Public business: What are the offers?

Yet another promise to bring Clark County’s nasty contract negotiations with unionized firefighters into the sunshine has been broken, keeping taxpayers in the dark about how each side proposes to spend the public’s money.

The breach makes it clear that there’s only one way to change a process with no accountability, no good will and no way for citizens to participate or defend their interests: change the state’s collective bargaining laws.

Back in August, when the International Association of Firefighters Local 1908 declared an impasse with the county, union President Ryan Beaman declared he would make his last, best offer available for public inspection, and he called out the county to do the same.

Monday was the deadline for the union and the county to present their final offers to an arbitrator, the unelected, largely invisible individual charged with settling the matter by picking one proposal or the other. By Monday night, neither side had released its proposal.

Mr. Beaman’s excuse: “The statute does not provide for making the final offers public at this time, nor did the parties agree to do so at the conclusion of the hearing.” Never mind that while the statue doesn’t explicitly require it, there’s nothing in the law’s language to prevent the release of contract proposals. Mr. Beaman’s refusal to honor his own word doesn’t inspire confidence that he’s interested in saving the county some money.

The response from new County Manager Don Burnette, the county’s lead negotiator: “While the county was willing to share its last, best offer with the public, the union’s unwillingness to release its last, best offer precludes us from releasing ours at this time.” For now, the taxpayers will simply have to take the strapped county’s word that it’s trying to dial back the generous salaries and benefits that firefighters managed to extract in better fiscal times (see editorial below).

Not only is the public locked out of contract negotiations, in this case they’ll be dealt a binding ruling from an arbitrator who doesn’t answer to them, and told, “This is how your hard-earned dollars will be spent this year whether you like it or not.” They won’t be able to find out about all manner of contract “sweeteners” unavailable in the battered private sector until they’re a done deal.

That’s no way to conduct the public’s business.

We’d prefer to see the 2011 Legislature ban collective bargaining from Nevada’s public sector for good. The unsustainable government payrolls and billions of dollars worth of unfunded pension liabilities that have resulted from the current process are as much to blame for budget woes as the Great Recession.

Absent that, legislation to impose the requirements of Nevada’s open meeting law on contract negotiations would be an excellent compromise. Considering personnel costs consume the lion’s share of tax dollars within every government entity, it’s crazy that taxpayers and elected officials can’t directly control them. Unions would be less inclined to start negotiations with out-of-sight demands if a room full of voters were listening.