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Council
delays talk on police retention From The Press Telegram, September 6, 2006 Citing a number of questions raised by the council following a
closed-door meeting, City Manager Jerry Miller announced the cancellation of
the item during the 7 p.m. budget session. During the closed meeting, the council was given an update by
city staff on a proposal to increase police pay by 4 percent over the next
three years. "To be fair to the council, this is the first discussion,
their first chance to hear details," on the proposal, he said. The proposal, unveiled last week during a series of Long Beach
Police Officers Association meetings, would also stagger additional pay bumps
for veteran officers. Most officers said dragging out the increases was unfair and
that they did not believe the city's claims that it is the only affordable
option. Union President Steve James has been working for the past
several weeks with city leaders to come up with a plan to reduce a growing
number of resignations among veteran officers. In the past year, more than two
dozen officers have left for better paying positions. Miller's announcement Tuesday night was greeted with grumbling
in the audience. A number of people said they planned to talk about the
issue; more than a dozen people - including several members of the Long Beach
Police Department brass - walked out of the council chambers as soon as
Miller said the item had been removed. Miller said he would like to see the discussion included in next
week's council meeting and hoped the council would be ready to discuss the
matter once again in a closed session the following week. "We plan to do that, Mr. Miller," said Mayor Bob
Foster. Library, fire requests As supporters held up posters that read, "Save Our
Libraries," the head of Library Services at Tuesday's budget workshop
presented the City Council with the department's needs for the next fiscal
year. Director Eleanore Schmidt echoed
Foster's proposal to restore library services to their pre-2004 levels, which
requires an additional $2 million. About $1.3 million of the money would help pay for extended
hours and after school programs. The rest would be a one-time allocation of
$400,000 for materials and $300,000 for the MacArthur Park Library. The council must vote on the final budget by the end of the
month. The 2007 fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Library Clerk Charlotte Blaire and six other library staff
members and volunteers, including children and teenagers, listened to
Schmidt. "It's shameful that the (main) library is closed Sunday and
Monday," Blaire said. Schmidt said libraries help reduce illiteracy and
crime rates while providing a safe haven for children in poor neighborhoods. In other council business, five fire stations need to be rebuilt
to the tune of at least $6 million to $8 million per station, Fire Chief Dave
Ellis reported. Stations 7, 9, 10 and 12 would need to move out of their
residential neighborhoods to a major street to facilitate faster response
times, Ellis said. The Marine Safety Beach Operations would cost at least $8
million to $9 million to rebuild. Ellis said these stations, built between 1936 and 1967, are old
and in poor condition, and some are too small to accommodate modern
equipment. Many do not have separate shower facilities for female
firefighters, he said. "The needs that we have are critical," said Rich
Brandt, president of the Long Beach Firefighters, Local 372. Councilman Val Lerch said he
understood the Fire Department's needs. "Chief, I support you 100 percent," Lerch said to Ellis. "We need to get out there and
make the stations modern." Vote
may decide police pay From the For the first time in Mayor Kathy Taylor filed the election request with the City
Clerk's Office late Wednesday afternoon to meet a deadline set by state law. On Aug. 21, a neutral arbitrator awarded an 8-percent
across-the-board raise to be effective Jan. 1, which was the best offer
submitted by the Fraternal Order of Police during unsuccessful negotiations
with the city. The city offered a 4.5 percent raise. By law, "I filed the request for the election to preserve our
options so we can continue a dialogue and make a fiscally responsible
decision on behalf of all the employees of the city," During a 90-minute closed executive session at the meeting, More than 50 police officers waited outside the executive
session to see whether action would be taken by the council. Councilors did
not discuss the issue in an open meeting. "We're disappointed that we haven't been granted the award
yet," said Darin Filak, president of the Fraternal
Order of Police. "A neutral arbitrator looked at all the facts and said
that we deserve the raise and the city can afford it." Filak said this is
the second time the city and the FOP have resorted to arbitration on their
contract and the first time an election has been requested since the state
enacted an election option in the late 1990s. "We're willing and ready to take the issue to a vote of the
people," he said. "We feel confident that the citizens of "Ultimately, that may be the best outcome for this problem:
Let the citizens decide what comes next." While Filak said the FOP is willing to
discuss options, he said it would be "a difficult pill for our
membership to swallow if we try to settle for something less than 8 percent
unless there is compensation in benefits or something." "The ball is in her court to make an offer or propose a
solution," he said of the mayor. "We've proved our side." City officials say that accepting the award would add $940,000
to the current budget, which runs from July 1 to June 30. Budget Director Pat Connelly said the raise would greatly affect
next year's budget, when the 8 percent would be for the entire year.
"The money just isn't there," he said. The city still has outstanding contracts with the Tulsa
Firefighters Local 176 and the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees Local 1180, which represents about 880 labor, trade and
emergency communications employees. Now that the mayor has filed a request for an election with the
City Clerk's Office, she has 10 days to call a special election. Once ballot
language is agreed upon by the two parties or an arbitration panel, the
wording will be sent with an election request to the Election Board, and an election
date will be set. City Attorney Alan Jackere said the
city and the FOP can reach a contract agreement up until the day of the
election. Council
may end up with cops' contract From the Argus, September 3, 2006 Kathy Ito, But Fremont Police Association attorneys instead will be sending
the City Council a letter Tuesday requesting a public hearing to help break
the stalemate, said Glenn Miller, police union president. "We told (city staff), 'OK, this failed. Now we have no
choice,'" Miller said. "There was a mediation,
but no negotiation. (City negotiators) have said this is what you're getting
— take it or leave it." Talks had stalled in July when the city lowered its original
offer of a 2.9percent increase in cost-of-living adjustments to 2.5 percent,
Miller said. The police officers' seven-year contract expired June 30. The meeting with the state mediator, held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesday, also hit a snag when city staff rejected the mediator's
recommendation to increase the uniform allowance by $500 per year for the
department's roughly 175 officers, Miller said. Ito declined to give details on the contract talks, citing the
mediator's recommendation to keep the negotiations private. Still, she added:
"Both sides worked really hard to come to a deal. I would say we got
closer." Asking City Council to unilaterally impose police contract terms
would be unprecedented in It also may present a dicey situation for council members. On
one hand, they may be hard-pressed to decide against city staff and call for
more expenditures while officials for months have
been citing budget woes. On the other, the council risks angering officers already
understaffed while patrolling a city covering 92 square miles. One thing city staff and the police union agree upon is that the
Fremont Police Department is one of the lowest-staffed police agencies in the
Bay Area, which has resulted in slower response times by officers, Miller
said. According to one survey, the city has slid from being the
nation's 23rd-safest city of its size to its current ranking of 59th. "The average citizen does not understand how unsafe Miller said that he expects the City Council to impose the city
staff's terms, and he argues that the decision would hurt the department's
ability to recruit and retain officers in the near future. "We have 15 people set to retire. So, there will be a mass
retirement by them to avoid the terms of the contract." he said. "It's a pretty depressing time right now in the police
department." Increasing
trooper pay saps towns Higher salaries lure away officers From The Journal Gazette, September 4, 2006 An announcement in April that Indiana State Police trooper pay
would rise 20 percent wasn’t good news for everyone. Smaller departments are feeling the pinch, as their officers are
drawn to larger agencies that push for lateral transfers – moves from one
police agency to another – and offer higher pay. At the Kendallville Police Department, eight officers on the
18-member force have applied for employment this year with the Indiana State
Police or the Fort Wayne Police Department, another common destination for
officers seeking to move to a bigger agency. “We have our work cut out for us,” Chief Robyn Wiley said.
“We’re certainly in the midst of dealing with it.” One Kendallville officer has already been accepted by the
Indiana State Police, and two are undergoing the hiring process with The Indiana State Police announced in July that it had its
largest recruitment class in its 73-year history. The agency plans to choose
160 recruits from 3,375 applicants. In part, Gov. Mitch Daniels attributed the steep rise – up from
474 applicants the year before – to the salary increases he approved in
April. First-year trooper salaries rose from $32,760 to $39,312 annually. The state police’s first-ever lateral transfer class of about 30
officers began last week, said 1st Sgt. Brian Olehy,
assistant commander of the state police’s public information office. The state police also dropped some of its earlier requirements,
such as trooper applicants must have at least 60 college-level credit hours
or the equivalent military or law enforcement experience. The measures are necessary to help the state police stay
competitive, Olehy said. Indiana State Police
officers are recruited as well, often by federal agencies. “We’re all competing for the same pool of applicants,” he said. The Fort Wayne Police Department, which pays patrol officers an
average base salary of $45,000, requires that lateral transfers have at least
two years of law enforcement experience and currently be working at another
law enforcement agency, spokeswoman Robin Thompson said. Hiring lateral transfers offers several advantages, Thompson
said. The officers save on the cost of training, and they can fill in gaps
when the department’s needs aren’t enough to require putting a large class
through the police training academy. “They can be plugged in a lot sooner, too,” she said. Wiley, a former longtime state police investigator himself, said he doesn’t begrudge other departments for
using lateral recruitment tactics, nor his officers for pursuing
opportunities with the larger agencies. The obvious problem, as usual, is money. The 2006 PolicePay Index ranked Fort Wayne Police Department
salaries in the top 20 out of the largest 200 American cities when cost of
living in factored in. The Kendallville City Council recently approved a 2 percent
raise for 2007, bringing officer pay to $35,346. Kendallville Mayor Suzanne Handshoe
had proposed a 5 percent increase to get the officers’ pay in line with some
surrounding cities. But the police department already has the largest budget
of all city departments this year at just over $1.9 million, and the proposal
was defeated. “It doesn’t help morale when the officers’ pay is behind,” Wiley
said. But Wiley worries about losing even a single officer, because
the 18-member department already is strained. While Kendallville has grown 23
percent in the past 10 years, the size of its police force has remained the
same, the chief said. Auburn Chief Martin McCoy recognizes Wiley’s plight, because in
some ways, it mirrors his own. “We seem to lose officers to McCoy said he is not aware that anyone in his department is
currently seeking employment with the state police. The department also recently received approval to hire a 23rd
officer, McCoy said. While it might take awhile for smaller towns and cities to find
money in their budgets to raise police pay, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing,
Olehy said. Whether it’s teachers, firefighters,
police officers or anyone in public service, “You get what you pay for,” he
said. How to deal Without the attraction of higher pay, Kendallville has been
exploring ways to retain officers. One idea would be to have officers sign contracts, similar to
the state police’s five-year contract, or pay back training costs if they
transfer out, but the agency is reluctant to put such requirements in place.
They could be more of a deterrent to officers looking at employment with the
department, Wiley said. Contracts might ensure that the agency gets a few good years
from its officers, he said. Usually officers who have three to four years of experience are
most apt to make lateral transfers. Unfortunately, that’s about how long it
takes some officers to get the level of experience necessary to be a real
asset to the department, Wiley said. Despite the glaring problem of relatively low pay, it’s
important to realize that other factors contribute to the problem, Wiley
said. A few officers who have transferred from Kendallville to The officers may see more opportunities at the larger
departments to try out new roles “I think a lot of it just has to do with
what the person’s looking for,” he said. Some officers find what they’re looking for in Kendallville and
stick around. Job security at smaller departments is often better, and
Kendallville has strong school systems, Wiley said. With young officers feeling the pull to larger departments,
Wiley tries to emphasize the benefits in smaller ones that don’t have
anything to do with money. An officer at a smaller department often will get
a wide variety of calls and get more experience dealing with different types
of crimes, Wiley said. Wabash County Sheriff Leroy Striker agrees that not all of it
has to do with the appeal of larger departments. In the four years of his term, he has not lost an officer to
another department, but he has lost officers to other occupations that pay
better, he said. On a smaller scale, mid-size police departments attract their
own lateral transfers from even smaller agencies, Striker said. He recently hired an officer from the town of Striker, like McCoy, attributes the retention rate in part to
efforts to get officers’ pay in line with that of other departments. Majors’ pay will increase from $32,000 to $38,000, Striker said. The new state police policies “absolutely puts us in a very
interesting situation,” he said. “We’re going in the right direction.” Town,
Police Agree to New Contract From the Shore Publishing, September
7, 2006 The contract is retroactive to July
1, 2005. Officers will receive 3.25 percent wage increases for that year and
then 3.25 percent increases in each of the following four years. There is a provision for a wage
re-opener after that. In a new provision, all department officers hired after
Jan. 1, 2006, will not reach retirement eligibility until completion of 25
years of credited service. At present, police officers are eligible for
retirement after 20 years, a benefit the union fought hard to obtain just a
few years ago. This new provision and others established, in effect, a
two-tiered retirement system. The new contract also agrees that
overtime earned shall not be included in the pension benefit calculations and
payments for employees hired after Jan. 1 of this year. Police officers presently
on the job and earning overtime have that overtime pay included as a portion
of retirement benefits. For present officers, the employee contribution to
retirement is increased to 7.5 percent, retroactive to July 1, 2005. For officers hired after Jan. 1,
2006, the employee contribution to retirement will be 9 percent. For officers
hired after Jan. 1, 2006, the town will not offer any form of retirement
medical benefits nor contribute to the retirement medical benefit fund. This is a major change. In the case
of police officers presently in the department, the town will pay the full
cost of retiree medical insurance for the retiree and his or her spouse. This
is also a major change. Police have been seeking a retiree medical benefit
for a spouse for several years. The new contract also makes changes
in overtime and compensatory time. It then makes major changes in vacation
time, increasing the number of years of service needed before an officer can
take three weeks and four weeks of vacation. There is then a provision that
allows the town to "buy back" an officer's vacation time. In part,
that paragraph reads, "On or before July 10 each year, the town may
elect to require employees who have an annual vacation entitlement of at least
15 days to sell back up to five days at the wage rate of time and one-half.
Employees may elect at their own option to sell back up to an additional five
days at a rate of time and one-half if declared by Sept. 1." The changes in the pension
calculations, the retiree medical and spousal benefits, and the vacation time
and buy-back are all significant and certainly not customary in police union
contracts. Neither is the "two-tier" benefit system agreed to here.
In effect, First Selectman Tom Scarpati said when
explaining the new contract, "We have agreed to maintain retiree medical
benefits and spousal benefits, which present a significant liability to the
town, in exchange for a new two-tiered system and changes in the number of
days worked. The long-term financial
benefit for the town is substantial." He said the two-tier system
introduced with this contract "provides a sunset for these retirement
benefits." Scarpati has long contended that
increasing pension benefits and medical retiree benefits will create a
rapidly spiraling liability for the town that would cost millions. This contract, he said, prevents
that. Scarpati has also spent more than a year
publicly discussing what he has called "the lost time issue"—the
number of days a police officer actually works. Changes in vacation time and
compensatory time within this new contract will remedy the problem, he said. Scarpati complimented the police union. "We sat down
at the negotiating table face to face and worked out these issues in good
faith, without state mediators or arbitrators, and I want to thank the
officers and the union for their cooperation." Police, city
are bound for mediation The two sides in From the The impasse is the latest in a series of events underscoring the
serious morale problem in the city's Police Department. Sgt. Michael Coleman took over as interim police chief Tuesday,
after the resignation of longtime Chief Ernest Armistead. After more than 20
years with the city, Armistead left to take a higher paying position with the
Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Two city police officers recently resigned to take jobs with the
Sheriff's Office, also citing higher pay. Sheriff Jim Coats said the city's five remaining full-time
officers also have applied to work in his office. More jobs may be available
in October, he said. In the past several weeks, a number of city police officers
spoke at City Council meetings, arguing that if the city cannot afford to pay
its officers more money, it should disband the department and contract with
the sheriff. Such an action would require a referendum election, as required
by the city charter. Two previous attempts to disband the department were
soundly defeated in recent years. "Our citizens love their cops. The city should pay
them," said Tim Ingold, president of Pinellas
Lodge 43 of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents The city has been unwilling to offer enough money to keep its
officers, he said. City Manager Reid Silverboard
countered that the union is unwilling to negotiate a reasonable compromise. Ingold sent a
letter declaring an impasse to the city and the state Public Employees
Relations Commission. That action triggers state mediation rules, which call for the
city and the police union to mutually pick from a list of "special
magistrates." The mediator would meet with both parties, review the past
negotiations and then recommend an agreement. The magistrate's recommendation is not binding, but if the city
and police do not accept it, the City Council would then make the final
decision in an open meeting. The city's decision would set police salary levels for the rest
of the fiscal year, and new salary negotiations would likely begin
immediately, Silverboard said. "I don't think anyone is pleased with this situation,"
he said, acknowledging that the city's police offers are not happy. But he
stressed that the city and the union have agreed on "all issues"
except salary. The union is asking for an $8,600 across-the-board salary hike
the first year, as well as 5 percent salary increases in the second and third
years of the pending contract. There also would be 3.5 percent step increases
according to grade and length of service, Silverboard
said. When the city offered a flat $5,000 salary hike for all officers,
the union at one point lowered its salary demand to $6,500 but then returned
to its initial $8,600 request, he said. "They indicated they would not accept anything else," Silverboard said. "The city was willing to continue
negotiations, but the union declared an impasse." Until the dispute is resolved, the city's police officers will
be paid under the existing contract, which formally expires Sept. 30. |
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