On February 12, King County met with the King County Coalition of Unions to address two key components of the Coalition’s November 21 proposal.

Matt McCoy from the County outlined the cost incurred to provide an additional two steps (Step 11 and Step 12) to the Squared Table, as well as a Vacation Cash Out option. It was discussed that 63% of Coalition employees are at Step 10. Adding two steps would result in a 2.78% on-going, long-term cost increase in total payroll. The vacation cash out option would be a one-time payroll cost increase of 4.75% (or $29 million in real dollars). Therefore, the immediate combined increase in total payroll cost to the County would be 7.53%.

According to Dwight Dively (Budget Director) at a December presentation to the Coalition, the General Fund Revenue is expected to have an “…average long-term revenue growth of about 2.5%.”

View the entire update here.