Whatcom County Deputy Administrator Dewey Desler stopped County Council members from discussing their concerns with the wages of the county’s unionized staff saying it needed to happen in a closed-to-the-public executive session.

It came right after County Councilman Bill Knutzen said the county should have more flexibility in who they choose to layoff if necessary and once Councilwoman Barbara Brenner started wondering about requested wage freezes County Executive Pete Kremen’s administration has made of unions.

The county’s largest unionized group, which represents more than half of Whatcom County government employees, is Teamsters 271. They’ve been pretty blunt that they’re concerned over requests the executive has made.

It’s somewhat odd that Desler wants the discussion to be done in secret now, since he and the executive already shared various requests they’ve made of the union — not in negotiations, but just a discussion, since the contract is not open right now and the union doesn’t have to negotiate if it doesn’t want to.

The union’s representative, Chuck Eggert, also confirmed the various requests the executive has made.

That includes potential furlough days, wage freezes and more.

Now, Desler doesn’t want the County Council to share their own thoughts on those requests, apparently, in public.

As I said, I’m a bit unclear why the public doesn’t have a right to know what the thoughts of the council is in terms of the various cost-saving strategies the administration is discussing — and publicly prior to this with a reporter.

In what way will taxpayer money be protected if the council doesn’t share their thoughts publicly?

Meanwhile, Council Chairman Sam Crawford noted for the audience (and looking my way), they do intend to discuss elected officials salaries in public, though that’s not happening at this time as they’re currently in departmental budget details.

Back to Knutzen’s brief comments, before the administration stopped the council:

“With the current negotiations with the labor unions (Sam’s note: The major union contract is not open with Teamsters), as we have to do more with less folks, is there a way we could get something in there, instead of seniority-level layoffs, of performance-based layoffs?” Knutzen said.

Then Human Resources Director Karen Goens said that the union contract isn’t open, so there is technically no negotiation going on.

“In the current economic climate I would expect a little flexibility from the unions while we try to preserve their jobs,” Knutzen responded.

Meanwhile, other unions are still pushing back, including the Whatcom County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild, which has said in a letter to a mediator the county hired, that they won’t agree to more concessions.

Guild President Steve Harris shared the letter with me earlier in the week. In the letter to mediator Bob Braun of Braun Consulting, Harris noted that the Sheriff’s Office hired three previously-frozen positions and was authorized to hire a frozen lieutenant position. Those additions “totally negate” the savings made from collective bargaining with the guild, Harris argued. He’s displeased with that.

While the Guild is always interested in participating in discussions related to reducing costs and saving jobs, we have no desire to further reduce our wages and/or benefits to help subsidize the cost of Sheriff’s Office management positions. While we welcome the decision of our elected officials to fill currently frozen positions within the Sheriff’s Office, we feel they should be willing to put that “cost” on all of the taxpayers of Whatcom County, not just the employees.

Desler has noted previously that the county law enforcement has one of the highest ratios of deputies to citizens in the state, and that a massive amount of hires have occurred in recent years, despite the recession.

But Harris argued in his letter that while the ratio of deputies to residents is high, the amount of land area they have to cover somewhat does away with that argument.

“A reallocation of resources within the Sheriff’s Office would not only save the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, but also put the resources where they’re most needed…responding to calls for service,” he said.