Grant PUD approves union contract
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Grant County PUD commissioners Dale Walker (back to camera) Bob Bernd and Tom Flint discuss commission business with chief financial officer John Janney (right).
EPHRATA — The Grant County PUD and members of the union representing electrical workers have reached agreement on a three-year contract. Utility district commissioners approved the contract at the regular meeting Tuesday.
Union members had approved the contract on Nov. 2. The contract will go into effect April 1.
Employees with Local 77 will receive a three percent raise in the first year of the contract. In the second and third years, if the cost of living index didn’t go up three percent, the PUD would make up the difference to three percent.
The contract included the example of a two percent cost-of-living increase. In that case, the PUD would add another one percent so the raise would total three percent.
The agreement was based on “what it took to keep us competitive with competing utilities in the skill arena we're in. Keep us competitive in the areas of line (workers), electricians and plant operators and such,” said general manager Kevin Nordt at the Nov. 8 meeting. “Three percent keeps us in the same relative competitive position.”
In other business at the meeting Tuesday, PUD natural resource employees announced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an order approving the agreement between the PUD and the homeowners’ associations on Crescent Bar.
Shannon Lowry, the PUD’s land and recreation director, said the agreements will go into effect Dec. 1. Between them, the three associations will pay $110,454 per month for the next year, Lowry said, for a total of $1,346,173. That includes rent going forward and back rent (with interest) to 2012, Lowry said, as well as leasehold taxes and current water and sewer service.
The fee does not include the costs of the new water and wastewater treatment systems on the island, Lowry said. The agreement reached between the PUD and leaseholders in 2014 included a provision for the leaseholders to pay 90 percent of the cost of construction of both systems.
In answer to a question from commissioner Larry Schaapman, Lowry said work on recreation improvements on the island and the riverbank is underway. The shoreline work has been underway for a few weeks, she said, and the work on Crescent Bar Island began last week.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.