By Ryan Boetel
Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. — Bernalillo County corrections officers won’t receive a significant pay raise they said was deserved as a part of their collective bargaining agreement with the county, a judge has ruled.
Second Judicial District Court Judge Beatrice Brickhouse earlier this month granted the county’s motion for summary judgment, in which the county had asked for the judge to dismiss a petition filed in court by corrections officers.
The ruling brings an end to a years-long dispute over a pay increase between the county and its jail guards. It was unclear Thursday how much the pay raises would have amounted to had the county been required to pay.
“The county is extremely pleased with the outcome of this case, as the county continues to recover from serious budget challenges experienced over the past few fiscal years,” Tia Bland, a spokeswoman for the county, said in an email.
Stephen Perkins, president of the Corrections Officers Association, said the group plans to appeal the judge’s decision.
“We are regularly overlooked,” he said. The county “comes to everybody else and leaves the corrections officers out.”
In July 2014, the union filed a petition in state district court that said its members were due a more than 12 percent raise, according to a petition. The union argued that in 2010, while negotiating their collective bargaining agreement with the county, a “me too” clause was put in the agreement.
At the time of negotiations, the county didn’t have money to award any pay raises that year. But the clause ensured that when and if another collective bargaining unit got a raise, jail guards would get a similar percentage pay raise, according to court filings in the case.
The petition said Bernalillo County Court Security Specialists received a $2.16 an hour raise in May 2013, increasing their pay from $17.34 to $19.50 an hour, a 12.46 percent raise.
A union official filed a grievance with the chief of the Metropolitan Detention Center, which said in part that the staff was entitled to the same percentage raise as court security. The MDC chief upheld the grievances, according to the petition.
The county argued, in part, that under the Public Employee Bargaining Act, economic provisions in collective bargaining agreements only apply when the funds have been appropriated. The county said in court documents that the Bernalillo County Commission only allotted for corrections officers to receive a 2 percent increase for the year in question.
State laws make “it unlawful for any board of county commissioners to become contractually indebted beyond what it can pay in a current year,” Brickhouse wrote.
©2017 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.)