More than 300 PEF members affected Judge returns 7 Roswell titles to competitive class By DEBORAH A. MILES PEF has received a favorable decision in the case of Benson vs. Roswell Park Cancer Institute. “This was an important victory,” said PEF Deputy General Counsel Lisa King. “We had challenged the classification of 12 titles. The Erie County Supreme Court judge found that seven of the titles were mis-classified, and three were returned to the Roswell Park Merit Board for another review.” “Roswell Park is an important case, and our victory benefits the PEF members who work there,” PEF President Roger Benson said. “It resulted in more than 300 PEF members being placed in the competitive class.” The seven titles affected are: nurse 1 and 2 (oncology); nurse practitioner; genetics counselor; nurse anesthetist; clinical research nurse; and maintenance supervisor. Being reviewed again are the positions of enterostomal therapy nurse, financial applications administrator and enterprise application and systems integration administrator. The court found the Merit Board properly classified the titles of assistant director of nursing and systems and networking administrator as policy-influencing. Roswell Park was formerly part of the state Health Department. In 1997, legislation was enacted which made it a public-benefit corporation with the right to create its own civil-service system and a Merit Board similar to the state Civil Service Commission. Under that legislation, Roswell adopted its own civil service rules and created and classified new titles. “The 12 titles in this case were classified as non-competitive, but they had been in the competitive class when Roswell was a state agency,” King said. “That meant people could be appointed to those titles without a competitive exam to ensure appointees were selected from among the best qualified candidates and not based on favoritism or political patronage.” “Our success in this case also benefits the public. It means patients at this cancer institute can be assured the best-qualified individuals are taking care of them,” Benson said. King said that being in the competitive class also makes an employee eligible to take promotional exams. “That is very significant in this case,” she said, “because we got legislation passed to ensure Roswell competitive-class employees can take state agency promotional exams. That legislation wouldn’t have been as effective if we lost this case.” Roswell Park is appealing the decision. ‘Our success in this case ... means patients at this cancer institute can be assured the best-qualified individuals are taking care of them.’ — Roger E. Benson, PEF President Back to Communicator Homepage

Timekeeping arbitration winding down By SHERRY HALBROOK The governor’s proposed early retirement incentive for state employees is sparking lots of interest among PEF members who are eager for details, but they won’t be established until the Legislature acts. “Certain issues, such as the participation of SUNY, need to be negotiated before the legislators act,” says PEF Legislative Director Brian Curran. A targeted incentive is proposed that would allow agency managers to determine which titles have positions they are willing to eliminate through the incentive. Managers could also target titles into which employees affected by layoff could be transferred or reassigned. PEF is urging the state to eliminate the targeting aspect of the incentive, and open it to all employees who otherwise qualify. The union contends a broad, generous incentive is the best way to encourage the maximum number of employees to retire early, and eliminate the risk of layoffs, involuntary transfers and deeper service cuts. The basic incentive is one month of additional service for every year of credited pension service up to a maximum of three years additional retirement service credit. It’s available to employees 50 years old or older who have 10 years of credited pension service. The incentive only adds to your years of service. If you retire at age 50 under the incentive, you would face the same penalties that exist in law today, plus an additional 5 percent penalty for each year that you are short of age 55. So, if you used the incentive to retire at age 50, you would be penalized 25 percent more than if you retired at age 55. And if you are a member of Tier 2, 3 or 4 with less than 30 years of service credit, you would receive the standard 27 percent penalty for members of those tiers who retire before age 62. If the state cannot achieve enough staff reductions through the incentive, PEF will encourage the Legislature and governor to reduce this penalty. As proposed, the incentive would protect PEF longevity awards if the member retires no more than 30 days prior to April 1st of that year. The program for state employees would be authorized through March 31, 2003 and the director of state operations would determine the timeline “windows” under which the incentive could be offered for state employees.