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2006 OUTLOOK FOR NEGOTIATIONS (click on the Link above)
Police salaries
negotiated in arbitration hearings Police
salaries are on the negotiating table this week as Metro and the County try
to reach a compromise. For months the two parties couldn't agree on terms, so
now they've started arbitration hearings with an independent party. Everyone
involved is required to keep quiet about the negotiations. The sheriff
indicated Wednesday that some progress has been made and that things may be
leaning in his department's direction. Metro
police have had their salaries on the line for the past six months. They had
hoped a tentative agreement would come through, but instead the deal fell
through and ended up in arbitration. Sheriff
Bill Young testified this week before the arbitrator and believes now that a
deal is close. "I
can tell you that the last best offer by the county and city isn't that far
off from what the tentative agreement was," Sheriff Young said. Metro
police are hoping to get a salary more in line with other local law
enforcement agencies. Henderson officers, for example, have a starting salary
of nearly $50,000 a year, which is more than North Las Vegas and NHP. Metro's current starting salary meanwhile is below
all of them at just under $43,000. The
police union is proposing a 25 percent raise; some County leaders have said
they could support around 20 percent. "I
think we took the position that we should have. I'm comfortable that what we
did was appropriate, and we'll just await the outcome," said County
Commissioner Rory Reid. At
first both groups were at odds, but Sheriff Young believes they are now
nearly on the same page. "There
was a lot of rhetoric and I think most of it was politics early on about low
figures and we were never going to be able to get to the tentative agreement.
When push came to shove, the county changed it's
tune," said Sheriff Young. Arbitration
hearings will go until Friday after which both sides will have about a month
to present a final offer. The arbitrator will then choose one of the two
deals. The salary increase will likely be retroactive to July. Reno police, city reach
tentative contract agreement From
the ASSOCIATED PRESS, December 29, 2005 RENO, Nev. (AP) - Reno police and the city have reached tentative agreement on a new contract that would pay officers 3.5 percent a year more over the life of a 5-year pact. The
two sides agreed last week to the new contract after initially signaling they
were at an impasse and ready for binding arbitration, which involves a third
party resolving problem areas. Members
of the Reno Police Protective Association and the Reno City Council must
approve the contract, which will be retroactive to July 1, when the old
contract expired. President
Steve Reed of the Reno Protective Police Association said the contract has
gone out to his members, and he expects to have a result sometime next week.
If ratified, the contract will go to the City Council for approval Jan. 11. "I
think that the big thing we're waiting for is the council to give their
say-so on it," Reed said. "I don't anticipate any problems on our
end." Reed
did not want to discuss specifics of the agreement before it's ratified. The
pay raises are the same as those approved for firefighters in their last
collective bargaining session in early January. Reno
police officers already are well-compensated compared with other departments,
according to Policepay.net, a police compensation consultant company.
According to that company's rankings, Reno officers are the eighth-best
compensated department in the country when all benefits and cost of living
factors are considered. The North Las Vegas and Las Vegas police departments
also are listed in the top 10. The
base salary for Reno police officers ranges from $42,615 to $58,398 based on
tenure, but does not include overtime, benefits or other pay allowances. IPD, city focus on 1-year pact Impending merger will affect talks From the
Indy Star, December 30, 2005 With the merger of Marion County's
largest law enforcement agencies in the works, the next Indianapolis police
union contract is expected to cover only the period until consolidation goes
into effect in 2007. The current pact expires Saturday. City and union officials said Thursday
that about 1,100 Indianapolis Police Department officers will continue
working under the terms of that agreement while negotiations are under way. The three-year deal, signed in 2004,
took more than a year to complete. In that round, the union had wanted a
four-year contract that increased salaries by $67 million but accepted a
three-year contract that increased salaries $28 million, or an average of 3.3
percent over each year of the agreement. Both sides said consolidation of IPD with the Marion County Sheriff's Department will play
a significant role in negotiations. "With consolidation, we expect a
contract in line with the Sheriff's Department," said William Owensby, first vice president of the city's police union. Sheriff's deputies will receive a 5
percent raise next year in their contract with the county, which expires at
the end of 2006. Owensby also said a one-year contract makes the most sense because that
would allow negotiators to hammer out another agreement next year for the
consolidated agency. Neither side would discuss specifics
of the talks, which generally focus on salaries and benefits. Both said the
first meeting last week went well. The single metropolitan department is
expected to take charge of law enforcement in the city and most of the rest
of Marion County on Jan. 1, 2007. Kobi Wright, the city's legal counsel, said the consolidated
department could operate under old, separate contracts if a single one is not
complete by 2007, but that's not the city's intention. "The sheriff (Frank Anderson)
will decide if the new contract is necessary," Wright said. "From a
practical standpoint, we probably will need a new one. That's why we agreed
to a one-year contract for next year." Deputy Mayor Steve Campbell predicted
the merger would make negotiations easier in the long run when there will be
one department, one pool of money and one negotiation, he said. The stakes for the next IPD contract are lower because it will last only one year
instead of three or more. "Still, contract negotiations
are never easy," Campbell said. "This one will be interesting. With
the merger, it's a unique time in history." The City-County Council voted to
approve the merger this month. A transition authority made up of the mayor,
the council president and the sheriff will direct the merger starting Sunday.
The sheriff will be in charge after a two-year transition and appoint a chief
of police, subject to council approval. Kevin Murray, counsel to the sheriff,
said Anderson will have to balance his responsibility to manage the budget
with public safety. Yet future contract negotiations should not be as
contentious with the sheriff as they have been with the mayor because union
members will recognize that Anderson is their advocate, Murray said. "The sheriff belongs to the FOP
(union)," he said. "He's a peace officer and speaks the language.
That creates a different attitude from the get-go." Ocala police
union agrees to proposed contract
Dover cops sick over labor slap DOVER - Negotiations for pay increases
for the Dover Police didn’t end on a good note. The town and the Dover Police Association, the union that
represents the police officers, have been negotiating since February 2004,
but the new contract settled on in early December has left the police unhappy,
according to Officer Edward Meau, the union
president. "It was awful. I was sickened by the whole thing. I got
blindsided," said Meau, who has been with the
Dover Police for nearly 17 years. "We get treated like we’re recyclable
trash. I’m not happy with what happened." Every three years,
a new contract is made. The last one expired in June 2004. This contract provides officers with pay increases for three
years: 2.25 percent, 2.5 percent and 2.75 percent, with a $250 bonus per
year. The officers will get two raises, 3 percent and 2.5 percent,
during the fourth year, 2008. The Joint Labor Management Committee’s arbitration panel stepped
in after the town and the police association deadlocked after two offers were
turned down by the police. Meau, however,
said he did not think two offers were made. "I felt like we had only brought one agreement back, but
the town felt like we brought two agreements back," said Meau. Meau said the pay
increases in the contract are not proportionate to the rising cost of living.
"Everything around us is going up - living expenses. I have
a family, too," said Meau. According to Meau, the police
association hoped for 3.5 percent and 4 percent increases. “To stay in the 2 percent range is a slap in the face,"
said Meau. More hoops to jump Funding for the contract must be approved by the town, which has
to appropriate the money through the Town Meeting in May. Town Administrator David W. Ramsay declined to comment. Meau said he felt
people in the community have been supportive of the police. "The townspeople are great," he said. "We have
tremendous support from the townspeople. The people in this town get it.
"We go over and above for our town." The Dover Police Association voted to be an independent
association starting Jan. 1, 2006. The association was formerly a part of the
Massachusetts Coalition of Police. The next round of negotiations will take place in June 2008,
when this contract expires. Meau sees the
situation as "a learning experience" and said he understands the
process better now. "I have a better understanding of how the town works and
what we should be doing for contract negotiations [in the future]," said
Meau. "It’s discouraging, but I love my job. I
love what I do. "I want the people to know that there was money in the
chief’s salary budget for 2005 that got encumbered. In the Town Meeting, when
they say it will cost $40,000 or $50,000, it’s not costing the town $40,000 or
$50,000 because the money was already turned back in." "They could have given us a 4.3 percent increase and still
have $120 leftover, and it would not have cost them anything." Police
labor contract gets nod Signing
of document closes chapter in relationship between Hub City, union From
the American News Writer, January 4, 2006 Months
of negotiations ended Tuesday when the Aberdeen City Council approved a
three-year labor contract agreement between the city and the police union. The
approval and last Friday's signing of the contract by the union ended what,
at times, was a bitter battle between the two groups. The city, which had
hired Aberdeen attorney Dennis Maloney in April to help in negotiations, also
approved an ordinance at Tuesday's meeting granting department employees a
2.6 percent wage increase, as agreed upon in the contract. "To
get this done is great," said Police Chief Don Lanpher
Jr., who attended Tuesday's city council meeting. "It feels very good to
have closure so we can move forward." Last
month, a group of union officers and members tried to address the council at
its weekly meeting on problems going on in the police department - including
the lack of a labor contract - but they were told it wasn't part of the negotiating
process. At the same meeting, a letter dated Nov. 28 was presented saying
that the union had voted 26-4 to reject a city contract offer in October. Aberdeen
Detective Doug Kenny, who serves as the union's president, said a new vote
came in last week that pushed the contract through. "I
don't know what the final tally was, but I know it wasn't unanimous,"
said Kenny, who maintained the contract was signed by the union partly to
push through the pay increase. "Just because we signed this contract, that
doesn't mean those issues are going to go away and not be serious points of
contention." Two
differences in language: Al Ruhlman, the city's
human resources director, said the language of the approved contract ended up
being very similar to what the union rejected in October - the two
differences being field training officer (FTO) pay
and overtime pay. It
used to be that an officer had to work with a recruit for the majority of the
time in his or her 24-day schedule to be paid an extra 50 cents an hour for
training. Now, the officer will be paid FTO pay for
any time spent working with a trainee. In
addition, the department has switched to 40-hour work weeks and an employee
will be paid for any overtime worked past 40 hours. The
labor contract also allows for a neutral party to be a part of grievance
situations instead of any of the elected city employees and it wipes out any
unsettled grievances or unfair labor practices already out there. "Basically
what (the union did) was to agree to start with a clean state and so did
we," Ruhlman said. "We're putting the
past behind us. I'm very proud of both groups for that." Agreement
doesn't erase past: The contract agreement is a positive sign, but it doesn't
completely erase the past, Aberdeen Mayor Mike Levsen
said. In
late 2004, two officers were fired by Lanpher. The
terminations were later overturned by the city commission, but the incidents
lit a fire under the police union. Dissatisfaction with working conditions
and the city's unwillingness to fire Lanpher led
many officers to support a petition drive last summer to recall Levsen. The drive was eventually dropped. "This
signed contract is a step to getting us past all of this, but it would be
presumptuous for me to speak for the people in the union and to say that
we've solved all their problems," Levsen said.
"For both sides, labor management negotiations are never fun, but in the
end, we all want the same thing and that's public safety." Although
the contract is for three years, Ruhlman said it does
allow for discussion. Each year, the two sides will have an opportunity to
bring wages and two other issues of their choosing to the table. That's
an idea that eases some of Kenny's worries. In February, Lanpher
plans to implement rotating shifts, in which each officer would be required
to work every shift at least once in a three-year period. The idea has been
met with much resistance from union members. "We
want this to be the best department it can be and we don't think the rotating
shifts are going to strengthen the department," Kenny said. "We
think it's going to weaken it. Rotating shifts will definitely be an issue
we'll be discussing."
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