difference in working conditions, and so forth – collective bargaining is not a bargain for a city treading water financially with barely any money socked away for rainy days.
To do it correctly, Hopewell would have to spend $1.3-$1.5 million, mostly to cover more staff to run the process. To do it correctly and right now, the city’s financial advisor said that the real-estate tax rate, for example, would have to go up 10 cents – and that is on top of the 4-cent hike council approved last month.
“Collective bargaining is considered extremely risky when we do not have a healthy savings account,” Manker told council.
The concept is not completely off the table, though. Manker gave council a draft resolution that could take effect no earlier than 2027.
In the meantime, Manker suggested council consider a “Meet and Confer” process to address workplace concerns. Under Meet and Confer, the city manager or even councilors themselves would sit down with the employees and have conversations without the need for any labor intervention.
‘You meet the employees where they are,” Manker said.
A 'cloud'-y fiscal forecast
Fifteen localities across Virginia allow collective bargaining with their employees. All are larger than Hopewell, and most are either in Northern Virginia or the Tidewater area. In Central Virginia, only Charlottesville and Richmond take part in the process.
Hopewell would also have been the first Virginia city under 25,000 population to offer collective bargaining.
Manker said collective bargaining for Hopewell would require the hiring of five more full-time staff dedicated solely to the process: a deputy city attorney, a labor relations officer, a financial and budget analyst; and a labor relations administrator, labor relations officer and labor relations specialist. Estimated salaries range from $150,000 for the labor relations administrator to $70,000 for the labor relations specialist.
In addition, the city would have to hire an outside legal firm specializing in labor law. That could have a price tag as high as $850,000 annually.
“This estimate is conservative because variable costs are unable to be captured,” Manker said.
James Sanderson, of Davenport & Company, told council that collective bargaining in a financially strapped city like Hopewell also dims efforts for building a municipality’s credit and bond ratings. Right now, Hopewell ranks poorly on both fronts.
“We don’t have our credit ratings back,” Sanderson said. “We’re going to be in a position to go back to rating agencies and arguing to get our credit ratings back in place, and this in my mind is one more cloud of that flexibility that you may have.”
While cautioning that is not a definite issue to keep the ratings downgraded, Sanderson said the rating agencies are going to look at collective bargaining as “a hindrance in your ability to make decisions going forward.” Debt service is always a major budget expenditure, and Sanderson warned that if collective bargaining is in that budget, that increases the probability of cutting other areas or even passing the increased cost to citizens.
“I would just suggest as you think through this, as we start to re-engage with the rating agencies, [collective bargaining] is certainly going to be something they’re going to ask questions about,” he said.
A history of the issue
Four years ago, the General Assembly agreed to bring collective bargaining to local municipal workers. The process is like the private sector with the exception of not allowing the public-sector workers to strike.
Collective bargaining was brought to Hopewell’s forefront last fall as an issue to retain Hopewell police officers. The department had problems with keeping officers on board due to lower pay than that of surrounding localities. The officers who left meant that the ones left behind were being stretched thin to cover the shortages.
Last November, the Virginia Police Benevolent Association approached Hopewell with a boiler-plate resolution setting up the practice in Hopewell. At the time, council gave Manker 120 days to tailor a proposal for Hopewell that also would include all eligible city personnel, not just police officers.
More: Police union pushes for Hopewell citizens to demand immediate action on collective bargaining
Tuesday night’s presentation was the result of that study period.
Who can and can't bargain?
Under the draft resolution, any Hopewell worker who does not fall under the following employment criteria could take part in collective bargaining:
elected/appointed officials and members of boards and commissions, and state employees working at local level;
constitutional officer employees
managerial and supervisory personnel;
so-called “confidential employees,” such as those in the city attorney’s office and human resources who have access to personnel records;
temporary, intermittent, or probationary employees; and
Interns and volunteers.
Councilors react to the presentation
The consensus among those councilors who spoke on the issue – even those who initially supported the idea last November – was an agreement that now was not the right time to enact collective bargaining.
Vice Mayor Jasmine Gore noted that of the 15 Virginia localities who allow collective bargaining, "none of them are comparible to Hopewell."
"We're clearly not in a position at this point in time," Ward 1 Councilor Rita Joyner said. "A lot of things have changed in the last few months in terms of where we are and where we know we are."
"I don't like the words, 'fiscal distress,'" Ward 5 Councilor Janice Denton said, "but we've gotten kind of used to that over the past year. And until we get out of that and we get this bond rating back ... and our city is strong, then I thing we can certainly move in this direction."
Ward 6 Councilor Brenda Pelham was quite blunt in her assessment.
"I'm not willing to raise taxes for anything," she said.
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: No collective bargaining in Hopewell right now
