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APRIL 2007
Medical Dental
Grievance Settled!
On
December 15, 2005, WPEA filed a grievance on behalf of all
General Government employees in all bargaining units where
WPEA is the exclusive bargaining representative, over
Article 38.25 Medical/Dental Expense Account:
Effective January 2006, the Employer agrees to allow
insurance eligible employees, covered by the Agreement, to
participate in a medical and dental expense reimbursement
program to cover co-payments, deductibles and other medical
and dental expenses, if employees have such costs, or
expenses, for services not covered by health or dental
insurance on a pretax basis as permitted by Federal tax law
or regulation.
The grievance alleged that Washington State, as your
employer, violated the terms of the negotiated Master
Agreement by not providing a medical/dental expense
account on January 2006, as contracted. The employer
anticipated that the option to participate in a medical and
dental expense reimbursement program would be available by
July 2006, six-months later than originally negotiated. The
WPEA filed this dispute to arbitration in February 2006, and
on March 29, 2007, the parties agreed to a settlement.
Those identified as participants in the
program are entitled to the settlement reached on their
behalf. This settlement reflects a penalty of an
estimate of the taxes they would have saved had they been
able to establish a medical/dental expenses account in
January 2006. A check for this calculated amount of
those taxes was mailed out to all affected. If you
have any questions or concerns regarding this matter, please
contact WPEA President
Greg Parker
at 1-800-544-9732 x103.
JANUARY 2006
State Not
Honoring Medical/Dental Program
One of the major provisions in the
General Government Master Bargaining Agreement for the
second year is the ability for general government
employees to participate in a medical and dental expense
reimbursement program on a pre-tax basis. A benefit that
our Higher Ed employees have enjoyed for several years.
The medical/dental flexible spending
account features: IRS-approved reimbursement of eligible
expenses tax free; per-pay-period deposits from pre-tax
salary; savings on income and Social Security taxes; and
security of paying anticipated expenses from the
flexible spending account. This is a valuable benefit
that was to become effective on January 1, 2006.
Based on the notice sent by the State
claiming they cannot implement this provision of the
agreement, WPEA filed grievances in all general
government agencies on December 14, 2005. All grievances
were consolidated at Step 3 and the state’s Labor
Relations Office (LRO) was designated to hear the matter
at this step. WPEA representatives met with Steve
McLain, Director of LRO, and Glen Christopherson, Labor
Negotiator for LRO, on January 11, 2006, in Olympia.
The state is blaming delay of the new
state payroll system -- better know as the Human Resource
Management System (HRMS) -- for their inability to enact
this part of the agreement. The "delay" has forced the
state to keep using its PayOne system longer than
anticipated and this old system allegedly cannot be
programmed to support this benefit.
For WPEA and our members, this is an
important benefit. It was negotiated to help off-set the
smaller COLA in the second year of the Master Agreement
by affording members the ability to participate in a
reimbursement program to cover co-payments, deductibles
and other medical/dental expenses on a pretax basis. We
believe that the average employee using the
medical/dental flexible spending account would be able
to save over $500 per year in taxes and would have this
much more in their pockets. This would amount to an
additional 1.6% raise in 2006.
WPEA is very concerned that the State has
demonstrated such bad faith in the contracts they
negotiated. The Governor, as the employer, has chosen to
not stand by the agreement but rather to determine that
this is not important to her employees.
We are now waiting to see what LRO
responds to from the Step 3 meeting. Then, if no
acceptable resolution is offered, we will move to the
Pre-Arbitration Review step of the process.
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