Payment by employers of contributions under the Wisconsin Retirement System that are required of public safety employees, arbitration under the Municipal Employment Relations Act, allowing municipal employers choice in health care coverage plan providers and health savings accounts that cover public safety employees, and prohibited and permissive subjects of collective bargaining

This bill creates a permissive subject of bargaining under MERA by providing that a municipal employer is not required to bargain over any decision whether or not to deduct union dues from the earnings of a public safety employee or over the impact of the decision on the wages, hours, or conditions of employment of the public safety employee.

The bill prohibits bargaining over all of the following, as well as the impact of each on the wages, hours, or conditions of employment of the public safety employee:

1) the decision to contract with any person who is not a municipal employee for the performance of services; 2) the decision to contract with any other municipal employer for the performance of services; 3) the decision to contract with any other municipal employer to consolidate services or units of government; or 4) the decision to permit individuals who perform services without payment of wages to perform services for the municipality that would otherwise be performed by municipal employees.

The bill prohibits bargaining over the selection of health care coverage plans by municipal employers for their public safety employees, including the option for the municipal employer to offer a health savings account that complies with federal law instead of, or in addition to, a health care coverage plan. The bill prohibits bargaining over the employer's share of premium costs for health care coverage under a plan or the employer's contribution to a health savings account, as long as the total employer share of premium costs is at least 75 percent of the total premium costs of a health care coverage plan or, if the plan includes a health savings account, at least 90 percent of the total premium cost. In addition, the bill prohibits bargaining over any requirement that the employer pay, on the behalf of a public safety employee, the first 5.8 percent of earnings that the employee is required to pay as contributions under the Wisconsin Retirement System.

Under MERA, if a dispute involving public safety employees that relates to the terms of a proposed collective bargaining agreement goes to arbitration, the arbitrator must give weight to different factors, depending on whether the dispute involves members of a police department employed by a first class city or employees of a fire department or a city or county law enforcement agency. This bill requires that an arbitrator of a dispute relating to the terms of a proposed collective bargaining agreement between a municipal employer and a public safety employee must give greater weight to the following factors than the arbitrator gives to other factors: 1) the local economic conditions and the municipality's budget; 2) the probability that the proposal will require service cuts; 3) the ability of the proposal to limit fringe benefit increases to the cost-of-living increases; and 4) the ability of the proposal to reflect cost-of-living adjustments in the increases and decreases in wages and fringe benefits that are not prohibited or permissive subjects of collective bargaining (total compensation). In addition, this bill prohibits an arbitrator from giving any weight either to the total compensation given to employees of similar organizations in communities with different economic conditions and costs of living or to any reserve funds held by the municipality.

MERA does not currently limit collective bargaining agreements to any specific maximum expenditures or increases in expenditures. Under this bill, no final offer or position involving public safety employees that is submitted to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission for interest arbitration may proceed to arbitration if the offer or position requires the annual expenditure for total compensation per employee to be more than the amount spent in the previous year increased by more than 1 percent over the average annual percentage change of the consumer price index for the previous three years.

Because this bill relates to public employee retirement or pensions, it may be referred to the Joint Survey Committee on Retirement Systems for a report to be printed as an appendix to the bill.