The Kansas Court of Appeals ruled recently on a case involving the city of Edwardsville, Kan., and the Edwardsville Fire Department, Local 64, International Association of Fire Fighters.
The appeals court ruled Dec. 19 that “a city that chooses to opt out of the Public Employer-Employee Relations Act cannot do so at the end of the budget year in progress when it votes to opt out. Instead, it must wait until the end of the next complete budget year to do so.”
The city had appealed a lower court decision, and the appeals court decision this month upheld the Wyandotte County District Court decision to issue a temporary injunction in the case.
According to court documents, Edwardsville voted to opt out of the employer-employee act in August 2013. Under a state law, the opting out would not take place until the end of the next complete budget year after the vote.
The city maintained that its vote was effective at the end of the 2013 budget year, and in January 2014 unilaterally imposed new employment conditions on local fire department employees, according to the court documents. The union member employees then obtained a temporary injunction ordering Edwardsville to comply with the state law, and the city appealed the order granting an injunction.
The appeals court this month stated that the employees’ claim met all the standard tests for granting a temporary injunction. The court stated the employees were likely to succeed on the merits of the claim under the clear language of the state statute on the ending of the next complete budget year.
Also, the court stated that the union submitted evidence that the employees would suffer injury if the city stopped following the state law, and the injury outweighed the damage the proposed injunction might cause.
According to court documents, in January 2014 Edwardsville stopped recognizing the bargaining unit for the Edwardsville Fire Department, Local 64. The city in January 2014 sent out letters to employees that outlined pay guidelines and benefits that had not been negotiated with the union, according to the court documents.
The employees received a temporary restraining order when they filed a court case stating that Edwardsville should have implemented its opt out vote in January 2015, not January 2014.
The appeals court, in upholding the district court decision on the temporary restraining order, said the case boiled down to a simple question, “Was the city entitled to quit following the Public Employer-Employee Relations Act at the end of its 2013 budget year? Or did it have to wait until the end of the 2014 budget year? Answering that question requires only that we look at the text of K.S.A. 75-4321.”
The city, however, presented a different interpretation of what the word “next” meant in the statute, referring to “next budget year.”
The appeals court stated that other words in the statute, including “complete,” “budget year” and “following” were ignored in the city’s interpretation of the state law.
Saying the state law was clear, the appeals court stated, “The statute doesn’t say that the vote to rescind may take effect in the next budget year. It says that it may not take effect until the termination of the next complete budget year.”
The appeals court referred to the Edwardsville action in implementing the opt-out provision a year early as “illegal.”
The court decision is online at http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/opinions/CtApp/2014/20141219/111392.pdf.