Orange County Executive Steven M. Neuhaus and CSEA Orange County Unit President Rosemarie Kukys announced on Wednesday that a tentative contract agreement has been reached between Orange County and the Orange County Unit 7900 of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA).

“Over the past five years, my administration has worked hard to develop a professional working relationship between the County and its largest union, resulting in good faith negotiations that led to a contract settlement that fairly represents the views of both the County and the CSEA,” Neuhaus said. “This is an equitable contract for County Government and for the employees of County Government.”

The current CSEA contract was set to expire on December 31st of this year. The County and the union met eight times over the past seven months in an effort to come to an agreement prior to the end of the existing union contract. CSEA is Orange County’s largest employee union representing approximately 1,840 Orange County Government and SUNY Orange College employees.

The terms of the contract include a five (5) year agreement in which the major focuses were salaries and benefits. The wage portion of the settlement is as follows: 3 percent in 2019; 2.75 percent in 2020; 2.5 percent in 2021; 2.25 percent in 2022; 3.25 percent in 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, newly hired County employees will be paying 12 percent or 14 percent of the NYSHIP health insurance premium, depending on their respective classification grade.

“We’re pleased to bring what we feel is a fair and equitable agreement back to our membership for a vote,” Kukys said. “The fact that we were able to able to come to an agreement quickly and without complications is a testament to work both CSEA and the County have put into building a stronger labor-management relationship.”

The County negotiating team consists of: Steven M. Gross, Commissioner of Human Resources; Wayne Booth, Director of Operations and Cost Control; Langdon Chapman, County Attorney; Sharon Worthy-Spiegl, Deputy County Attorney; Tamara Hunter, Deputy Commissioner of Human Resources for Employee Relations; Molly O’Donnell, Personnel Management Technician; Jennifer Robles, Personnel Management Technician; Deb Slesinski, Deputy Budget Director and Colleen Kennedy, Benefits Administrator.

The agreement is considered tentative as the union and the County Legislature must both hold a vote to ratify the agreed upon terms.