DeLeo, Murray cite union rights in hedge against plan design

Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo were cool Tuesday to a proposal the state’s mayors are pushing that would remove collective bargaining from municipal employee health insurance, saying preliminary surveys of House leaders had revealed divisions.

“I think there is an appetite. I’m not sure how great that appetite is,” DeLeo told the News Service, when asked whether the House would support the plan.

Claiming personnel costs account for 65 percent of local spending plans, Murray went further, saying, “I think the municipalities have to take some role here, some responsibility.”

“Is this something we need to look at, if we can help them out? Yeah, but employees have to be part of that conversation,” Murray said.

Their remarks come two days after Gov. Deval Patrick, through a spokesman, was similarly reluctant to embrace the change, and as local officials are ratcheting up efforts to pressure Beacon Hill in favor.

Mayors of the state’s largest cities met last week and began formulating a plan to take to voters in 2012 a ballot referendum empowering local officials to use “plan design” as a way to relieve the pressure health insurance is imposing on municipal budgets.

Mayors said they have grown frustrated with legislative inaction on the issue, and are prepared to circumvent the Hill.  Unions oppose the measure as an erosion of collective bargaining rights.

The newly formed “Save Our Communities Coalition” (SOCC) on Tuesday sent a letter to DeLeo, Gov. Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray asking for a meeting with the three of them. “This is a busy time for all of us, but the importance of this issue is such that this meeting must be a priority for all of us,” the mayors in the coalition wrote, asking for a meeting before the end of the month.

Municipal officials plan to try to press for a budget amendment that would grant plan design authority to localities, powers currently enjoyed by the state's Group Insurance Commission. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino filed legislation early last year accomplishing that, but it has sat in the Public Service Committee.

Outside Tuesday's House caucus, teacher union officials were distributing letters to members asking them to "support a fair proposal to help reduce costs but also one that protects collective bargaining."

The Massachusetts Teachers Association wrote, "Significant cost savings can be made without imposing draconian provisions that allow cities and towns to make unilateral changes without involvement of employees or retirees."

Boston officials said that Bay State cities and towns will spend over $2 billion on health care benefits for workers and retirees this fiscal year, more than double the amount from a decade ago and representing about 14 percent of municipal budgets. Municipal health insurance costs have jumped 146 percent since 2001, compared to 86 percent for the state's public employee insurance system, officials said.

The MTA said they preferred a provision the Senate included in its fiscal 2010 budget bill, later excised, that would have reduced the costs of municipal health insurance by aligning them with GIC premium costs, imposing penalties on cities and towns that exceeded that benchmark.

DeLeo said he spoke Monday with Murray about plan design.

“I think the issue that we’re going to have to try to address is the issue of bargaining rights, and I think that’s the issue we’re all concerned about: are we able to get there while protecting those rights?” DeLeo said.

Some Democrats see plan design as a form of local aid, calling it a means through which the state can help cities and towns duck one of the fixed costs dragging their budgets out of balance. A legislative committee recently left a plan design proposal out of its municipal relief package, its chairman calling it too controversial.

“My local officials who were made aware of the possibility of putting municipal employee health insurance on the ballot were totally supportive,” said Rep. Harriett Stanley, House chair of the Health Care Financing Committee, who said she would vote for plan design “in a heartbeat.”

“I think ballot measures have been in the past to provide needed leverage with the Legislature,” said Stanley (D-West Newbury).

According to the Massachusetts Municipal Association, plan design reforms would guarantee municipal employees’ plans that are as generous as what state employees receive, and municipal unions would continue to have more bargaining power than state unions.  The reform would save taxpayers $100 million a year and would protect municipal and school services and jobs from cuts due to rising health costs, according to the MMA.