Testimony

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Ken Brynien

President

The New York State Public Employees Federation

To The

New York State Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee

On the Nomination of Brian Fischer as Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services

Good afternoon, Chairman Nozzolio, Senators. My name is Ken Brynien, I am President of the New York State Public Employees Federation representing 56,000 scientific, professional and technical employees of New York State’s public workforce, including more than 4,000 teachers, counselors, nurses and other professionals in the Department of Correctional Services.

It is an honor for me to speak to you today in support of the nomination of Brian Fischer as the next Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services.

We believe Governor Spitzer has made an excellent choice in Brian Fischer.

Commissioner Fischer’s long career of service in New York State government, including over 30 years in DOCS, makes him a formidable candidate for this position.

We are particularly pleased to see a former front-line employee considered for a position of this stature and responsibility. He started his state career as a parole officer. Brian Fischer has experienced firsthand the concerns of PEF members. I have met with him and I know he is committed to working with all stakeholders, including his employees, to improve DOCS operations.

There is much in Commissioner Fischer’s career and education to support this nomination, including his early experiences, which have served him well and will continue to do so.

You have his resume in front of you, so I don’t need to go over it step by step. But I do want to underline some of the highlights. I understand very well. We both have a BA in psychology, a MA in counseling and began our careers working directly with challenging individuals being supervised by the state.

Foremost in our minds is his nearly decade’s worth of work in projects involving regionalization, and his experience as director of the Department’s Division of Support Operations in Albany.

This gives him a unique perspective on prisons in New York State and how to run them efficiently and effectively. His extensive background in drug and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation contributes to his understanding of program needs within the prisons.

More than three decades in responsible positions with New York State has made him acutely sensitive to the need for the DOCS commissioner to be accountable.

Today, that is the public’s number one consideration – having people in the position of responsibility who are responsive and accountable.

While, overall, PEF is very pleased with Governor Spitizer’s initial executive budget, there are aspects that could be improved, especially in the area of responsiveness and accountability

A case in point is the executive budget’s proposal to create a Commission on Prison Capacity, which runs counter to the public’s demand to an open democracy.

The Commission on Prison Capacity would recommend closing or downsizing of correctional facilities. This commission is modeled on the secretive Berger commission and its recommendations would become law unless rejected by a vote of both houses of the legislature.

We think this is a bad idea because the proposed Commission would be unaccountable to the public.

If needed, we believe that Commissioner Fischer should be given the responsibility of setting up a advisory committee on prison capacity – a committee which would be responsive to the needs of the state and the expectations of the electorate. This committee would help the new commissioner make recommendations to the governor. This committee could not only explore the issue of potential prison right-sizing but should also make suggestions on how to improve DOCS rehabilitative programs. All recommendations would be non-binding and would still move thru the standard legislative process.

We understand that, in some ways, a Berger-style commission would make the process easier because it would, in essence, take the decision-making away from the officials New Yorkers elected to make decisions.

But the easy way is not the responsible way.

A secretive commission runs contrary to the values of our democracy. The decision making process should be open, and we feel that no one is in a better position to ensure that the process is open than Commissioner Fischer, who – as his history attests – has as much, if not more experience, than any New Yorker at working in DOCS operations.

In short, we believe that Commissioner Fischer should not only be given the responsibility – but also the authority – for doing a job for which he is uniquely qualified.

Please, we ask you to confirm Commissioner Fischer, and we ask you to give him all the authority he needs to do his job, without having a special commission handcuff his ability to do so. Thank you for allowing me to address you today.

Testimony of

Ken Brynien

President

The New York State Public Employees Federation

To The

Assembly Ways and Means and

Senate Finance Committees

Workforce Hearing

February 26, 2007

Chairmen Farrell and Johnson, Senators, Assembly members.

My name is Ken Brynien, I am President of the New York State Public Employees Federation representing 56,000 scientific, professional and technical employees of New York State’s public workforce.

Thank you for allowing me to testify today on workforce issues.

This budget – while not perfect – is a good budget for the state workforce and a good budget for state taxpayers.

With your help, the Governor has taken an excellent first step in opening up the budget process to the people who pay the bills in this state – the taxpayers.

Our State budget should be based on fairness, openness and accountability. These are essential nutrients of a healthy democratic government.

* * *

First, let me talk about what we find positive in this budget proposal.

This budget reveals a new appreciation for openness.

For the first time, the Executive Budget spells out how much is being spent annually by the state on private consultants, detailing the State’s use of outside consulting services by each State agency. This is a result of a bill that the Legislature passed last year, and we thank you for that.

The books are finally open -- and we can see the opportunities to save money.

State agencies employed 7,546 employees under consultant contracts in 2006-07 at an estimated cost of $910.9 million or an average annual cost of $120,718 per consultant contract employee.

Our chart here shows a “dirty dozen” – actually a baker’s dozen – of state agencies that spend on average more than a quarter million dollars a year – per contract employee.

Top on the list is the Department of Agriculture and Markets which is paying its contractors an average of more than a half million dollars a year per employee.

This budget is headed in the right direction by seeking to employ fewer consultants.

PEF supports the governor’s proposal to save the taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the use of costly consultants and instead using qualified State employees.

It is estimated that the number of employees employed under consultant contracts will decrease to 7,278 employees in 2007-08, a decrease of 268 contract employees, or 3.5 percent. We support this cost-saving initiative.

Another critical reform that the state should take is to pass legislation that would require a cost-benefit analysis before contracting out.

New York receives no benefit by overpaying for consultant services that cost much more than doing the work in-house. The Legislature passed a cost/benefit bill last year but it was vetoed. We urge you to pass it again this year.

We also support many of the Governor’s program initiatives. The Governor proposes to improve the effectiveness of State agencies by adding staff in key functions including environmental protection, transportation engineering, tax auditing, education, youth services, Medicaid auditing, and other essential services.

* * *

While there are many positive aspects of this Executive Budget, it can be made even more FAIR in certain ways.

One major issue of fairness involves the governor’s proposal to close the Great Valley youth facility in Cattaraugus County, as well as, three Office of Children and Family Services group homes in Gloversville, Mount Vernon, and Brooklyn.

PEF is opposed to these proposed closures.

The Legislature must keep the law requiring at least 12 months notice before closing a facility -- and it should require OCFS to develop a plan for its youth facilities before considering any changes in those facilities.

Youth enter OCFS facilities with serious service needs that are not currently met by OCFS because of staffing shortages. Nine out of ten youths entering OCFS facilities in 2005 had at least one special service need, and two out of three had up to eight needs for special services. Four out of five currently in OCFS custody have a substance abuse problem; more than half have a mental health needs, and nearly half have some medical problem.

As service needs of OCFS youth have risen, OCFS staffing has shrunk. There are 60 fewer teachers, 64 fewer youth counselors, 11 fewer nurses and 16 fewer vocational instructors in OCFS now than just five years ago. Teacher/student ratios and caseloads for counselors are significantly higher than they were twelve years ago and are too large to effectively rehabilitate the youth in these facilities.

At Great Valley in particular, the closing of this facility would reduce the number of residential slots in Western New York by 50 percent. How can OCFS possibly provide adequate services to the city of Buffalo and the surrounding counties with this reduction?

We owe it to our troubled youth to ensure that any change in facilities is done for the benefit of those children – and not for the benefit of a balance sheet.

If any reductions are made in youth facilities then the legislature and the governor should add funding, or use some of the $4 million in this budget allocated for additional personnel, to reduce teacher and counselor caseloads.

We understand that change occurs and indeed we welcome change, but the state should be fostering careful, constructive change – not something that is done in an abrupt fashion that dislocates residents and employees of these facilities.

* * *

Let’s face it -- this great state was built on accountability. It was Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland – two great New Yorkers – who helped create the idea of an accountable public workforce rooted in a strong civil service system.

The budget reduces 30 staff positions in the Department of Civil Service. This will impair the department’s ability to perform important functions of a fair, efficient, merit-based civil service system.

If this cut is implemented, the Department of Civil Service workforce will have been reduced by 201 employees -- or 27 percent -- over the last thirteen years. It is difficult enough for this department to complete its mission, given its current staffing; further cuts will make the task that much harder.

We ask that $1.4 million be added to the D-C-S appropriation to restore 30 positions and insure a strong merit system.

* * *

The public has demanded accountability from its elected officials. Two proposals in this budget run contrary to that principle – The creation of the Commission on Prison Capacity and the creation of a new public benefit corporation to administer the proposed Stem Cell and Innovation Fund.

The Commission on Prison Capacity would recommend the closing or downsizing of correctional facilities. This commission is modeled on the secretive Berger commission and its recommendations would become law unless rejected by a vote of both houses of the legislature.

We think this is a bad idea because the proposed Commission would be unaccountable to the public.

If restructuring of DOCS operations is needed, a plan should be submitted to the Legislature by the Governor, and decisions made in the open by a democratic process, not by an unaccountable Commission.

PEF does not object to an advisory committee to study prison capacity and make non-binding recommendations, but no commission should be given the authority to circumvent the legislative process.

* * *

The Stem Cell and Innovation Fund as proposed would lead to the creation of another unaccountable public-benefit corporation.

The Governor proposes a bond act to raise $1.5 billion to fund research in stem cell biology, life sciences and other new technologies, and the funds would be administered by a public benefit corporation. PEF supports the proposed funding for research and development, but we oppose the creation of any more public benefit corporations or public authorities.

This bond act would be submitted to the voters, and therefore could just as easily be administered by public agencies such as the Department of Health or Department of Economic Development.

There are already more than 700 unaccountable shadow agencies in New York. They are a major cause of waste, inefficiency and corruption.

Public benefit corporations undermine democracy by making government less accountable and less transparent.

Openness is required by a democracy, and it is our preference that this budget build openness into all of its new initiatives.

* * *

We also have some concerns about the proposed Pollution Prevention Institute that would be funded out of the Environmental Protection Fund. We believe the Institute should not be able to carry out responsibilities, services and work already carried out by DEC employees or that they have provided in the past.

* * *

Finally, I want to mention something that is indirectly related to the support of state services.

It is the issue of how we pay for government and the public services New Yorkers need and rely on.

PEF supports the Governor’s proposal to close certain tax loopholes.

Closing those loopholes would raise about $450 million in revenues to support important State services and make the tax system fairer.

PEF has found that at least a dozen major corporations – some of the richest businesses in the world including IBM, J P Morgan Chase, AT&T, and General Electric– play little, if any, in the way of taxes to the state.

There is no excuse for not requiring that corporations pay their fair share of the infrastructure that they use in this state.

It is time for corporations doing business in New York to be good corporate citizens and pay their fair share – as every other New Yorker is expected to do.

* * *

Overall, PEF believes that our new governor has done a good job of beginning the process of creating budgets that are fairer, more open and more accountable.

We believe the governor, the legislature and our members all share the goals of fairness, openness and accountability.

We stand ready to work together toward those goals.

Again, thank you for your time.

Assembly Standing Committee on Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities

Public Hearing on “Employee and Patient Safety and Security Issues in State-Operated Mental Hygiene Facilities”

Testimony of Roger Benson, President
New York State Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO
December 15, 2000

Chairman Brennan, members of the committee, my name is Roger Benson, President of the Public Employees Federation (PEF). The Public Employees Federation represents over 53,000 professional State employees, over 7,300 of whom work in the Office of Mental Health (OMH) and over 4,600 of whom work in the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD).

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to address you today, at the culmination of your series of hearings on the issue of safety in mental hygiene facilities, an issue of tremendous importance to PEF professionals currently working in OMH and OMRDD facilities. You have already heard testimony from PEF leadership, members and staff around the state. They have described the nature and extent of injuries within OMH and OMRDD, both from personal experience and analysis of available data. They have explained how the constant threat of bodily injury hinders their ability to provide therapeutic care. They have demonstrated how inadequacies in staffing contribute to the problems of inadequate safety and treatment of the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

The problems we are experiencing are in part due to the changing nature of the client populations in OMH and OMRDD. In OMH, we have gone from a largely geriatric population of patients who spent a considerable part of their lives in psychiatric hospitals to an increasingly younger population characterized by histories of violence, criminal involvement, multiple substance abuse problems, and health problems.

In the decade from 1986 to 1996, MICA (mentally ill chemical abuser) admissions in OMH increased 91%, while the MICA census rose by 360%. In the same time period, forensic admissions increased by over 220%. In OMH psychiatric centers today nearly one in four patients has a history of criminal convictions.

Inpatient staffing has consistently been reduced while the demands on clinical staff and clinical workloads continue to grow. Reductions in patient population do not necessarily allow for reductions in staff. Research shows that more difficult patients require more intensive staffing, especially when these patients are in a concentrated population. Beyond the obvious issues of security and safety, these patients require higher levels of professional care in order to become self sufficient, functioning members of the community. Many of our members who are testifying at this hearing have specific examples of how short staffing negatively impacts the treatment given to their clients.

OMH ACCIDENT RATES

This concentration of difficult patients in OMH also affects the safety of their staff. I would like to present some statistical highlights for the NYC area state psychiatric hospitals:

As shown in Chart 1 the accident rate for OMH facilities across the state has significantly increased since 1990, peaking in 1995 and currently ar 27.88 accidents per hundred employees. The accident rate in OMH facilities within the NYC metropolitan area is 23.66 accidents per hundred employees, slightly lower than the statewide accident rate. However, when you consider the severity of injuries, as measured by lost time severity rate (the number of lost full-time workers per hundred employees per year), NYC area facilities have a higher rate of accident severity than the state as a whole. NYC area facilities lose 11.8 workers per hundred employees per year, while the state loses 9.8 workers per hundred employees. In NYC OMH facilities this equates to an annual loss of 178 full time-equivalent positions due to injuries.

With few exceptions, the accident rate at each of the OMH facilities in NYC has increased since 1990, many of them significantly. For example, the accident rate at Bronx PC has more than tripled (from 9.8 accidents per hundred employees to 32.7) and the accident rate at Queens Children’s PC has nearly tripled (from 15.9 to 43.4).

The correlation between more difficult and dangerous types of patients and the frequency and severity of accidents is demonstrated at Kirby Forensic PC, which showed an appallingly high rate of accidents (over 60 per hundred employees per year) in both 1992 and 1995. Although the SFY 99-00 accident rate has declined to 45.8 per hundred, the injuries were actually more severe, as evidenced by a lost time severity rate of 21.3 per one hundred employees per year in 1999-2000, up from 18.2 in 1995. This amounts to a loss due to injuries of the equivalent of 23 positions, or nearly one tenth of Kirby’s total staff.

Lower Hudson Valley facilities have also experienced a continued increase in accident rates, from 20.9 in 1992 to 32.06 in 1999/2000.

PEF’s own studies of the OMH wards that house the most dangerous patients show injury rates of up to 2 injuries per employee per year. Most of these wards holding 30 patients are staffed (90% of the time) with only a nurse and two or three therapy aides.

To put these OMH safety issues in a broader context, by comparing accident rates at OMH to those of the nation’s most hazardous industries, such as mining, we find that the accident rate at OMH is four times higher (5.9 per hundred workers per year versus 23.6 in 1997)^{1 than
the accident rate in the mining industry, and more than twice the accident rate
in the construction industry (9.5 accidents per hundred workers per year in
1997).}

To their credit, OMH has worked cooperatively with the unions to address the issue of client and staff safety. They have implemented critical incident reporting, training, trauma response and the adoption of a comprehensive written violence prevention policy, referred to as STEP, the Safe and Therapeutic Environment Policy.

These safety policies are so important that they should be required by law, as they are in the state of Washington. PEF supports “Safe Workplace” legislation similar to the law enacted in Washington and the bill passed by the NYS Assembly this year (A3820-A).

In our previous testimony in Buffalo and Utica and in Mary Lou Mann’s and Marcia Stulbaum’s testimony today, we documented that when a patient assaults another patient or a staff person, there are often no consequences for their behavior. Amy Beth Taublieb, an Associate Psychologist at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and an expert in treating mentally ill individuals with a history of violence, stated that there must be consequences for the mentally ill who exhibit repeated assaultive and violent behavior. Other testimony documented the difficulty OMH staff has in referring clients who repeatedly assault other clients and staff to secure OMH facilities. In some instances, OMH supervisors actually advise staff to wait for further assaults to occur before they try to refer the client to a secure facility so the referral has a better chance of being approved. This is a dangerous and unwise policy that the Legislature should change by requiring mandatory placement in secure facilities of OMH clients who repeatedly assault clients or staff.

HIGH VACANCY RATES AND EXCESSIVE OVERTIME COMPROMISE PATIENT SAFETY

While implementation of safety measures will help ease the safety problem, the underlying problem of inadequate staffing must also be corrected if OMH facilities are to provide a safe and therapeutic environment for its clients.

On a typical adult ward in OMH, the staffing pattern is one nurse and two or three therapy aides to 30 patients. This staffing pattern does not allow for therapeutic interaction between staff and patients, often leading to a lack of attention to patient needs and causing unnecessary tension between staff and patients. Overburdened staff may respond by acting tense and ordering patients around. Without an appropriate mix of skilled professional psychiatric nurses and therapy aides, together with support from other clinical professionals, safety and patient recovery will continue to suffer.

There are currently almost 1,800 vacancies in OMH PEF titles, of which we estimate that over 1,500 are responsible for direct care. Stated more directly, over one quarter of all professional positions in OMH are currently vacant. In the NYC area, the vacancy rate has doubled to over 40% since 1994. The current vacancy rates for PEF titles, as shown in Chart 2, remain excessive despite the elimination of over 2,000 positions since 1994.

Another result of short staffing is the high use of overtime in OMH facilities. As shown in Chart 3, at the current rate of overtime use, OMH will spend over $42 million this year on overtime, an almost 20% increase from a year ago. This means that every single day, OMH employees work over 4,400 hours of overtime, the equivalent of 550 extra employees. This amount of overtime is just to maintain the minimum staffing levels that contribute to the unstable conditions in state psychiatric hospitals today, not to improve those staffing levels.

PEF estimates that nurses account for approximately two thirds of this overtime, and bear the brunt of this burden in their professional and personal lives. Data from OMH show that the number of injuries for the most common nursing title in OMH (Nurse 2 Psychiatric) has increased steadily since 1998, despite, or perhaps because of, fewer numbers of nurses in this title.

Short staffing and excessive overtime can lead to medication errors, situations where an agitated patient is alone with a single staff member, and increased injuries and workers’ compensation costs.

Less obvious symptoms of short staffing include: tension and anxiety; staff burnout; redeployment; an inability of staff to keep up with patient notes; lack of time for team members to communicate and develop mutual support; cancellation of programs; an increase in patient idleness; less patient contact; and an increase in inappropriate discharges.

Any combination of these symptoms will decrease the quality of therapeutic care given to patients. This will result in patients who are unable to care for themselves and function safely in the community upon their eventual discharge.

As long as vacancy rates and overtime use remain high, the quality of therapeutic care is diminished and the safety of staff and patients threatened. PEF believes Assemblyman Brennan’s legislation that establishes minimum staffing ratios for the direct care workforce in OMH facilities is a good first step in addressing the short staffing problem. We recognize the difficulty in establishing specific minimum staffing levels for OMH and OMRDD wards and community-based programs, as the acuity of the clients may vary considerably from month to month and setting to setting.

Such legislation should set separate ratios for nurses and para-professionals that provide direct-client care, and other professionals and para-professionals that provide supportive services. The legislation must also specifically direct that the minimum staffing ratios must be enhanced based on the acuity of the clients’ illness, disabilities, and treatment needs; patient census; competency and expertise of nursing staff; the type of care that needs to be delivered on each shift; and the facility’s characteristics, including the architecture and geography of the setting’s environment and availability of technology. PEF is eager to work with Assemblyman Brennan’s staff to develop a strong law that realistically addresses the short-staffing issue in our state mental hygiene facilities.

Additionally, the Legislature needs to ensure that most OMH current vacancies are filled this fiscal year. At a minimum, OMH can add 550 direct care employees, particularly nurses, that it already pays for through its overtime expenditures.

OMRDD

As in OMH, the consumer population in OMRDD facilities is drastically changing. As institutional populations have been reduced, and an increasingly large percentage of the residential population housed in programs run by private sector operations, the one area of growth on the public sector side has been in secure forensic facilities.

The Executive Budget proposal for the current fiscal year made specific reference to providing additional capacity for persons requiring intensive treatment services in the interest of “protecting the public from individuals with dangerous behaviors.” In the last two years, 153 new secure beds have been added, and 60 new beds are currently being added at the Norwich facility.

Many judges now view OMRDD as the preferred sentencing and/or diversion option for minimally disabled offenders, and it is increasingly being used as a condition of parole from the prison system. This has resulted in the inclusion of street-smart, often predatory clients (including pedophiles), not only in secure forensic settings but also in non-secure general-population homes and institutional settings. While no statewide statistics have been released by OMRDD, PEF leaders across the state are continually reporting, experientially, that such conditions exist.

This raises questions of security and safety, not only for staff who have not received specific training to care for this type of population, but also for the vulnerable among the OMRDD clients.

While OMH has worked with the unions to address safety issues, we have not seen a comparable level of cooperation from the administration at OMRDD. PEF’s offer to management to use joint funds to develop training and other violence prevention programs has been rejected.

One of the major difficulties in discussing these safety issues as they relate to OMRDD is the absence of reliable data. At the present time, OMRDD has stated to PEF that it does not collect injury specific information from workers’ compensation data on a statewide basis. Further, there is no provision for workers who are either community-based or institutionally-based to report critical incidents. Therefore, when staff find themselves involved in situations characterized by threats of violence or otherwise threatening and unsafe conditions, there is no established mechanism to report, let alone address, these unsafe conditions.

In the early 1990s, PEF was allowed routine access to Department of Civil Service (DCS) reports on occupational accidents for all state employees, which were collated in an annual report. This valuable source of information is no longer available to the unions or to the Legislature, despite the fact that this data is still collected by DCS. If the Legislature is to respond to the problems we have raised today, it is imperative that this information and the supporting data be made available to the public once again.

Using the last available DCS data (from 1992), we know that working at OMRDD is at least as dangerous as working at OMH. OMRDD had an accident rate of 28.1 accidents per hundred workers per year.

OMRDD also faces short staffing problems. There are currently 802 statewide vacancies in OMRDD PEF titles. The vacancy rate is nearly 1 in 5 positions, unchanged since 1994. The NYC area alone has 132 vacancies. The Long Island DDSO shows an even higher vacancy rate of over 1 in 5, and the current vacancy rate in the Hudson Valley region is nearly 1 in 3. These high vacancy rates exist despite the outright elimination of over 1,000 positions since 1994.

The use of overtime in OMRDD DDSOs is also indicative of short staffing. As shown in Chart 4, at the current rate of overtime use, OMRDD will spend over $35.9 million this year on overtime, nearly 20% more than a year ago. This means that every single day, OMRDD employees work over 4,212 hours of overtime, the equivalent of 526 extra employees. On Long Island, overtime use has increased 79% in the past year.

Vacancy rates and excessive overtime alone are not indicative of the increased inability of staff to spend time directly with consumers. Many of our members at OMRDD who provide professional direct-care to OMRDD clients testified in Utica and Buffalo and clearly documented how short-staffing at state facilities compromises their ability to provide quality of care to their clients.

RECOMMENDATIONS

I would like to frame our recommendations in a historical context. In 1995, Rueben Harris, a patient “missing without consent” from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, pushed a 63-year-old grandmother in front of a subway train. Facing a public safety crisis, OMH responded by immediately making major physical changes to its hospitals to restrict entry and exit. Four years later, Andrew Goldstein, who, as you know, had a lengthy history of inadequately treated mental illness, shoved Kendra Webdale in front of a subway train. Again, government responded to a perceived public safety crisis by enacting Kendra’s Law to ensure that the dangerously mentally ill receive the care and medication they need. These were appropriate responses to a recognized danger to the public. We believe that the evidence we have provided in this series of hearings has demonstrated an equally profound threat to the safety of clients and staff within OMH and OMRDD. This threat should be afforded the same level of response as threats to public safety. Absent a response, we can expect continued harm to consumers and staff, the associated diminished quality of therapeutic services, and the potential of threats to public safety.

In the next session, the Legislature needs to act to improve the quality of care to OMH and OMRDD clients by taking the following steps:

Enact Safe Staffing legislation similar to Assemblyman Brennan’s proposed legislation with the changes suggested in this testimony. This includes mandating and defining patient/staff ratios for professional and direct-care staff and establishing uniform acuity levels.
Provide adequate funding so that all OMH and OMRDD direct-care vacancies are filled in SFY 2000-2001. At least 1000 direct care positions can be funded with the overtime payments that OMH and OMRDD already expend.
Enact Safe Workplace legislation similar to A-3820-A, which the Assembly already passed this year.
Enact the Intensive Case Manager Bill, A7344C, which the Assembly passed this year.
Enact legislation that would mandate transfer of patients to a secure setting when they repeatedly commit assaults against staff or other patients.
Require the Department of Civil Service to once again publish an annual report detailing the number of accidents resulting in injury that occur in State agencies and the total workdays lost because of these accidents. Similar data should be collected and reported on client injuries in OMH and OMRDD.
Mandate that positions funded by the Legislature are filled by OMH and OMRDD.

^{Thank you once again for holding these important hearings and giving PEF and
its members who provide direct care in OMH and OMRDD facilities an opportunity
to testify. These members experience every day the problems associated in
providing quality care to their clients under inadequate professional staffing
levels and unsafe working conditions. They appreciate your concern about the
short staffing problem and look forward to your taking a leading role in
restoring a true therapeutic environment in OMH and OMRDD facilities.}

Assembly Standing Committee on Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities

Public Hearing on "Employee and Patient Safety and Security Issues in State-Operated Mental Hygiene Facilities"

Testimony of Jonathan Rosen, MS CIH Director, PEF Occupational Safety & Health Department

on behalf of the New York State Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO

November 17, 2000

Introduction

My name is Jonathan Rosen and I am the Director of the Occupational Safety & Health Department for the NYS Public Employees Federation (PEF). I have a master’s degree in industrial health and am a certified industrial hygienist. I was appointed to Chair the American Industrial Hygiene Association’s Workplace Violence Prevention Task Force and have several publications on the subject. Additionally, I have conducted numerous training programs and spoken at conferences on workplace violence prevention, particularly in healthcare. In the ten years I have worked for PEF I have concentrated much of my efforts on preventing violence, especially in the NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH). In part, this is because the incredible high rates of assault that occur in OMH make it a top priority for PEF’s Health & Safety Program. Additionally, PEF has experienced excellent cooperation from OMH Central Office personnel as well as representatives of sister unions who are all represented in the OMH Multi-Union Health & Safety Committee (OMHMHSC). In the past two years we have also enjoyed participation from representatives from the OMH Office of Recipient Affairs who bring patient perspectives to our cooperative work.

Putting the Safety Problem in Context

To help put the safety issues in OMH and OMRDD in context, the chart below shows workers’ compensation rates per hundred workers per year. These rates are higher than those experienced by some of the nation’s most hazardous industries. For example, mining had an accident rate of 5.9 per hundred workers per year and construction had 9.5 accidents per hundred workers per year in 1997. In contrast OMH and OMRDD had rates of workers’ compensation cases (6 or more days of lost time) of 16.3 and 20.2 in FY 1996/97 (see Table 1). This discrepancy is even more extreme when you consider that the comparatively lower mining and construction injury rates are based on all reported injuries, while the OMH and OMRDD rates reflect the more rigorous threshold of 6 days lost time.

Table 1

Workers’ Compensation Case Rates per Hundred Workers – Source: NYS Civil Service Department

State Agencies	1989/90	1990/91	1991/92	1992/93	1993/94	1994/95	1995/96	1996/97
Office of Mental Health	18.5	20.3	21.2	16.5	18.3	16.0	15.9	16.3
Office of Mental Retardation	25.9	27.3	28.1	23.6	23.6	22.9	23.2	20.2

As a health and safety specialist with more than twenty-five years of experience in both the private and public sectors, I see the injury crisis in these agencies akin to the mining disasters and industrial injury epidemic that gave rise to the passage of the OSHAct of 1970.

OMH

When I first was involved in discussing assaults in OMH in the early 1990s, management would say, "that is an easy issue to resolve, we will just shut down the facilities." The attitude at that time was that assault was an inevitable part of the job. Labor’s view is that workers should be able to return home after a day’s work without being killed or injured. Getting punched, kicked, or beaten should not be part of any job!

Over many years of work I have seen a shift in the agency’s view of the subject. The vehicle for change was the Multi-Union Health and Safety Committee. In December of 1996 Commissioner Stone incorporated "Safety" into the agency’s strategic plan as a key result area. PEF lauds Commissioner Stone for his leadership in taking this action. However, it is now time to codify safety requirements into State law and to adjust staffing so that the agency can truly meet the objectives in its strategic plan.

History of Joint Safety Work

In 1995 the unions convinced management that there was a need for a Trauma Response Policy. Labor felt that OMH, one of the largest mental health systems in the world, should have a process for addressing the mental health of its own workers when they have been traumatized. The policy established steps that facilities should take to provide support to injured workers including assistance in receiving prompt medical care, workers’ compensation, emotional support and counseling, and post-incident debriefing.

During the Surles Administration, OMH was highly decentralized and each hospital had tremendous autonomy in how it implemented programs and policies. Two years after the Trauma Response Policy was enacted at the request of the unions, OMH Employee Relation’s managers conducted an e-mail survey. We then learned that many of the facilities had still not implemented the policy’s requirements. Part of the problem was that many facilities had not developed site-specific policies and procedures or appointed staff to carry them out. This was partly solved in 1999 when OMH provided three days of training to between 2 and 4 people per facility to carry out this work. To date, there is still uneven implementation of this program. For example, Manhattan PC lost all of the qualified personnel assigned to do trauma response through transfers and retirements and a final policy has still not been completed at this site.

Accident and Injury Data

In 1995, the Multi-Union Health & Safety Committee began reviewing data from the OMH Occupational Injury Reporting System (OIRS) that showed the severity of the assault problem (see tables below). OMH developed this system in the early 1990s and it has been key to providing data to guide the safety efforts. The decline in the numbers of assaults between 1995 and 1998 is mainly due to cuts in staffing. More than 2,000 direct care staff were eliminated between 1995 and 1998; therefore, fewer workers were exposed in 1998 but the injury rates remained high and actually increased for some jobs, including nurses.

Table 2

OMH 1996 Occupational Injuries

Number

Percent

Accident reports filed

6,773

100%

Assault/restraint related injuries

2,751

41%

Assault/restraint related injuries resulting in lost time

862

31%*

*Percentage of assault/restraint related injuries which resulted in lost time, 12% of all accidents reported were

assault/restraint related injuries which resulted in lost time

Table 3 shows the injury rates for the seven jobs that experience the highest rates of assault in OMH. The rates are especially high for direct care staff including nurses, LPNs, and therapy aides. The Secure Hospital Treatment Aides (SHTA) have the greatest rate of assault because they work in the forensic hospitals. However, Secure Care Treatment Aides (SCTA) who work on secure wards in adult and children’s facilities also have extremely high rates of injury. Table 3 also demonstrates a 25% cut in direct care staff (MHTAs and nurses) between 1995 – 1998.

Table 3

OMH 1995 vs. 1998: Rate of Staff Injury Due to Assault and Restraint

Title	# Staff 1995	# Staff 1998	#Injuries 1995	#Injuries 1998	Injury Rate 1995	Injury Rate 1998	#Lost Time Injuries 1995	#Lost Time Injuries 1998	Lost Time Injury Rate 1995	Lost Time Injury Rate 1998
MHTA	5,631	3,969	1,510	983	26.8	24.8	469	317	8.3	8
Nurses	3,024	2,498	524	397	17.3	15.9	119	132	3.9	5.3
Soc Workers	1,255	1,022	53	41	4.2	4.0	13	7	1.0	0.7
SHTA	570	615	336	438	58.9	71.2	110	184	19.3	29.9
LPN	519	359	132	86	25.4	24	29	30	5.6	8.4
SSO	493	471	35	51	7.1	10.8	17	17	3.4	3.6
SCTA	436	430	267	235	61.2	54.7	93	77	21.3	17.9
Others	14,765		255		1.7		53		0.4
Totals	26,693		3,112		11.7		903		3.4

Rates are calculated as the number of cases per 100 workers

The 1999-2000 accident rates in the facilities in OMH’s western region exceed the statewide OMH rate of 27.8 per 100 employees (see Appendix 1). The accident rates are 34.4 for Buffalo PC, 33.9 for Rochester PC, and 67.9 for Western NY Children’s PC. When you consider the severity of injuries, as opposed to simply looking at gross numbers of injuries, Buffalo PC has a more serious safety problem than Western NY. In 1999-2000, Buffalo’s lost time severity rate, which estimates the number of lost full-time workers per hundred employees per year, is 13.5 per hundred employees, compared to the statewide rate of 9.8 and the Western NY Children’s PC’s rate of 8. Accident rates for all three western region hospitals have increased dramatically since the early 1980s (see Charts 1-4). Although Both Buffalo PC (see Chart 2) and Rochester PC (see Chart 3) have experienced a decline in accident rates since 1995, Buffalo has experienced a slight increase in severity (from 13.06 in 1995 to 13.5 in 1999-2000).

Elimination of Secure Units

Lately, OMH has been moving to eliminate secure units in the children’s and some adult facilities. They are taking the former secure patients and merging them into non-secure units. PEF is very concerned that this change will have a negative effect on the safety of patients and staff. We anticipate that the high rate of injury among SCTAs who work with this population will soon be reflected by a corresponding increase in the injury rates of nurses, Mental Health Therapy Aides, and non-secure patients as these populations are merged.

Change in Patient Census and Demographics

Between 1986 and 1996 OMH reduced its inpatient census from 23,000 to 8,000. Today there are approximately 6,500 patients. Staffing has been cut from 30,000 to less than 19,000 today. Patients who remain are more often younger, male, chemical abusers, and have criminal justice involvement (see Table 4).

Table 4

Changes in Adult Inpatient Population, Fiscal Year 1986 - 1996, NYS OMH
	1986	1996	Change	Change in Proportion of Census/Admissions
Admissions	23,790	8,091	-66%	-
Census	20,249	7,588	-63%	-
Geriatric admissions	1,403	323	-77%	-32%
Geriatric census	8,306	1,431	-83%	-53%
Census aged 35-49	3,746	2,944	-21%	+109%
Males	10,311	4,777	-54%	+ 24%
Males aged 35-49	2,382	2,065	-13%	+130%
MICA admissions	2,640	1,702	-36%	+91%
MICA census	544	940	+73%	+360%
Legal status of admissions
Involuntary	14,764	6,024	-59%	+19%
Civil	13,939	5,112	-63%	+8%
Forensic	825	912	+11%	+223%
Voluntary	8,963	2,046	-77%	+33%

Source: OMH Statewide Comprehensive Plan for Mental Health Services, 1997-2001

Note: MICA stands for mentally ill chemical abuser

Short Staffing is an Obstacle to Carrying Out the Agency’s Mission

PEF fully supports the new OMH initiative of eliminating the inappropriate use of restraints and seclusion, which is based on the expectation that "each person can recover from mental illness." Most mental health workers broadly support this renewed emphasis on "psychiatric rehabilitation." However, the current staffing shortage is an impediment to implementing these concepts. Creating therapeutic environments requires skilled staff who can give their full attention to patient needs. The current short-staffing often sets up a negative power and control relationship between staff and patients. Stressed-out staff often don’t have time to address patient needs as they are consumed with other tasks. Frequent use of mandatory overtime and double shifts are detriments to OMH’s stated mission.

Reducing the Use of Restraint and Seclusion

OMH has set quantitative objectives for reducing restraint and seclusion. This has caused some managers to work towards "lowering the numbers" without involving the affected staff and patients in the process. For example, at Capital District Psychiatric Center, an improvement project on "restraint and seclusion" requires that staff wait for a supervisor to arrive at the site of a crisis before using restraint or seclusion. This is problematic, especially on the evening and night shifts when there is only one supervisor who may be far from the site of the crisis. By the time a supervisor arrives, an incident may spiral out of control. Further, OMH’s own policy mandates that only a physician can authorize the use of restraint and seclusion. By usurping physician authority, CDPC is violating OMH’s own policy. This type of bureaucratic control disempowers employees who are expected to deal with crises on a day-to-day basis. There have already been two lost time injuries that may be attributable to management’s dogmatic implementation of this policy.

Another example of misdirected policy implementation is at Middletown PC where the administration has attempted to eliminate the use of restraints by requiring staff to physically hold down agitated patients. This endangers both the staff required to hold down the patient and the patient being held. Meanwhile the rest of the patients on the ward are now inadequately supervised as well as being witnesses to this unnecessary and dangerous use of physical force. Such actions do not lend themselves to a therapeutic environment.

The essence of eliminating the use of restraint and seclusion is prevention. This requires paying attention to patient needs as well as signs and cues of agitation brewing before it reaches crisis proportions. With the current staffing pattern this is nearly impossible.

Safe and Therapeutic Environment Conference

OMH management responded to the OMHMHSC focus on violence prevention by endorsing the Committee’s proposal for a two-day statewide conference that was funded by joint labor management funds and held in March of 1999. The conference brought together six member teams from each OMH facility to prepare the implementation of the written violence prevention program called the Safe and Therapeutic Environment Plan. This plan was developed jointly between OMH and the unions and based on OSHA violence prevention guidelines.

Prior to the conference, PEF and CSEA conducted local pilot projects at several OMH facilities. These grass roots efforts helped lay the foundation for the development and implementation of the new statewide violence prevention policy and program.

Unfortunately, the implementation of the statewide policy is very uneven. In part this is due to the fact that facility staff has been cut to the bone and the ability of hospitals to free up personnel to plan and implement programs is very strained. Additionally, many in the top management positions are reluctant to collaborate with labor or even middle managers in changing the way OMH does its work. This was exemplified in 1996 when the leadership of Buffalo PC essentially ignored the recommendations that were developed during the one year pilot project. Certainly, it does no good to identify problems and solutions if they aren’t given reasonable consideration by local facility management, discussed with local union and patient representatives, and communicated to all facility staff.

Typical Staffing on an Adult Ward

In these endeavors I have had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time on OMH wards. The typical staffing pattern that I have seen in adult facilities includes one "charge" nurse and two or three therapy aides. They must attend to 28 patients. Most of the direct care staff time is tied up taking care of paper work, medications, food, patients’ hourly smoking breaks, and various crises. Meanwhile patients mill about, bored out of their minds, and their needs and issues often do not get attended to until they reach crisis proportions. Employees are often as stressed out as the patients. This does not create a safe and therapeutic environment. Although OMH Central office has been sincere in working with the unions and recipient groups in trying to improve therapeutic environments, programs, and policies, the basic problem of inadequate staffing acts as a countermeasure to all the efforts that are being made.

More than 90% of a patient’s time is spent with the direct care staff. How can OMH meet the goal of helping patients recover so that they can live safely in the community, when patients are mainly left to themselves with nothing to do when they are on the wards. Wouldn’t it make sense to have more skilled professional nurses available to interact with patients on the ward? Shouldn’t there be an increase in contacts with social workers and other professionals who have been trained to help people recover from mental illness so that they can live safety in the community?

After years of advocacy by the unions, just last year OMH conducted "core curriculum" training and made "Preventing and Managing Crisis Situations" training mandatory for all staff who have patient contacts. Currently, OMH and the unions are working as partners with the University of Maryland on a grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in implementing OSHA’s Violence Prevention Guidelines in four OMH facilities. These steps are an important beginning, but to ensure that they continue the Legislature and Governor must work together and codify these measures into State laws for safety, staffing, and quality of care, as well as fund appropriate staff levels so a true therapeutic environment exists in all OMH facilities.

OMRDD

In contrast to OMH, OMRDD central management has rebuffed the unions every time we have offered to work to address safety, quality of care, and staffing problems. In fact, OMRDD had established a health and safety unit in the early 1990s that was working to address these problems. However, in the mid-1990s they abruptly abolished the unit and laid off the staff. When PEF offered to use joint labor management funds to develop violence prevention training programs and other interventions, management declined to collaborate.

In 1999, I attempted to develop a pilot project on violence prevention with the Finger Lakes DDSO. Local facility management and all of the unions supported the establishment of this project. A number of violent incidents had heightened their concerns and they were impressed with the process that had been employed in OMH. However, this project never proceeded; I suspect OMRDD’s central office management blocked it.

OMRDD central doesn’t collect data on employee injuries, even though the unions have pointed out that there is a critical need to do so. Old Civil Service Department reports show overall injury rates in some OMRDD facilities as high as 30 or 40 workers’ compensation cases per one hundred employees per year.

PEF obtained data from Civil Service on Workers’ Compensation Costs associated with back injuries in OMRDD for 1994/95 and 1995/96. Back injuries are a major occupational hazard caused by patient lifting, food service, and maintenance work. As indicated in Table 5, over $27 million in workers’ compensation and medical payments were paid out for back injuries in OMRDD in those two years alone.

Table 5

OMRDD Accidents Involving Back or Lifting Injuries

	Days Disabled	Compensation and Medical Payments
1994/95	185,883	$15,532,017
1995/96	124,633	$11,845,794

PEF and CSEA had worked with OMRDD to address this problem by providing a training program titled "Backs for the Future." However, when the OSHA grant that funded this project expired, OMRDD failed to continue it with agency resources.

Workers’ compensation costs for OMH and OMRDD are tens of millions of dollars per year. Despite this large cost neither agency has a full-time safety and health department, nor a single industrial hygienist, safety professional, occupational health nurse, or occupational physician on staff. In the private sector a similar large number of employee injuries and associated high workers’ compensation claims and costs would result in the hiring of such staff to reduce the injuries and the company’s costs.

Conclusion

PEF’s testimony to this committee clearly documents how short-staffing in OMH and OMRDD facilities creates an unacceptable safety risk to the clients and staff who live and work in these facilities. New York State must ensure that all OMH and OMRDD clients get quality treatment and care in a safe and therapeutic environment. This goal is not being achieved under current OMH and OMRDD staffing ratios. This dilemma is impeding the goal of preparing patients to live independently in the community. It has resulted in clients often being transferred prematurely, in an effort by the agencies to meet reductions in the inpatient populations as dictated by state budget. This places patients and the public at risk. There is an important connection between the quality of treatment a client receives in OMH and OMRDD facilities and a client's ability to successfully live in the community. Short-staffing has short-circuited that connection and the Legislature must allocate the resources necessary to provide for safety and quality services in state operated facilities. The failure to provide adequate client/staff ratios will continue to jeopardize safety, therapeutic treatment, and quality care. Mental health staff, their clients, and the public deserve better.

These hearings are bringing long overdue attention to the safety and quality of care dilemma facing OMH and OMRDD patients and staff. As we head into the State budget cycle, it will be critical to gain bipartisan political and agency support for the reforms necessary to address these problems. The legislative agenda must address safety and staffing, and provide a mechanism to require the Division of the Budget to fill vacant positions. PEF is ready to assist you in any way we can to achieve our mutual goals of providing safe and quality care for the State’s mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

PEF Testimony to Roswell Park Merit Board
by Tom Cetrino, Director of Civil Service Enforcement

§3556 (1) and (2) of the Public Authorities Law clearly state that the RPCI Corporation is subject to Article V, Section 6 of the New York State Constitution and the provisions of Civil Service Law unless otherwise provided in the statute. In fact, §3556 (7) of the Public Authorities Law clearly gives the power to develop and administer examinations to the Merit Board and the Director of Classification and Compensation. Unfortunately, throughout the proposed Roswell regulations, the Vice-President of Human Resources is given the roles of the appointing authority, the Department of Civil Service, and the Civil Service Commission.
The appointing authority cannot assume the roles of the Department of Civil Service or the Civil Service Commission and be in conformance with Article V, Section 6 of the New York State Constitution. The lack of knowledge of this fundamental principle of a civil service system is a fatal flaw in the proposed rules and regulations and will require significant revisions to them.
Merit Board’s new proposed civil service scheme violates principles of due process of law and creates the appearance of a conflict of interest and the perception that the RPCI civil service process is not impartial.
We think that there is a relatively simple remedy for these very serious problems. As detailed more fully in our attached comments, the regulations should be amended to replace the Vice President of Human Resources and the Human Resources Department with either the Merit Board, the Chairperson of the Merit Board, or the RPCI Director of Classification and Compensation, who are organizationally separate from the hiring process. We urge the Merit Board to take such remedial action so that the new civil service system at RPCI begins as an independent process that is respected by both management and the employees.
It is our position that unless Chapter 5 of the Laws of 1997 specifically provides otherwise, all RPCI Corporation employees must have the same protections as other State employees have under Civil Service Law, Article V, Section 6 of the New York State Constitution, and the MOA. Section 8 of the Memorandum of Agreement also states that rights of all RPCI employees pursuant to their collective bargaining agreements cannot in any way be diminished or impaired. We have added language from current civil service rules and regulations removed by the drafters of the proposed Merit Board rules and regulations when that removal would result in fewer civil service protections for RPCI Corporation employees.
For example, the proposed Merit Board rules that violate the letter and spirit of the authorizing statue, the Civil Service Law and the MOA, the most serious of which include: improperly extending probation periods, and improperly eliminating retreat rights of employees in the event of a layoff.
We are very concerned that the current proposed rules would result in a substandard civil service that subverts the merit and fitness provisions of the New York State Constitution. We urge you not to adopt them today.
The RPCI Director of Classification and Compensation has issued proposed classification standards that:

Opposite of the Governor’s policy of consolidating titles. You have taken 68 PEF titles that covered 790 members and reclassified them into 154 titles that cover 733 employees

Downgraded 70 titles in the Professional, Scientific, and Technical (PS&T) Unit – NO DOWNGRADES SHOULD BE ADOPTED;

Inappropriately moved 24 titles from the competitive to the non-competitive class in the PS&T unit, NO PEF TITLE SHOULD BE MOVED FROM THE COMPETITIVE TO THE NON-COMPETITIVE CLASS; 3556(6)(B) specifically states that the N/C class shall include all positions for which the Merit Board finds it is "not practicable to ascertain the merit and fitness of applicants by competitive examination" IF DCS CAN TEST FOR THESE TITLES THAN SO CAN RPCI

Moved 22 PEF titles into the noncompetitive policy-influencing status; NO PEF TITLES SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED AS N/C POLICY-INFLUENCING

Improperly increased the number of noncompetitive policy-influencing positions from 9 to 103 without establishing rules that govern how such determinations should be made; The enabling legislation requires that the Merit Board adopt rules addressing the non-competitive policy-influencing designation. Given that the proposed Merit Board’s rules do not address the non-competitive policy-influencing designation, no title should carry this designation as no rule exists to affect such a designation. ONLY TITLES WHICH HAVE FINAL POLICY-LEVEL DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES SHOULD BE MADE N/C POLICY INFLUENCING

Created unnecessary parenthetics which will increase the exposure of employees to layoffs; for example genetics, molecular and cellular biology, and molecular and cellular biophysics are all related and could be in one parenthetic. NO NEW PARENTHETICS SHOULD BE ADOPTED UNTIL WE HAVE COMPLETED OUR DISCUSSIONS WITH THE DCC

Eliminated the nurse specialty addendum contained in current RPCI policies; this could result in nurses being assigned to units for which they are not trained or certified to provide care; THE NURSE SPECIALITY ADDENDUM SHOULD BE REINSTATED AS ROSWELL POLICY

Destroyed career ladders in most titles; under current practice Nurse 1s routinely become Nurse 2s when they meet the minimum qualifications; this will no longer be the case at RPCI

No title salary grade 22 or below should be overtime ineligible as proposed by RPCI. Article 7.14 of the 1995-99 Professional, Scientific and Technical Service Unit agreement provides that all employees in titles at salary grade 22 and below shall be entitled to receive overtime compensation.
Titles are allocated or reallocated to a salary grade by the state DCC based on the Quantitative Job Evaluation System (QJES), which organizes a title’s job functions based on eight weighted factors including education and experience (30%), management (5%), supervision (11%), written communication (19%), complexity (14%), responsibility (5%), oral communication (7%), and job demands (10%). WHAT OBJECTIVE SYSTEM DID RPCI USE TO INSURE THAT SALARY GRADES WERE PROPER AND INTERNALLY CONSISTENT?
All these actions call into question your commitment to having the research mission of RPCI carried out by employees who have proven their merit and fitness through a civil service system. A commitment to research cannot just be a commitment to bring in a few publicly renowned research superstars who will leave RPCI when they receive a better offer. The researchers who are responsible for carrying out the day-to-day research, often in anonymity, are the backbone of RPCI’s research mission. They have been insulted by the proposed downgrades in their salaries and their morale has never been lower.
We appreciate the one-week extension Mr. Sexton provided us. We also appreciate the arrangements Mr. Woods has made for the new classification standards to be revised by him without approval of the Merit Board through February 16 and that allows PEF to appeal these standards to the Merit Board thereafter. However, we ask the Merit Board not to adopt these proposed rules and regulations and unrevised classification standards. Due to the extensive nature of our comments, the members of the Board, RPCI’s legal staff, and the Director of Classification and Compensation will not have adequate time to analyze our comments and make appropriate revisions.
We have spoken to the Comptroller’s office and they have told us that they see no reason why these rules and regulations and classification standards must be adopted prior to the signing of the management contract. It took RPCI management over a year and half to draft the Merit Board’s proposed rules and regulations and classification standards for over 200 titles. Providing approximately two and one-half weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for the affected employee organizations to review these documents and for you, in turn, to review their comments undermines the purpose of the comment period.
To summarize, PEF believes that adoption of these rules and classification standards as they have been proposed violates Article V, Section 6 of the New York State Constitution, Civil Service Law, and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute Corporation Act. WE WILL TAKE ALL APPROPRIATE ACTION TO CHALLENGE THEM IF NECESSARY; PEF WILL CHALLENGE THESE PROPOSED RULES AND CLASSIFICATION STANDARDS IN STATE COURT.

We would rather work with you to adopt a civil service system that gives RPCI the flexibility it needs to continue to be the premier cancer research institute in New York state and that protects the employees who built this institute’s reputation. The PEF members at RPCI are dedicated to this institution and would rather devote their energies towards keeping RPCI a strong research institute that provides first class cancer treatment to our clients. We have continually offered to work with RPCI management to achieve this goal and have been rebuffed at every turn. We urge you to delay adoption of these rules and unrevised classification standards and work with us to make them consistent with the state constitution and all applicable state laws.

Roger Benson's Testimony on Albany's Permit Parking Plan

Good evening, and thank you Chairwoman Wallace for your personal invitation to me to address this body tonight.

I’m Roger Benson, President of the New York State Public Employees Federation. On behalf of our 16,000 members in the Capital District, I’m here tonight to tell you we adamantly oppose the latest plan to implement permit parking in the city of Albany.

To put it mildly, we believe the proposal to charge commuters—many of whom would be state employees represented by PEF—fifteen-hundred dollars a year to park in downtown Albany, is simply unreasonable.

We hope to persuade the Common Council to reject this plan, and to work with us, instead, on a plan that meets the needs of city residents and our members.

It is time for a reasonable compromise.

Like many Albany residents, many of our members are extremely frustrated over this continuing problem. Frankly, several metaphors related to driving best describe the situation:

For the past year, the road to compromise has been filled with detours and stop signs, instead of yield signs and green lights. Like a driver’s nightmare, we’ve just been stuck behind one red light or roadblock after another.

As many of you in this room are aware, PEF has made a number of attempts to resolve our differences, only to find ourselves in gridlock.

Last December, I personally invited the Mayor, City Common Council members and state officials to a meeting aimed at reaching a mutually agreeable solution. However, the Mayor’s office refused to attend. As a result of that refusal, state officials also refused to attend.

Nevertheless, we did have a productive meeting with Common Council President Helen Desfosses and Chairwoman Carol Wallace.

We did finally meet with the City on April 7, and on that date we were given assurances that there would be good collaboration on a parking solution. We waited for follow-up calls and for meetings, but there has been nothing since April 7th. The City has simply refused to address our needs.

On September 1, I wrote a letter to City Hall, co-signed by Harold Joyce, the President of the City Building Trades and Josephine Sano, President of the Albany Central Labor Council, and suggested the formation of an ad hoc group to address the continuing differences. The response to that suggestion has been deafening silence.

To understand our opposition to this permit parking plan, and to plans for construction of a new state office complex downtown, let me ask this question:

If you were building a new house, would you move out of your present home before the new one was completed?

I know I wouldn't.

At its core, PEF's opposition to any permit-parking system in the downtown Albany area concerns this same basic principle: don't give up what you've got—no matter how limited that is—until you've secured something better or at least, equally adequate.

While we believe the "Albany Plan" will go a long way toward improving the overall parking situation in downtown Albany, it is premature to enact a permit plan, until adequate off-street parking is available to the public servants who must work downtown. Unfortunately, it appears that is not likely to happen until the parking garage component of the plan is completed.

PEF has identified a set of baseline needs that must be satisfied before we can, as conscientious collective bargaining agents for our members, drop our fight against the permit parking plan in Albany.

Our primary need is that no public parking space should be restricted until a new parking space is made available for state employees working downtown. Moreover, if there is any fee for access to these spaces, we will not accept rates that are different from those currently in effect for state employees in the Empire State Plaza parking garages.

We must also have a shuttle bus system that works. Our members and other state employees have horror stories of cold busses in the winter, hot busses in the summer, missed appointments because the bus was not on time, and more. This is the alternative to parking for our members downtown? We can’t accept that, and you wouldn’t either.

Faced with the state and city’s failure to deal with our issues, in mid-September PEF was forced to file a lawsuit over the city’s approval of plans to build a new office complex in downtown Albany, without first complying with the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

Let me make something perfectly clear here: PEF does not object to construction that would bring more jobs downtown. We object to bringing new jobs and new commuters downtown before a solution to the already bad parking situation is found. Reasonable people don’t make bad situations worse.

Our lawsuit seeks to make the city and state comply with the state Environmental Quality Review Act, (SEQRA) which, among other things, requires a detailed study of the environmental impact of proposed construction, before it begins. Clearly, constructing a building with inadequate numbers of parking spaces would have negative consequences, and under SEQRA the state and city must demonstrate what steps they’ve taken to mitigate such impact.

Remember too that PEF is a labor union. It’s our job to defend our members rights and benefits, including the benefits of free parking that our members who would be moved into that building now enjoy. If we didn’t fight, these members would face what would amount to being a pay cut of up to $1,000 per year, if they had to pay for something they now get for free. As strong representatives for our members, we will fight to protect the current rights and benefits of these and all of our members.

Regarding the notion that our union has been "guaranteed" several hundred of the parking spaces slated for the new building: the fact is, PEF has not received assurances that any parking spaces will be reserved for our members.

The public may also be interested to know that everyone who is criticizing PEF for fighting to protect its members rights, does so from the comfort of his or her own free, worksite-parking spots. For example, when the Times Union moved its headquarters from Sheridan Avenue in downtown Albany to Albany Shaker Road in Colonie in 1969, it had the wisdom to ensure the new location contained free parking for all of its 972 employees. I believe several officials at City Hall also have free, on-site parking.

As an Albany Times Union editorial recently noted, the addition of 1900 state DEC jobs would help revitalize the downtown economy. But if these were 1900 potential private-sector jobs, wouldn’t the City of Albany and State of New York be likely to try to lure them into downtown, perhaps with the promise of free ample parking? It’s time for the same consideration for public-sector workers.

Despite these differences, PEF remains optimistic that a solution that satisfies the needs of all concerned parties can be found, and we stand ready to negotiate with the state and city toward that goal.

OMH 1996 Occupational Injuries
	Number	Percent
Accident reports filed	6,773	100%
Assault/restraint related injuries	2,751	41%
Assault/restraint related injuries resulting in lost time	862	31%*