By Sandra Tan
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — When the Erie County Legislature voted late last year to approve changes to three union contracts to enable jail officers and deputies to qualify for their full state pension after 25 years of service, regardless of age, it was a recognition that the jobs are so stressful that staying in them for at least 30 years and waiting until age 62 to claim a full pension was a problem.
Now, the bill for that decision has come due.
The Erie County Comptroller’s Office recently informed the County Legislature that it paid $14.6 million to the state in order to cover both $12.8 million in retroactive state pension payments, and the $1.9 million additional annual payment for 2024, which will be a recurring additional cost.
Despite the expense, county leaders have long considered the change necessary to address high turnover and vacancy rates in both the downtown Holding Center and Erie County Correctional Facility.
The pension change means some people hired shortly after high school or college could now qualify for full retirement benefits while still in their 40s, a fact recruiters intend to promote.
The state prison system and many other county jails already participate in the 25-year pension system. So, Erie County jail staff would leave for easier jobs or better retirement benefits elsewhere, and qualified jail personnel already working in other county or state correctional facilities would refuse to transfer into Erie County because the pension benefits were worse.
To help address staffing shortages in the 2023 budget, County Executive Mark Poloncarz and the County Legislature approved hiring 30 full-time corrections officers and jail deputies, 10 part-time Holding Center guard positions, six sergeants and one lieutenant at a cost of several million dollars in the 2023 budget. Those vacancies took a year to fill, and Sheriff John Garcia said he now has many vacancies once again.
Last year, overtime ran more than $13 million over budget, according to county budget monitoring reports through November.
However, Garcia said he is more optimistic about his ability to control overtime and fill jobs this year, and believes this year’s budget is heading in the right direction. Improvements to the civil service hiring process and to the pension system are expected to help with recruitment and retention.
To enable the pension change, the county administration and the three unions representing jail staff needed to adjust their negotiations so that all three unions could negotiate the pension improvement at the same time. Union members overwhelmingly approved the pension change in the fall.
Aside from the pension, unions also negotiated wage increases. The Teamsters Local Union 264, which represents Holding Center deputies, ratified a contract last year giving members an immediate, mid-year $2.75 hourly wage increase, along with a 4% increase this year, and 3% increases in both 2025 and 2026.
In exchange for the wage and retirement improvements, union members with the Teamsters and Civil Service Employees Association Local 1000 , which represents corrections officers at the Alden jail, gave up two of their 15 annual sick days, though all unused sick days can be rolled over.
To keep employees from burning through their sick time before retirement, the county agreed to establish a health retirement account for employees so that unused sick hours can be converted into cash, at a half-pay rate, for use in offsetting health expenses post-retirement.
The county also required that the Sheriff’s Office agree to adopt an electronic time clock system, used by all other county departments, for tracking work time. That system is not expected to be in place until late next year.
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