AUBURN — The two-year stalemate between Androscoggin County and roughly 70 patrol deputies, dispatchers and jail guards would be over if the union would accept the findings of an objective three-person panel.

That’s the deal offered by County Commission Chairman Randall Greenwood on Thursday.

The three-member commission is ready to sign a contract that follows every recommendation made by a fact-finding panel, he said.

“I’m willing to accept everything they have put in the report,” Greenwood said. “And there are things that I don’t agree with.” He planned to send a letter Thursday to the union’s leaders spelling out the offer.

Such a deal would likely fail, said Sgt. Eric Samson, a member of the union’s leadership team. Some points of the negotiation, particularly over heath care coverage, remain unresolved, he said.

The union has offered to give up health care for its retirees, but the sides have disagreed about how it might be done.

Commissioners have been reluctant to grandfather every union employee hired before the contract signing, preferring a cutoff of people hired before the current contract expired on Dec. 31, 2008. In the interim, 17 people have been hired by the county.

Commissioners have also argued that the people who are grandfathered with the benefit should not have health care coverage for their spouses.

Fact-finders agreed with the union on the first issue and with the commissioners on the second. The panel suggested that commissioners offer retirees the chance to pay for a spouse’s coverage under the county’s reduced rate.

“We’re eager to get back in the room and continue negotiating,” Samson said, confirming that the retiree health care coverage is a sticking point. “It’s something that we already have.”

However, he declined some specific questions about the contract.

“We’re not interested in negotiating things through the media,” Samson said.

Both sides have been reluctant to discuss details of the marathon negotiations.

At their start in January 2009, each agreed to stay silent publicly about the issues being discussed in closed-door meetings. The self-imposed gag order frayed as the negotiations went on. Earlier this year, a mediator was called to assist.

It didn’t work. On Oct. 27, the parties appeared before a three-member fact-finding panel. Its six-page report was released to the parties on Nov. 15 and made public on Tuesday.

Both sides say they were surprised that they still don’t have an agreement. They also believe they are close.

“There have been numerous concessions on both sides,” Samson said. “We want this to be done.”

The next stage in the process is “interest arbitration,” which is binding except for issues of pay, pensions and insurance.

The final stage is implementation.

After a “reasonable” length of time, state statute calls for the last best offer to be implemented.

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To read the full fact-finding report, go to www.sunjournal.com

Factfinding — Androscoggin County Commissioners and AFSCME Council 93