AFSCME Local 3399 is in collective bargaining now with the City of Takmoa Park fighting for fair wages, safe working conditions, and respect for city workers. Please email the City Council at council@takomaparkmd.gov and City Manager Robert DiSpirito at robertd@takomaparkmd.gov to express your support.

Local 3399 President Brendan Smith made the following remarks at a City Council budget hearing on April 8, 2026. You also can listen to his statement in this meeting video at the 33:30 minute mark.

“I am Brendan Smith, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3399. Our members comprise the majority of the city work force across most departments. Some of our union members and officers are here tonight.

I want to share our concerns about the current proposed budget which doesn’t include sufficient funding for personnel expenses for FY 27. We are in collective bargaining with the city now and are developing our wage proposal. We are certain that the current budgeted funds will not cover the costs of needed salary adjustments for our members.

Despite the best efforts of our union and city management, we are far behind schedule in collective bargaining because the contractor that was hired to complete a wage and reclassification study delivered the draft version more than 3 months late. We actually just received some additional study data yesterday.

The current proposed budget includes funding for a 4% wage increase for all staff, but our wage proposal will be more expansive to meet the wage study’s own recommendations as well as addressing decades of wage disparities which have led to low wages compared to neighboring jurisdictions,

Many positions also have expanded in job responsibilities but haven’t been reclassified to higher pay grades to recognize those additional duties.

Another major concern is wage compression where employees with decades of service often aren’t paid much more than new hires. We have members who have dedicated more than 30 years of their lives to the city, yet the wage study found that no employees have reached the top of the wage scale for their positions and most employees haven’t even reached the middle point. The wage study recommended additional wage increases based on seniority to address this issue.  

City management wisely included a caveat in the current budget proposal that there are “two relative unknowns as it relates to wages for Fiscal Year 2027.” That includes the findings of the wage study that aren’t included in the proposed budget and ongoing collective bargaining. The budget proposal acknowledges that more wage adjustments may be needed during the budget deliberations or in a budget amendment in Fiscal Year 2027. To be proactive, city management and the City Council should identify additional budget savings now or be prepared to utilize city reserve funds once a new contract is ratified.

This isn’t just an issue of fair compensation. It’s also an issue of racial equity which the City Council has identified as a priority. Most of our members are people of color, many of whom are working at the lower end of the city’s pay scale. Some of our members with fulltime positions have salaries that are so low they have to work a second part-time job to support their families.

A prior wage study that was conducted 5 years ago was deeply flawed and didn’t result in any salary increases for our members even though the study found that many positions were underpaid compared to the market. That has put the city even farther behind in paying fair wages.

We are hoping to avoid the situation that occurred a few years ago under a prior city manager when the city didn’t budget sufficient personnel funds despite ongoing collective bargaining and then claimed nothing could be done after the budget was approved. That led to a breakdown in negotiations, declaration of an impasse, and the assignment of a federal mediator.

When none of those actions helped, our members took to the streets with a direct action campaign that included a support group of local residents, flyers on telephone poles, a public letter of support from the District 20 state legislative delegation, and favorable media coverage in the Washington Post. We finally received some salary increases that the city could afford that could have been provided in good faith earlier to avoid that time-consuming battle.  

We’re here tonight to raise these issues now with the hope of avoiding potential conflicts or another public battle later this year.

There also has been discussion about the continuation of some ARPA-funded positions. Two union positions in the Finance Department and IT Department that were partially funded by ARPA are crucial to the continuing operation of those departments, the timely delivery of city services, and the protection of city IT systems from the growing risk of cyberattacks. Both the IT and Finance department directors support the continuation of these positions which have a minimal impact on the overall city budget. A failure to maintain these positions also will leave those departments shortstaffed and push more work onto the remaining employees which could cause low morale, burnout, and turnover.

Our union members are the backbone of the city workforce and the city would grind to a halt without our dedication and our labor. We aren’t seeking exorbitant wages, just fair compensation for our service to Takoma Park.”