Candidate Questionnaire: AFSCME 3399

What is your experience as a union member or working in or with a unionized workplace? What are your general views about unions? 

I have spent my professional career in higher education. Loyola University Maryland, where I teach, has an active chapter of the American Association of University Professors, although the faculty are not represented by a collective-bargaining unit. My experience has therefore been more with faculty organization, advocacy, and shared governance than as a member of a union bargaining unit.

My general view is that unions have played an essential role in American working life. Organized labor has helped establish many of the workplace standards that we now take for granted, including reasonable hours, safer workplaces, fair compensation, benefits, and a meaningful voice for employees in decisions that affect their working lives. I support the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, and I believe a productive relationship between an employer and its employees depends on mutual respect and good-faith communication.

For the City of Takoma Park, I believe that means treating our employees and their representatives as partners in making the City work well. There will inevitably be negotiations over compensation, benefits, working conditions, and the City's financial responsibilities, but those discussions should begin with respect for the people who provide City services every day and recognition of the value of their work.

How would you advocate for fair wages and safe working conditions for City employees? 

I would advocate for fair wages by starting with the bottom of the pay scale. I do not believe the City of Takoma Park should be paying any full-time employee less than $50,000 a year. I would support establishing $50,000 as a minimum benchmark for full-time City employment and reviewing the lower salary grades accordingly. A full-time public employee should be able to do more than simply cover this month’s bills. Compensation should provide a reasonable opportunity to save, absorb an unexpected expense, build financial stability and, for employees who want it, begin working toward homeownership.

We also need to protect those wages from being steadily eroded by inflation. Under the current AFSCME agreement, the FY26 wage-scale grid increased by 1.5%, while eligible employees also received a separate 1.5% step increase. Those serve different purposes. A step increase recognizes progression within the salary structure; an inflation adjustment protects the purchasing power of the salary structure itself.

I would support negotiating an automatic cost-of-living formula into future collective-bargaining agreements, tied to an objective measure such as the regional Consumer Price Index. Takoma Park already uses this principle in rent stabilization. The City’s rent-stabilization allowance for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 is 3.0%, based on 100% of the March-to-March change in the Washington-area CPI published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If we accept CPI as an objective measure of increases in the cost of housing, I think we should be consistent about recognizing what that same increase in the cost of living means for the people who work for the City. Once a CPI formula is negotiated into the contract, employees should not have to renegotiate basic inflation protection every year. The calculation should occur automatically according to the agreed formula.

That does not eliminate collective bargaining. There are many compensation issues that require continuing discussion, including salary ranges, classifications, wage compression, benefits, seniority and changing job responsibilities. AFSCME Local 3399 has specifically raised concerns about lower wages compared with neighboring jurisdictions, employees taking on additional or more complex responsibilities without corresponding reclassification, and compression between newer and longer-serving employees. Those concerns should be evaluated using actual wage and classification data.

Safe working conditions also require an ongoing dialogue. City employees should have appropriate staffing, training, equipment, protective measures and workplace procedures for the jobs they are expected to perform. Employees themselves are often in the best position to identify emerging safety problems, staffing pressures or equipment needs, and those concerns should have a regular avenue to reach management and the Council.

My goal would therefore be to make predictable what reasonably can be predictable: a meaningful minimum full-time salary and an agreed CPI-based mechanism for protecting wages against inflation. That leaves collective bargaining and ongoing labor-management discussions focused on the issues that genuinely require continuing attention, including classifications, staffing, benefits, job responsibilities and safe working conditions.

How would you expect elected officials to collaborate with the union on issues impacting City employees?  Would you support continuing the quarterly working group meetings where union officers meet with the mayor and some Councilmembers to discuss mutual concerns 

Yes. I would support continuing the quarterly working group meetings, but I would go further. I would favor meeting monthly, and I would also like to create a more regular and visible role for employee representation in the Council’s work.

When the Council is discussing budgets, staffing, departmental responsibilities or new initiatives, we regularly hear from the City Manager and senior staff. I think there should also be a consistent opportunity for the employees who will actually be carrying out those decisions to be represented in that conversation. I would support having an AFSCME representative, or a rotating representative selected by the union, seated with the Council and senior staff during Council meetings when matters affecting City employees are being discussed.

That representative would not have a vote and would not replace the City Manager, department heads, collective bargaining or the formal grievance process. The purpose would be to shorten the communication chain. If a proposal is likely to create an unexpected workload, require employees to take on duties outside their classifications, create a staffing problem or raise a workplace-safety concern, I would rather hear that while the Council is discussing the proposal than months later after the problem has already developed.

I also think a rotating system could be valuable because different employees see different parts of City government. A Public Works employee may identify an operational issue that is invisible from the Council dais, while a library, recreation, administrative or housing employee may see an entirely different consequence of the same policy. Giving labor a regular voice in those conversations would help Councilmembers understand how policy decisions translate into actual work.

So yes, I would continue the quarterly meetings, but I would prefer monthly meetings and a much closer working relationship among the union, the City Manager and the Council. My goal would be to make employee input part of the normal decision-making process rather than something we seek only after a problem has arisen.

Should the City Council ensure that the City’s annual budget includes fair wages for City employees that are competitive with other area local city and county governments? Why or why not? 

Yes. I believe the City Council should ensure that the annual budget provides fair wages that are competitive with the regional labor market, but I also think we need to be thoughtful about what we mean by a fair comparison.

Takoma Park sits in Montgomery County and directly borders Washington, D.C., both of which are high-cost labor markets. I would not want us to rely on a comparison simply because another jurisdiction happens to be nearby if the cost of living, job responsibilities, staffing structure or scope of work are materially different. For some positions, Montgomery County or the District of Columbia may provide a more useful comparison than a jurisdiction farther away. The comparison should be based on the actual work being performed, the level of responsibility and the labor market in which we are competing for employees.

I would support an annual or biennial benchmarking process, with the union involved in providing or reviewing comparative wage information. That would not have to mean commissioning a large outside study every year. In fact, the City’s 2026 Employee Compensation and Classification Study recommended annual reviews of job descriptions, smaller market surveys as needed for hard-to-fill classifications, and a comprehensive classification and compensation study every three to five years.

I think that is a sensible structure. Each year, the City and the union should be looking at whether job descriptions still match what employees are actually being asked to do, whether certain positions have fallen behind the regional market, and whether employees have taken on broader or more complex responsibilities without a corresponding change in classification or pay. The City’s own 2026 study specifically recommended annual review of job descriptions and FLSA classifications to make sure they remain aligned with employees’ duties and responsibilities.

That is especially important for broad classifications where the same title can cover very different levels of responsibility. If an employee’s duties have expanded significantly, the answer should not simply be to leave the job description unchanged and expect the employee to absorb the additional work indefinitely. There should be a clear process for reviewing the position and, where appropriate, reclassifying it or adjusting the pay grade.

I would also continue to support establishing $50,000 as a minimum benchmark for full-time City employment. From there, the goal should be to maintain a compensation system that is internally fair, competitive with the labor market in which Takoma Park actually operates, and regularly updated so that classifications and wages do not drift out of alignment with the work employees are performing.

With some vocal opposition to property tax increases, how will you approach developing a budget that supports City staff and continues to provide the level of service that local residents expect? 

Nobody likes paying property taxes, and for some residents the pressure is very real. Seniors on fixed incomes and lower-income homeowners can see their tax bills rise faster than their incomes, making it increasingly difficult to remain in homes they may have owned for decades. Montgomery County maintains property-tax credit programs specifically to help eligible lower-income and senior homeowners with that burden.

At the same time, we have to look honestly at how the City’s finances work. Property taxes are the primary source of revenue for City operations. In FY27, the Council actually reduced Takoma Park’s real-property-tax rate by one cent, from $0.5522 to $0.5422 per $100 of assessed value. Yet because the assessable property-tax base grew by about $138 million, the City still projected approximately $438,000 more in real-property-tax revenue than in FY26.

That is why I do not think balancing the budget should begin with employee wages. Rising assessments are difficult for homeowners, but they also generate additional City revenue. Employee compensation is a predictable cost of providing services, and it should be planned for that way. I support a CPI-based cost-of-living adjustment so that basic inflation protection is built into the budget rather than renegotiated as though it were an unexpected expense every year.

There will certainly be years when revenues grow more slowly than expected. In those years, I would first look carefully at contracts, consulting expenses, capital purchases, administrative costs, vacancies, project timing and other discretionary spending. I would also make prudent use of reserves when appropriate. I do not believe employee wages should be the automatic shock absorber for a difficult budget year.

Residents have every right to expect the Council to control spending, and employees have every right to expect fair compensation for providing the services residents rely on. My approach would be to take both obligations seriously: keep pressure on unnecessary spending, plan conservatively, protect residents from avoidable tax increases where possible, and treat fair wages for City employees as a core operating responsibility rather than the first place we look for savings.