Tentative Agreement Ratified !

The tentative Agreement reached between the State and AFSCME 2620 regarding the raises for Coleman related mental health care classes has been ratified by the members with an overwhelming vote of 361 for and 8 against.

The State was notified of the ratification on Friday immediately after the ballots were counted. Now it is up to the Legislature to issue the final approval. Once the agreement has completed this final step, the checks should be in the mail. The raises are retroactive to July 1st and are to be applied before the 3.4 % COLA is calculated.

Due to the delay in the signing of the budget, the 3.4% COLA increases have not appeared on our checks for the month of July and may not appear on our August checks. That is because the State must process all salary changes by the certain date each month (generally the 21st or 22nd of the month) in order for checks to issue correctly. However, the checks will be forthcoming once the documentation and processing is complete.

For the classifications in DMH, DDS and CDVA affected by the tentative agreement, you may see a few adjustment checks. That is because the Legislature must approve our tentative agreement before the State can process the changes. Because the tentative agreement requires Legislative approval, there is a possibility the State will issue your retroactive checks for the 3.4% COLA on the old salary. Then when the agreement ratifies, they must go back and adjust the salary to the higher rate, and compute the 3.4 % increase on top of that. It is not known how the State will proceed when they process these changes. However, the State absolutely must pay you the 3.4% COLA based on the new higher salary. The only question remaining is when they will issue all of the retroactive checks, and how many checks you will receive.

Now that the Coleman salary issues have been resolved, the State will be noticing us to return to the table to discuss salary increases for the PLATA related classifications.

Thank-you all for supporting our work on your behalf by voting overwhelmingly to approve the agreement.