The fight over whether Montgomery County violated labor agreements by suspending an abused tuition assistance program is headed to arbitration.
Public safety unions said the county failed to follow the contracts administering the tuition assistance program, which awards employees up to $1,730 a year to take courses that will help them with their current or future county jobs, and has unfairly punished employees by suspending the program.
The county suspended the program in September, when county officials said reforms were needed to prevent employees from taking questionable courses. The Examiner first reported a number of classes that bore little connection to an employee’s job, such as yoga courses and sailing lessons.
“All they had to do is follow [the contract], and we wouldn’t have these issues,” said John Sparks, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters union.
The Fraternal Order of Police union has taken the issue to arbitration, and Sparks said he expected his union to follow suit. Both unions filed grievances after the program was suspended.
County officials began investigating the program this summer after Sheriff Ray Kight said public safety officials may have used tuition funding to buy discounted guns.
The county has a special agreement with the FOP. Police union members have unlimited access to tuition assistance money, while other county employees have to compete for a piece of an $800,000 pie. The county went $240,000 over budget the last fiscal year honoring the FOP agreement.
The unions said the blame for missteps in the tuition assistance program laid with Office of Human Resources Director Joseph Adler, whose department administered the program. Adler could not be reached for comment.
The county reinstated the tuition assistance program last month for government employees who are members of the Municipal and County Government Employees Organization.
The reinstatement happened after the county and the MCGEO union agreed to new rules that include prohibitions from taking classes that are “primarily recreational,” “utilize a specific faith-based method as a primary approach to problem solving or treatment” and are outside the U.S.
County Executive Ike Leggett’s spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, said stricter guidelines were needed to clarify which courses should be approved. He added that any arbitration ruling that required the county to spend money must be approved by the County Council, which is focused on how to bridge a more than $600 million budget gap.
Lacefield said an arbitration hearing could cost the county $1,500 to $3,500 in administrative costs.
