NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — City of Hutchinson Human Resources Director Tom Sanders said discussions are continuing with the other bargaining units in the city after the city and its firefighters already got a new contract finished earlier this month.
"We're still negotiating with them," Sanders said. "I think we're getting a little bit closer, at least on the police side. I'll know more next week. I can't really go into a lot of detail, but we're probably going to have another meeting next week with the SEIU group."
The earlier in a budget year that negotiations can be finished, the more flexibility both the governing body and a given union has to make changes to their agreement.
"It's nice if it can be done," Sanders said. "It doesn't always happen. In fact, probably more often than not, it doesn't happen, but once the budget is fixed, it's fixed. We can't really exceed that without going through a bunch of statutory hoops."
Another important point is that with the search for a new city manager going on, that may give the groups some urgency to get things done before there is another leadership change.