Series of raises set for employees at Olympic facilities

Whiteface Mountain lifts will be operated by personnel receiving raises in 2023 under terms of a new contract. Photo by Mike Lynch

ORDA votes on six-year pact for union workforce

By James M. Odato

More than 160 employees of the state’s skiing and sledding mountains will be receiving a series of raises over the next four years under a contract recommended by the leaders of the Olympic Regional Development Authority.

The raises are part of a six-year contract supported by the ORDA’s Executive Committee and already approved by the Civil Service Employees Association. The deal would provide 3% raises in April of 2023, 2024 and 2025 plus a 2% raise in 2026, said Caroline Boardman, communications director for CSEA, state government’s biggest union. CSEA members passed the proposal Aug. 16.

ORDA’s board voted in favor of the deal on Wednesday afternoon.

Two weeks ago, the Executive Committee embraced the pact and ORDA President Mike Pratt said it will go to workers who helped the authority come through the pandemic and build the authority’s facilities, including at Mount Van Hoevenberg and Whiteface Mountain. The deal, he said, should help in recruiting and retaining staff.

Boardman said the employees receiving the raises would include 150 full-time, part-time and seasonal workers at Olympic facilities in Lake Placid and Wilmington and at Gore in North Creek plus 12 employees at Belleayre Ski Area in the Catskills town of Highmount.

The employees’ pay range from $12.60 to $26 per hour.

The deal covers 2021 and 2022 fiscal years without retroactive raises, Boardman said. ORDA envisions salaries and wages of $25.9 million in 2022 growing steadily to $27.3 million in 2023, $27.8 million in 2024, $28.1 million in 2025 and $28.4 million in 2026.

The entire ORDA expense budget, $165 million in 2022, including $105 million in capital investments, will dip to $146 million in 2023 because of reduced, although still significant, capital spending of $80 million. The total expenditures ae proposed to rise to $149 million in 2026, including $80 million in capital spending.