Apr 3, 2014 2 min read

Just weeks after the Washington County commissioners acknowledged they must retroactively pay adult and juvenile probation office workers $705,960 plus interest because of a disputed labor arbitrator’s decision a decade ago, another arbitrator handed down the terms of a new contract that appear to be much less controversial.

Those who work in the court-related offices are scheduled to receive 2 percent raises retroactively for last year, 2.5 percent raises this year and 3 percent raises in the final year of the pact, county human resources director Charles Nicholls reported Wednesday at the commissioners’ agenda-setting session.

For the first time, probation office workers will be receiving a 25-cent shift differential per hour for evening and night shifts worked between 5 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The arbitrator reduced the number of paid sick days for those hired after June 1, 2013, to 10, plus two personal days. Those hired before that date receive 15 sick days and receive more personal days if the sick time is unused.

The workers are paying 7 percent of their health care insurance premium, but on Jan. 1, 2015, their contribution increases to 10 percent.

The rate for parking in the Courthouse Square garage is frozen at $15 per month until Jan 1, 2016. There is a seven- to eight-year waiting list to be assigned a space.

Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan and Commissioner Harlan Shober approved the pact Thursday. Commission Chairman Larry Maggi was absent.

The probation office workers, who are members of AFSCME, are prohibited from striking.