The Dayton Metro Library Board of Trustees on Friday rejected recommendations of a Fact Finder for the State Employee Relations Board calling for 2 percent annual raises for all employees for three-years, plus 3 percent step increases for some.

The Board committed to re-opening negotiations with the Dayton Metro Library Staff Association, the bargaining unit for 246 library employees.

“We appreciate and value the library employees and had hoped the Fact Finder’s report and recommendation would result in an acceptable, affordable contract,” Board President Margot Merz said. “As stewards of public funds, the Board feels it must reject the recommendations.”

Lori Rotterman, president of the union, said bargaining unit members voted to accept the Fact Finder recommendations on Wednesday.

“We are disappointed that the library has chosen to reject the recommendations of a trained third party neutral,” Rotterman said. “We will issue additional comments in the future.”

Wages and the health insurance premiums were two points of disagreement.

The FactFinder, Felicia Bernardini, recommended that each year of the three year contract employees receive a 2 percent pay raise. Some employees also would be eligible for 3 percent step increases. Bernardini fashioned a middle proposal for health care premiums that reduced the employer’s share of the monthly premium, but did not “raise the enrollee’s monthly costs precipitously or to an ultimately unaffordable level.”

Rotterman could not say what the union’s next step would be.

The union contract expired on June 30, Tim Kambitsch, executive director of the library system said.

“We exhausted our negotiations framework and brought in a mediator on wages and several non-economic issues, Kambitsch said. “We want to do what’s right for our employees but the huge increase recommended by the Fact Finder is out of sync with the marketplace and the library’s budget.”

Dayton Metro has a total operating budget of about $27.6 million. That figure reflects a loss of state support with revenues from the Public Library Fund dropping 23 percent between 2008 and 2010. Elimination of the Tangible Personal Property tax and lowered local tax revenues as a consequence of lower property values added to fiscal strains.

Before negotiations went to fact finding, the library had offered a 2.5% annual raise for the next three years and asked bargaining unit members to share in increasing health care costs, a proposal that Kambitsch called “affordable.”

“This isn’t the end of the negotiation process,” he said. “We hope to quickly work out a plan that gives our employees salary increases that are affordable in today’s tight budget reality.”