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< Training
Class Schedule for 2006 > June 28 – How
To Lobby and Politic June 29 – What
You Should Do Before Negotiations August 9 - How
To Lobby and Politic August 10 –
What To Do At The Negotiating Table September 20 -
How To Lobby and Politic September 21 –
How To Conduct Your Own Interest Arbitration Click here for more
information and to register – Class size is limited to 30!
NEW DALLAS/FORT WORTH METRO WAGE SURVEY POLICEPAY
has just released a new wage survey for the eight largest cities in the Dallas/Fort
Worth Metropolitan Area. The survey
uses the latest model developed by POLICEPAY.
The new model calculates the value of pension plans and retiree health
insurance. This is the most
comprehensive model that we have ever used.
The Dallas/Fort Worth survey shows Plano to be the best paid
department in the survey. Arlington is
at the bottom. You can see the entire
survey and documentation by clicking the link at the top of the POLICEPAY.NET
homepage. In addition, you can learn
how you can obtain this same type of survey for your agency Police
Officers Angry They Aren't Getting Raises From News 8, May 3, 2006 Six years after stepping down as San Diego Police Chief, Mayor
Jerry Sanders says negotiations between the city and police union are at an
impasse. With no new compromise reached, a one year contract with no pay or
benefit increases will be imposed. Impasse
committee votes to give police raises A political firestorm is brewing at City Hall, after some
Memphis City Council members voted to give police officers raises.
Members approved the raises despite the Mayor's threat of layoffs or a tax
increase. In the first impasse committee meeting, council members wasted
no time, voting 2-1 to give police raises despite the Mayor's claim that
there's no money for it. "This is the first impasse hearing out of 22 and I'm afraid
that it may have set a very dangerous precedent," says Councilman Tom
Marshall. Marshall chairs the police committee and was the lone vote
against the raises to avoid a tax hike or layoffs. "I voted to
freeze that pay raise because I don't believe the taxpayers - the property
owners - could afford the rate increase." Carol Chumney and E.C.
Jones voted to spend $1.8 million and to give police union members a one
percent raise in January and another in July. But Jones tells us he's not worried about finding the
money. "If he comes to us and says he needs a tax increase, I will
not be voting for that. Where's the money going to come from?
He's going to have to figure out how he can pay the bills. We approve
his budget for a certain amount of money then it's up to him to figure out
where he needs to cut," he says. Meanwhile, Council attorney Allan Wade sent a note to council
members reminding them they have the right to veto any votes taken by these
impasse committees. And that very well could happen. If the
police union gets a raise, the other unions will want the same thing.
And Council members passed a resolution earlier this year vowing not to raise
property taxes. It will likely come up again at tomorrow's council
meeting. PBA members
are top cops in budget war Legislative money managers gave big
bragging rights to the Police Benevolent Association in its power struggle
with the union representing Florida Highway Patrol troopers and most other
state police agents. In the $71 billion deal for the
fiscal year starting July 1, which lawmakers are set to approve Friday,
legislators heavily favored the prison, probation and FDLE
officers represented by PBA over officers represented by the the International Union of Police Association, including
state troopers. IUPA leaders put up a billboard proclaiming “Tourists enter at your
own risk” near the southbound start of Florida's turnpike. The sign near
Wildwood warns that the state cops are among the nation's
lowest-paid. It's a risky tactic, as past pressure
attempts by other groups, targeting tourism or citrus industries, have only
hardened resistance in the Capitol. But IUPA's state
chairman said her union couldn't let its members get stiffed without speaking
up. IUPA chief Kathy Merritt said the union plans similar billboards at
the state lines and along Interstate 4. “The billboards are simply about
letting the people of Florida know the reality and results of our lawmakers'
decisions,” she said. “ 'Pay attention to who you
vote for and put in office' is the moral of the story.” Merritt said the FHP lost 45 troopers
in the first quarter, the state fire marshal and bomb investigator's office
lost eight last month and the Fish and Wildlife Commission is losing about
seven just in the Palm Beach-Miami Dade area because of salaries. She said
Fish and Wildlife officers like herself, with more than 10 years of service
in southeast Florida, commonly make $33,000 a year - little more than rookies
they help break in. “The state law enforcement officers
are simply tired of working two and three jobs to make ends meet,” she said. IUPA defeated the PBA in a union election six years ago and held off
a PBA challenge in 2003, but the PBA filed enough petition cards March 1 to
call a rematch. The state's Public Employee Relations Commission is expected
to mail out about 2,900 ballots to law-enforcement officers next month. The PBA still represents Florida
Department of Law Enforcement special agents and the state's prison guards
and correctional probation officers. A key issue in the new union election is
a PBA promise to split off about 1,600 FHP troopers in their own bargaining
unit - which IUPA contends would weaken the
bargaining position of officers in the Departments of Environmental
Protection, Juvenile Justice, Transportation, Business and Professional
Regulation and a few other agencies. While IUPA
planned its billboard protests, the PBA proclaimed victory in getting
“compression pay” packages for FDLE agents,
correctional officers and probation officers. David Murrell, state director
of the PBA, said legislators put about $12 million into the budget to give
those officers more than the 3-percent pay raises all state employees will
get on Oct. 1 in the budget. The “compression” problem results
when the state raises starting salaries to compete with county and city
police agencies or jails - meaning an officer with three to five years'
service makes the same, or little more, than a
rookie. Both unions have been seeking solutions. “We've just been trying to chip away
at it, year after year, while IUPA tried to do it
all at once,” Murrell said. “They went for $38 million and we just tried for
$11 million or $12 million. It took years to get into this hole and it will
take three or four to get out.” The budget provides $3,000 pay bumps
for FDLE agents with three years' service, along
with a 2 percent performance raise. FDLE agents
would get $5,000 after six years' of service, $4,000 at 10 years and $3,000
at 16 years. Capitol Police officers, who are
represented by IUPA but are under FDLE, would get $500 per year of service with a maximum
of $5,000 plus 2 percent performance additions. In the prison system,
correctional and probation officers with five years of service will get 2
percent in addition to the 3 percent raise all state employees get and those
with 10 years service will get 3 percent on top of the regular pay increase. “I feel that they have neglected the
state law-enforcement officers, as a whole,” said FHP Trooper Brian Speigner, IUPA vice chairman
for legislative affairs. “I would like to know why they have not appropriated
money for all of the officers, when we have worked diligently with management
and with the members for this.” Budget tips at police salary Raise is part of $7 million plan From the Leder-Enquier,
May 3, 2006 No sooner had the city budget been
balanced than the balance began to tip, and the tipping point was police pay. With the Columbus Police Department
43 officers short, Columbus city administrators proposed a fiscal 2007 budget
that would bump a starting officer's pay from $23,800 to $27,832 a year
without a college degree and from $25,023 to $28,528 with two years of
college. That's part of a $7 million plan to
improve the pay of all city workers, bringing it up to what a recent study
pegged as 92 percent of the labor market. That's not enough,
some city councilors said Tuesday as City Manager Isaiah Hugley
briefed them on the budget proposed for the '07 fiscal year that starts July
1. The city's total budget is $191.4 million, but much of the focus was on
its proposed general fund budget for operations. It was balanced at $129
million, with about $1 million coming from the city's reserve fund balance. Councilor Gary Allen thought the pay
for entry-level officers ought to be at least $30,000 a year,
and that should be for police officers only. Hugley
had recommended boosting the entry-level pay of all public safety workers,
including firefighters, sheriff's deputies and deputy marshals. Officers are leaving the police
department to work for those other agencies, Allen noted. They apparently
prefer the job conditions, he said: "They're in an environment where
they're not as susceptible to being shot at, I guess." Police Chief Ricky Boren was among
those watching Hugley give Columbus Council's
Budget Review Committee its first briefing. He told councilors that to be
competitive today, he needs to offer rookie officers with a high school
education $32,000 a year. But pumping up only the department's
entry-level pay would aggravate its other pay problem, called
"compression." As the starting pay is increased to attract
recruits, the pay for veteran officers often remains stagnant or increases
only slightly. The pay scales then squeeze together, from bottom to top. A city pay study from the University
of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government addressed this by proposing
"longevity" pay increases for experienced workers, but the
increases were only 2.5 percent for employees with up to three years'
experience and 5 percent for workers with four years or more. Randy Robertson of the local
Fraternal Order of Police said compression is among FOP members' top
concerns. Increasing the starting pay for police without giving veteran
officers a comparable raise would be "a formula for disaster," he
said. And trying to solve a police shortage only by attracting more recruits
is "basically trying to bail out the Titanic with a Dixie cup," he
said. Boren said he has 221 patrol officer
positions, and 75 percent of them now make less than $30,000 a year. Some
recently promoted sergeants currently make less than $32,000 annually, he
said. Still he needs to offer better
starting pay to compete with Valdosta, which starts officers at $32,000 a
year, and with LaGrange, where the starting pay is about $31,000, he said. Hugley's overall 2007 budget proposal presented a much brighter outlook
for city finances. Early projections had the city's general fund $9 million
short, with $122.8 in revenue and $131.8 in expenses. Hugley
initially had proposed cutting 150 jobs to balance the numbers. The general fund budget he presented
Tuesday had expenses of $129,009,290 and revenues of $128,047,719, a
difference of only $961,571, which he recommended the city take from its
growing fund balance of money left over from previous years. The city maintains an emergency fund
balance sufficient to keep the government running for at least 60 days.
Projections show it's to be at 88 days by the end of this fiscal year. Hugley said that would be about $35.5 million from which
the city could draw. His budget proposal still cuts city
jobs to save about $3 million. The latest tally showed it cutting 66
full-time and 37 part-time positions. Half the full-time and 22 of the
part-time jobs were vacant. Hugley also is recommending the city increase fees for ambulance
services, building permits, athletic programs and after-school activities.
Allen objected to raising fees for athletics by $5, and Councilor Mimi
Woodson was against the proposed $5 increase in the fee for after-school
programs. The city manager said the budget
picture has improved because of cost-cutting and higher revenues than
anticipated in sales taxes, insurance premium taxes, interest income and
utility franchise fees. The fiscal impact of raising police
pay over what Hugley initially proposed was unclear
Tuesday. Police Won't Have Labor Deal From the Voice of San Deigo, April 28, 2006 For the second year in a row the
San Diego's police union will likely work without a labor contract, city officials
said Thursday. The council is schedule to declare impasse on the issue
Monday, meaning police officers' pay and benefit levels won't increase, as
officers had hoped, or decrease, as the mayor had promised on the campaign
trail. The city's failure to reach an
agreement with the 2,000-member San Diego Police Officers Association strikes
a blow to Mayor Jerry Sanders' initial plan to win money for the
cash-strapped government at the bargaining table and shave millions of
dollars of the city's pension deficit. It also further strains the cop
group's already-tense relationship with city leadership. During last fall's mayoral
campaign, Sanders said he would win savings of at least $50 million a year
from the five labor unions by threatening the use of municipal bankruptcy or
layoffs, which would put employees' jobs and pensions at risk. But Sanders said Thursday that he
ultimately didn't seek any concessions he campaigned on when his staff met
with the police union's negotiators. The mayor said he offered the same pay
and benefit levels that are currently imposed on the police officers, and the
city will reinstate those same salaries if the council approves them Monday. Sanders said he did not push
ahead with those campaign pledges because his administration is trying to
design new retirement and healthcare systems over the next year to solve the
city's payroll woes, which include a $1.4 billion pension deficit and $1
billion funding shortfall in retiree healthcare. Succeeding in those areas
would fulfill his campaign promise, he said Thursday. "We need a comprehensive
approach to this problem, not just piecemeal things that look good
politically," Sanders said. The concessions Sanders said he'd
seek on the campaign trail included freezing pay, increasing the retirement
age from 50 to 55 for public safety workers, requiring employees to pay more
out of their paycheck to the pension plan and for healthcare, eliminating
workers' ability to purchase years of service to boost their future pension
checks, and imposing a mandatory work furlough. Sanders said Thursday that he has
"tried to tackle some bigger issues" since taking office: studying
and improving the efficiency of city services, which he calls "business
process reengineering;" a plan to borrow against the city's tobacco
settlement revenue stream; assembling a budget proposal; and placing on the
November ballot propositions that would require future pension benefit hikes
to be approved by voters and allow private businesses to compete with municipal
workers to perform city services. "There is so much to do in
the city right now, we've got to pick the things we can do, but we can't get
every single thing done at the same time," Sanders said. When asked if he had threatened
municipal bankruptcy, which he referred to as "the hammer" that
would force the labor unions to renegotiate their contracts, he said he
didn't think the city was in the position to talk about that option. He said
he found the city's problems to be much more manageable. The police union's vice
president, Steve McMillan, said that the city's stance was unreasonable and
that an impasse between the two parties seemed likely from that start. "It was inevitable based on
the stance of the mayor," he said. "The mayor has made this personal." When the city and a labor union
can't reach an agreement, the city can unilaterally impose a one-year
contract on the union. Police officers were the only union to not reach an
accord with the city last year. They had a contract imposed on them in 2002,
as well. McMillan said the city did impose
a new concession by taking away officers' option to take time off after
working overtime. Cops will also get the same healthcare allowance as last
year while insurance premiums rise, he said. The police union's relationship
with the city has become increasingly strained over the past year. Several
current and former officers have filed lawsuits against the city, alleging
that they have been cheated out of $120 million worth of overtime pay throughout
the years; the union itself has sued over the city's practices of underfunding its employee retirement system, which is
currently $1.4 billion in deficit. Earlier this month, the police
union started airing television commercials highlighting what they perceived
to be a staffing shortfall during the night shift. In English and Spanish,
the ad urged viewers to contact Sanders to tell him to raise cops' pay
because officers are leaving the Police Department. McMillan said that 155 officers
have left in the past 10 months, compared to the usual 90 departures every
year. Sanders,
the former police chief, has
chalked up the police union's claims to tough times in the city. He also
claimed that police officers across the country are leaving their departments. McMillan said he agreed that
rookie hires everywhere are down, but that people are specifically leaving
San Diego because of the political turmoil and the visible hard-line attitude
Sanders has taken against the city's labor unions. "We are not getting new
hires, and that's happening everywhere, but what's happening is that
experienced officers that are treated like crap are going to agencies that
respect them and value their commitment to law enforcement," McMillan
said. At his weekly press briefing
Thursday, Council President Scott Peters also criticized Sanders' handling of
the police situation. "He seems so dismissive of
this, I would like for him give more thought and encouragement to the council
about how we're going to deal with recruitment and retention," Peters
said. "It's a real issue for us." The city's white- and blue-collar
unions have contracts extending past this year and are not negotiating new
contracts. During the campaign, Sanders pledged to force the unions back for
additional concessions above those present in the deals forged last year. However, those unions never came
back to the table to talk about further concessions. The unions representing
firefighters and deputy city attorneys are expected to hammer out a new
contract by the end of next week, city officials said. |
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