[brief] THE PERC DETERMINATION WAS ARBITRARY AND CAPRICIOUS IN FINDING THAT CONSOLIDATION OF UNITS INTO ONE UNIFIED AGREEMENT IS A MINISTERIAL TASK.  (Aa062-Aa064).  In the Award, the arbitrator awarded the consolidation of the three PFOA units into a single contract.  (Aa149).  However, the arbitrator was unable to articulate the language necessary to blend the three units’ pre-existing terms and conditions into a single, unified contract.  On this issue, the arbitrator stated as follows:  For all other changes needed to create a unified contract, the parties shall endeavor to use the most clear and concise language available among the three separate contracts.  If a dispute arises over the drafting of a unified contract, then either party should consider requesting the appointment of a mediator from the PER Director of Conciliation.  There was simply too little time in this proceeding to fully work out a blending of all three contracts into one.  The parties are left to finish that task.  (Aa160, fn. 17).  In affirming the Award, the Commission acknowledged that the arbitrator was “unable to specifically set forth how the unmodified language of the previous contracts could be efficiently blended and reformatted into a single CNA. ” (Aa063).  The Commission then noted that while the arbitrator addressed the substantive aspect of consolidating the three units into a single contract, the arbitrator “did not err by leaving to the parties the ministerial task of blending all of the unmodified language of the POA’s three previous contracts into a single document. ” (Aa063).  The Commission further acknowledged that the arbitrator did not complete the task of unifying the previous contracts and deferred to another procedure, mediation, to resolve this dispute.  (Aa064, fn. 10).  In an unpublished opinion, In re [...], 2021 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2398 (App. Div. October 5, 2021) (Aa747), this Court reversed the Commission’s decision in [...], 2020 NJ PERC LEXIS 47 (April 30, 2020) (Aa740) which had directed the Borough to sign a collective negotiations agreement that memorialized an interest arbitration award.  Similar to the issue here, the Commission in Bergenfield saw the drafting of a collective negotiations agreement as simply a ministerial task.  However, this ministerial task was strongly disputed and led to an unfair practice charge, a hearing before a PERC hearing examiner with a recommended decision, an appeal to the Commission, an appeal of the Commission’s decision to this Court, and a remand back to the Commission, and the interest arbitrator, when this Court vacated the Commission’s order requiring the collective negotiations agreement prepared by the union, to be executed by the Borough.  The Bergenfield case illustrates the complicated nature of preparing a collective negotiations agreement after the issuance of an interest arbitration award.  Even the arbitrator, in this matter, recognized that there may be a dispute between the parties as to unifying language which may necessitate the need for a mediator.  Moreover, the Commission, in its decision, approved the interest arbitrator’s delegation of this task to that of a mediator whose authority does not include binding the parties to the mediator’s recommendation.