Lycoming County v. Plrb

943 A.2d 333

LYCOMING COUNTY, Petitioner v. PENNSYLVANIA LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and Teamsters Local No. 764, Respondents.

No. 1496 C.D. 2006.

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued December 12, 2006.

Decided December 3, 2007.

Publication Ordered February 26, 2008.

Thomas C. Marshall and Ryan M. Tira, Williamsport, for petitioner.

Warren R. Mowery, Jr., Harrisburg, for respondent, Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.

Robert P. Curley, Philadelphia, for respondent, Teamsters Local No. 764.

BEFORE: SMITH-RIBNER and SIMPSON, Judges, and KELLEY, Senior Judge.

OPINION BY Senior Judge KELLEY.

Lycoming County petitions for review of the Final Order of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) dismissing its exceptions to the Proposed Decision and Order of a PLRB Hearing Examiner in part, and making the Proposed Decision and Order absolute and final. We affirm.

Teamsters Local 764 (Union) is the exclusive representative of two units of county employees: the Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) and the Assistant Public Defenders (APDs), and the County Detectives.¹ The County and the Union entered into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for these units. Upon the expiration of the CBAs, the County and the Union reached an impasse with respect to the adoption of new CBAs. Pursuant to the provisions of the Collective Bargaining by Policemen or Firemen Act (Act 111)², a panel of arbitrators was appointed and hearings were conducted for the impasse relating to the unit composed of the County Detectives.³,⁴

On February 11, 2005, the panel issued an award that set forth the CBA to be effective January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2007 between the County and the Union. In particular, the panel awarded an increase in wages, benefits and taxes for the County Detectives totaling $12,731.00 over what the County had budgeted for the unit employees.⁵

The County's Commissioners reviewed and considered the implementation of the award. However, on March 3, 2005, the Commissioners enacted a resolution implementing the non-economic aspects of the interest arbitration award determining, inter alia, that the implementation of the award would not be in the County's best interests, and would require "legislative action" thereby only requiring the award's implementation to be effective in the following fiscal year under Section 7(b) of Act 111.⁶,⁷,⁸ On March 21, 2005, the Union filed charges with the PLRB in which it alleged that the County had committed unfair labor practices under Section 6(1)(a), (c) and (e) of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act (PLRA)⁹ and Act 111 by failing to implement the economic aspects of the arbitration award.¹⁰,¹¹ On June 24, 2005 and July 18, 2005, hearings were conducted before a PLRB Hearing Examiner on the charges.

On November 2, 2005, the Hearing Examiner issued a Proposed Decision and Order disposing of the charges. In the Proposed Decision and Order, the Hearing Examiner made the following relevant findings of fact:

11. That on December 16, 2004, when the County Commissioners passed the 2005 budget they included $150,000 in their discretionary contingency fund.

12. That in 2004, the Commissioners located $203,000 that was needed to pay Robinson Aviation for unplanned air traffic controller expenses at the county airport.

13. That the line item transfers occurred routinely in county budgets. In the case of Lycoming County, they occur "a couple of times a week."

14. That 369 such line item transfers occurred in the last 2½ years.

15. That as a result of administrative requests, county fiscal services transferred $646,844.13, $540,933 and $211,090, respectively in 2003, 2004, and through approximately June, 2005.

16. That regarding these transfers, Director of Fiscal Services Noll or County Administrator Andy Follmer, not the county commissioners, signed off on all transfers.

17. That the County's annual budget regularly underfunds some operations or department and overfunds others. That is why every year the budget contains a contingency fund, designated Department 1094, for emergencies and underfunded expenses.

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19. The 2005 County budget also includes an additional unspent $200,000 for discretionary employe bonuses.

20. That the County has an available line of credit [of] $678,000 that it has not used since November, 2004.

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22. That the detectives unit has only 3 employes. Using the County's numbers, funding the detectives' contract would cost $12,731 over the amount the County budgeted in 2005 for detectives' raises.

23. That the 2005 County budget has projected revenues of $79 million dollars. Thus, the $12,731 needed to fund the detectives' interest arbitration award would only amount to 0.01% of the overall revenues received by the County.

Proposed Decision and Order at 2-3 (citations to the record omitted).

Based on the foregoing, the Hearing Examiner concluded that the County had violated Section 6(1)(a), (c) and (e) of the PLRA and Act 111 by refusing to implement the economic aspects of the award. Id. at 3-5. As a result, he issued an order directing the County to, inter alia, "[i]mmediately comply with all provisions of the Act 111 interest arbitration award dated February 16, 2005 and make whole all members of the detectives bargaining unit for the financial portions of the Act 111 award...." Id. at 5.

On November 22, 2005, the County filed exceptions to that Proposed Decision and Order in which it alleged, inter alia, that: (1) the Hearing Examiner erred in determining that a legislative action was not required in order to implement the economic aspects of the award; (2) the Hearing Examiner erred in concluding that the County had committed unfair labor practices in violation of Section 6(1)(a), (c) and (e) of the PLRA and Act 111; and (3) the Hearing Examiner erred in failing to grant its motion for dismissal and/or continuance of the charges while the petitions for review of the awards were pending before the trial court. On November 28, 2005, the Union filed exceptions to the Proposed Decision and Order in which it alleged, inter alia, that the Hearing Examiner erred in failing to require the County pay the Detectives simple interest on money due under the award at the annual rate of six percent from the date of the award up to the date of payment.

On February 21, 2006, the PLRB issued a Final Order disposing of the exceptions to the Hearing Examiner's Proposed Decision and Order. Regarding the charge that the County's failure to implement the economic aspects of the award constituted an unfair labor practice, the PLRB specifically found:

The material facts are largely not in dispute. On December 16, 2004, the County Commissioners adopted a budget for 2005, including $150,000 in a discretionary contingency fund.... On February 16, 2005, an interest arbitration award pursuant to Act 111 was issued covering the County Detectives including wages, benefits and taxes $12,731.00 over what the County budgeted for the three detectives in 2005. After the February 16, 2005 award was issued, the County Commissioners considered the arbitration award, and decided to accept the non-economic terms, but rejected the wage increases set forth in the award.... There is no dispute from the County that when the interest awards were issued the County had at least $150,000.00 of discretionary funds available, which could have been transferred to pay the interest arbitration awards for the ADA/APD and County Detective bargaining units.⁴

These undisputed facts unquestionably constitute an unfair labor practice under Act 111 and the PLRA. Under Article III, Section 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,⁵ an Act 111 interest arbitration award is a mandate to the political subdivision to do what it must to implement the award. A public employer may not hide behind self-imposed legal restrictions to avoid giving effect to a final and binding award under Act 111....

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In its exceptions the County makes no justification for its refusal to comply with the Constitution, legislative, and Supreme Court mandates to implement the Act 111 interest arbitration award. Instead, it argues the unfounded and self-imposed claim that legislative action is required to fund the award, and therefore it need not comply. First, this claim is not even viable for purposes of Act 111, and, therefore, the County's refusal to fund the Act 111 interest arbitration award for the County Detectives is, as a matter of law, an unfair labor practice in violation of Section 6(1)(a) and (e) of the PLRA, and the County's exceptions challenging the hearing examiner's conclusions in that regard are dismissed.⁶

⁴ Although the County argues that Commissioner approval was required to transfer funds from the contingency fund, Rebecca Burke, Chairman of the County Commissioners, admitted that discretionary funds were available to pay the awards, and that the transfer of funds from the contingency fund would not take a legislative action. (N.T. 240).¹² Further, there is no question that Commissioners delegated authority to the accounting department to transfer funds out of the contingency as needed.

⁵ Article III, Section 31 of the Pennsylvania constitution provides, in relevant part:

General Assembly may enact laws which provide that the findings of panels ... acting in accordance with law ... for collective bargaining between policemen ... and their public employers shall be binding upon all parties and shall constitute a mandate to the head of the political subdivision which is the employer ... with respect to matters which can be remedied by administrative action, and to the lawmaking body of such political subdivision ... with respect to matters which require legislative action, to take action necessary to carry out such findings....

⁶ Moreover, we agree with the hearing examiner that the County's unlawful actions were inherently destructive of employe rights to amount to a violation of Section 6(1...