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POLICEPAY.NET gets McAlester 6% pay raise
From
the McAlester
News-Capital, September 27, 2006
All
they have to do now is add the signatures.
It took more than 10 meetings and hours of negotiations between the city
administration and negotiators for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No.
97.
Finally, late Tuesday night, McAlester city
councilors voted to approve a collective bargaining agreement between the
city and FOP Lodge 97, which represents McAlester
police officers.
Some of the biggest differences in the contract are ways in which police
officers’ pension payments are made and in levels of rank held by members of
the McAlester
police force.
The city was represented in the negotiations by Assistant City Manager Bart
Van Nieuwenhuise, Police Chief Jim Lyles and City
Attorney Bob Ivester.
Chris Morris is president of Lodge 97, which utilized paid negotiator Ron
York of Police Pay Net in Oklahoma
City.
They weren’t present for the Tuesday night meeting, since the city
administration and FOP negotiators had already agreed in principal. The only
action for Tuesday night was for the council to approve or disapprove what
had already been agreed to by both sides.
Concerning the rank of officers, Lyles said “We’re doing away with corporals
and making a master patrolman program.”
“Now, if you want to promote to sergeant, you first have to promote to master
patrolman.”
To be designated a master patrolman, an officer must spend three years as a
patrolman and a year as an investigator, as well as complete 500 hours of
specialized CLEET training or 60 hours of college, Lyles said.
The changes resulted partially from changes made by one of the citizen city
review committees. Master Patrolman won’t have any authority over their
fellow officers — it’s strictly for promotional purposes.
“We felt like by having a master patrolman be
required to work as a patrolman and an investigator, we would end up with a
more rounded officer,” Lyles said.
Are there enough investigator positions in the city’s detective and narcotics
divisions to make the program feasible?
Lyles said the city currently has nine investigators.
“They’ll be rotated in and out,” he said. Lyles said the first rotations
could come by Oct. 1. Officers will serve a minimum of one year as
investigators, he said.
Lyles said the rotations will occur gradually, since it wouldn’t be a good
idea to start an entirely new crew of investigators at the same time.
Concerning the pension changes, Van Nieuwenhuise
said the officers instead of the city will now be making 8 percent payments
of their pension contributions.
“Originally, when the city chose to start paying 8 percent of the (police)
pension contributions, it had been in lieu of a pay raise,” Van Nieuwenhuise said. He said the city started the 8 percent
payments in 1989.
Under the new agreement, the officers will pay the 8 percent pension and the
city will add 8.94 percent to the officers’ base salary, according to Van Nieuwenhuise.
“It’s virtually revenue neutral,” he said. The agreement also calls for police
to get an 6 percent cost of living increase.
“Last year, they got zero,” Van Nieuwenhuise said.
Another change is making merit pay raises more uniform. Previously, they
ranged anywhere from 2.75 to 3.2 percent of an officers’ salary, according to
Van Nieuwenhuise.
“Now, the raises will be at approximately 3 percent of the base salary,” he
said.
As for what the changes will cost the city, Van Nieuwenhuise
said “It will cost approximately $105,000 to implement all of what we’ve
talked about.”
He said that amount is already covered in the $2,815,626 listed as payroll
expenses for fiscal year 2007. That compares to $2,610,000 in the previous
year’s budget, he said.
This year’s payroll budget is more than $205,000 higher than the last fiscal
years — more than the $105,000 Van Nieuwenhuise
said it will cost to implement the changes.
City councilors met in executive session both before and after their regular
Tuesday night meeting to discuss the police collective bargaining proposals
before voting unanimously in open session to agree to them.
City councilors also met with fire Chief Harold Stewart and Assistant Chief
Eddie Sanders on Tuesday night, but took no vote regarding a collective
bargaining agreement with firefighters. A vote on the matter had not been
included on the agenda.
Police say
'yes' to offer
From the Tulsa World, September 28, 2006
Mayor's
proposal passes by big margin
Tulsa police
overwhelmingly voted to accept the mayor's offer of an 8 percent raise
Wednesday, ending their contract standoff.
"We're
looking forward to putting this behind us and getting on with the business of
protecting the city," Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 93 Vice President
Steve Dickson said, adding that the raise was approved by a 6-to-1 margin,
but declined to release ballot totals.
Mayor
Kathy Taylor said it took teamwork between the city and the union to get the
contract resolved.
"Without
the open spirit of cooperation and dialogue, we wouldn't have this issue
behind us," she said.
The
across-the-board hike will go into effect Jan. 1 for the remainder of the
fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The
agreement stipulates that no additional pay increases, other than merit
raises, will be given for the next fiscal year, so the agreement essentially
is for two one-year contracts.
No
changes in police benefits were proposed.
The
"station house" vote of FOP members began at midnight Tuesday and
ran until 7:30 p.m. Wednesday so that all shifts could participate.
FOP
leaders have maintained that Tulsa
police salaries are
lagging 12 percent behind those in cities of similar size.
"This
certainly gets us closer to market survey," Dickson said.
The
raise brings starting pay for a beginning Tulsa police officer from $37,452
to $42,470 annually, bringing it in line with an Oklahoma City rookie's pay
of $42,407.
Oklahoma City does not require that
officers have college degrees, while Tulsa
does.
Entry-level
officers in Broken Arrow
make $33,736, and those in Owasso earn $33,927.
All
ranks in the Tulsa Police Department's 800-member force, except for the
chief, will benefit from the decision. The salary impact generally will range
from $5,000 to $8,000 annually, depending on an officer's rank and years of
service.
The
FOP declared an impasse in contract negotiations early in the summer after
city officials offered a 4.5 percent raise for the entire fiscal year.
Last
month, a neutral arbitrator awarded an 8 percent raise, effective Jan. 1.
That
had been the best offer submitted by the FOP during negotiations with the
city.
The
offer did not exclude an additional raise the next fiscal year.
By
law, Taylor
had to choose between accepting the arbitrator's ruling or requesting a
public vote. She chose to begin work on a Dec. 12 election before making the
latest proposal, which union leaders thought was good enough to take to their
members.
While
the increase for this fiscal year will come from surplus funding, Budget
Director Pat Connelly said city officials are still working to identify where
the ongoing cost will be absorbed.
The
raises will cost the city an additional $940,000 for the rest of the fiscal
year and about $2.5 million in the next fiscal year, he said.
"We
will be asking the Police Department to look at where they can make some efficiencies," Connelly said.
One
area that needs to be trimmed is police overtime, which totaled $3.2 million
in the last fiscal year, Taylor
said.
Having
next fiscal year free of negotiations will allow for time to examine the
budget thoroughly to ensure the city is operating as efficiently as possible,
the mayor said.
That
examination must be done before any consideration is given to a potential
public safety tax to help pay for the raises, she said.
Noncore city services will be given a hard look, Taylor said.
"Those
are things that are not police, not fire, not roads, not utilities," she
said, offering the municipal golf courses as an area where cuts could be
made, if needed.
"Not
that golf courses aren't important to the quality of life, because they
are," she said. "But the most important asset we have is our
employees, who all deserve to be paid a competitive wage."
Contract
agreements with unions representing the city's firefighters, labor and trades
employees and 911 operators have yet to be reached.
Taylor said she doesn't see
those ongoing negotiations evolving into "me, too" situations.
"We're
analyzing what their needs are and what the city's resources are," she
said.
Talks
are continuing with the Tulsa Firefighters Local 176, which represents about
670 city firefighters.
"We're
going through the process, just like the police did," President Dennis Moseby said. "If we can't come to an agreement soon,
we'll take our case to an arbitrator, and if we prevail, I hope we're treated
with the same consideration."
Moseby said the 8 percent raise for police officers
doesn't necessarily mean that's what firefighters will be offered.
"The
city is trying to balance the wants and needs of all the unions," he
said. "I only have to worry about the firefighters."
Discussions
also are ongoing with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees Local 1180 for the 875 labor and trades employees and about 80
emergency communication workers.
President
Mark Stodghill said a deal is in the works for the
911 group but that the wages for the labor and trades employees are still
being debated.
"I'm
hopeful we can reach an agreement with the city like the police have,"
he said, noting that offers have gone back and forth. "But that doesn't
mean we're not willing to go to arbitration, too."
The
city's 1,420 nonunion employees are set to receive one-time bonuses averaging
2 percent of their salaries in their final September checks.
Those
bonuses will cost the city $1.6 million but will help tide the employees over
until they receive 4 percent raise Jan. 1, which is the anniversary of their
previous raise.
Political feud inflames
police union negotiations
Conflict
over salaries, pensions and benefits stalls contract
From
the Advocate, September 24, 2006
STAMFORD -- The city and the police union have cut off contract talks because
they are so far apart on wages, pensions and other issues that city officials
said could sway the city budget by tens of millions of dollars.
A state arbiter will rewrite the police contract after hearing testimony from
both sides -- a process that could take as long as a year, officials said.
The impasse comes after a long feud between the city and the police union
over several internal issues. The union endorsed Mayor Dannel
Malloy's Republican rival in the 2005 mayoral election and remained silent
during his battle for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination this year.
Officers privately say the rivalry between city hall and the union has
stalled contract talks, but city officials have said the conflict is over
money, not politics.
City negotiators said the police union's proposals, including 7 percent
annual wage hikes and a cost-of-living increase in pensions,
could cost the city at least $10 million a year. Officer salaries already
compare well with nearby departments, said Dennis Murphy, the city's human
resources director. Murphy said other proposed changes, including charging
officers more for health insurance, are meant to hold police to the same standards
as every other union of city employees.
"They are not carrying their weight on health insurance," he said . "It's time for them to join the club."
Officer Michael Merenda, the police union
president, said the city should negotiate based on the contracts of other
police departments, not other city unions.
"They like to compare apples to oranges," Merenda
said. "We're not the same as other unions in the city. How many other
unions work 24 hours a day? Or come to work wearing bulletproof vests?"
Union officials said the city wants to cut traditional benefits without
offering anything in return. The union might accept paying hundreds of
dollars more for health insurance if the city offered more than a 3 percent
annual pay raise or a boost to the police pension plan, Merenda
said.
But the city would not budge on either issue, officials on both sides said.
The city declined to upgrade pensions for any union despite requests from
nearly all of them, Murphy said. Every union but the city custodians got a
flat 3 percent pay raise in their most recent contracts, Murphy said.
Those three issues -- salaries, health costs and pensions -- are the main
sticking points that ended negotiations this summer, officials on both sides
said. The two sides submitted 49 issues to state arbiters, but "the
other 46 are basically OK," Merenda said.
They are furthest apart on the police pension plan, with the union proposing
about a half dozen improvements that may cost the city at least $10 million
each year and possibly much more, according to city officials. Those include
an undisclosed cost-of-living increase, a deferred retirement plan and
dropping the age at which officers could earn full pension benefits from 55
to 50, Murphy said.
Lowering the age would cost about $1.8 million per year, according to Murphy
and Nancy Markey, the city's assistant director of human resources. The city
would not say how much the proposed cost-of-living increases and deferred
plans might cost.
The police union took issue with those figures. Merenda
said the police pension bank is overfunded, meaning
the city has to be pay little if any money to
retired officers.
Active officers contribute 7 percent of each paycheck to the pension fund;
those contributions plus profits from investments are enough to pay all
retirees without help from the city, according to a recent audit of the
police pension fund.
He also said the police want a cost-of-living increase only if the fund can
cover it.
"We don't want the city to be on the hook for anything," he said.
But the margin is already thin, the figures show. The pension fund had more
than $149 million in assets in 2004 and $138 million in total liability,
leaving a buffer zone of $11.7 million, the audit showed. That is a $5.7
million drop from 2002. Those numbers are based on calculations by an actuary
that estimates the number of retired officers, how long those officers will
live and how much pension they will be owed, officials said.
Any change to the pension plan could throw those figures out of whack and put
the city on the hook for millions, Murphy and Markey said. An actuary already
recommended the city give $1.4 million to the pension fund in 2004-05, the
audit shows.
Merenda said he is confident the fund could still
support retirees. And he said cost of living increases are fair given how
expensive it is to live in Fairfield
County.
"I have retirees struggling out there," Merenda
said.
Merenda said he would have sacrificed a higher
salary raise to get a lift in pension payments. But that, he said, is the
problem with the city's contract proposal: It gives the union nothing on
pensions while reducing raises to 3 percent per year and tripling health
insurance costs.
"You can't just take the salaries out or the pension out and analyze a
contract issue-by-issue," Merenda said.
"You have to look at the whole picture."
Officers received 3.25 percent raises in 2003-04 and 2004-05 under their most
recent contract. And they already contribute more of their paychecks to their
pension fund than most unions, Merenda said.
Murphy defended the 3 percent raise, saying police salaries in Stamford are in line with those at other Fairfield County departments.
Rookie officers in Stamford
make $47,042 per year; officers on the top salary step -- those with at least
six years on the job -- make $59,098 in base salary.
The range is similar in other towns, a review of other area contracts show,
though officers in several county departments make more. Greenwich
patrol officers make $50,000 to $63,000 per year; the gap widens in Westport, where rookies
make about $43,000 and top-step officers earn more than $63,000. Patrol
officers in Ridgefield
can earn up to $67,000 in base salary.
But officers in Bridgeport, Newtown
and Waterbury
max out at $51,000 to $55,000, according to contracts in those towns.
Merenda said Stamford
officers deserve more than a 3 percent raise because the crime rate and cost
of living here are higher than in several of those communities.
The union proposed a 7 percent raise for top-step patrol officers and every
sergeant, lieutenant and captain in the department, records show. Those ranks
make up about 80 percent of the department's 270 or so officers, according to
city records.
Murphy said police already get the highest annual bonuses for uniform
cleaning and seniority among local departments. Merenda
said he would have settled for far less had the city moved on pensions or
tossed out plans to charge police more for health insurance.
Health insurance costs have long been lower for the police than other city
unions, officials said. The city wants to take that benefit away.
"It's unfair for people who make much less than police officers to
shoulder so much of the burden on health insurance," Murphy said.
"They've been paying a lot less than everyone else."
Police officers pay a flat rate for health insurance under their current
contract. Single officers pay $4 per week, officers with one dependent pay
$8, and officers pay $10 for the family rate.
Other city employees pay 5 percent to 10 percent of the amount they would
have to if they quit their city jobs, records show.
A single person without dependents who quit his or her job and lost health
coverage would have to pay about $6,990 per year to keep health insurance,
said Fred Manfredonia, a human resources specialist
for the city.
A single employee without dependents in the nurse's unit of the health
department, for instance, pays 10 percent of that rate -- $699 -- for their
health coverage. That amounts to about $13.44 per week, according to city
records.
That would be a huge jump for single officers who pay $4 per week, or $208
per year.
Officers with families would have to pay about $1,000 more per year.
Officers would have to pay 13 percent of the set rate by the last year of their
contract under the city's proposal. That would be the higher than most
departments in the county, according to a review of police contracts.
Merenda said he could not sign a contract that took
away health benefits without improving pensions or boosting wages more than 3
percent per year.
"I would be embarrassed if I were the city to offer this contract to
cops who made it the safest city in the country," he said, referring to Stamford's inclusion in
a list of safe American cities over the past five years.
Now the two sides will take their case to a state arbiter over several days
of testimony.
"This is by far the most contentious contract we have," Murphy
said.
New police contract a
standoff
The Plantation police union is considering
boycotts and petitions to help persuade the city to improve members'
retirement benefits and salary increases.
From
the Miami
Herald, September 24, 2006
With
an end-of-month deadline approaching, the Plantation police union said it won't back
down in its contract negotiations with the city this time around.
''We
signed such substandard contracts along the years and it just piled up,''
said Andrew Masseo, vice president of the
Plantation Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. ``We're just behind in
every category.''
The
police union's three-year contract comes up for renewal at the end of the
month, and if an agreement can't be reached, the current contract will remain
in effect until there is an agreement.
About
180 Plantation
police officers are union members.
The
union has considered circulating petitions or boycotting the city's recently
opened Plantation Preserve golf course if the city doesn't come up with a
proposal the union finds acceptable, Masseo said.
A
public relations expert is working with the union through it's
attorneys to help develop a negotiations strategy.
Union
President Michael Hanlon was on leave and could not be reached for comment.
The
latest request from the union last week is an 8 percent raise the first year,
7 percent the second year and 6 percent the third year, union officials said.
The
previous three-year contract included a 2.5 percent salary increase each
year, after the union initially asked for 5 percent.
The
union hasn't taken any counteroffers from the city seriously, Masseo said.
On
Sept. 6, the city offered a 6 percent first-year raise and 4 percent for each
of the remaining two years of the contract.
''We
offered what we felt was a fair and reasonable proposal, and they rejected
it,'' said Dan Keefe, an assistant to Plantation Mayor Rae Carole Armstrong.
Keefe
said the city can't discuss details of the negotiations until after the
contract is settled.
The
average starting salary of $41,191 for a Plantation
officer is about $3,800 less than the average in Coral
Springs, Davie, Fort
Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines and Sunrise, according to
the union.
The
department has had fewer applicants and more vacancies in recent years, Masseo said, adding that uncompetitive benefits could be
discouraging people from joining the department. He said other police
departments have shown their support for the Plantation police by attending negotiation
meetings.
There
are nine vacancies in the Police Department, Keefe said.
The
union also is requesting increased retirement benefits with annual cost-of-living
adjustments and a raise in hourly pay for off-duty work.
The
next round of negotiations is scheduled for Monday.
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The OKLAHOMA
BASE PAY INDEX
|
|
First year base pay for 25 largest cities
(based on 2005)- Police
|
|
Oklahoma City
|
$42,407
|
Bethany
|
$31,944
|
Sand Springs
|
$29,204
|
|
Moore
|
$40,396
|
Ponca City
|
$31,301
|
Del City
|
$28,163
|
|
Tulsa
|
$37,452
|
Sapulpa
|
$30,900
|
Duncan
|
$28,111
|
|
Midwest City
|
$37,169
|
Lawton
|
$30,722
|
Chickasha
|
$27,602
|
|
Edmond
|
$35,751
|
Ardmore
|
$30,167
|
Shawnee
|
$26,374
|
|
Norman
|
$34,515
|
Stillwater
|
$29,500
|
Altus
|
$24,435
|
|
Muskogee
|
$34,291
|
Yukon
|
$29,486
|
Enid
|
$24,066
|
|
Broken Arrow
|
$33,736
|
Bartlesville
|
$29,266
|
McAlester
|
$23,904
|
|
Claremore
|
$33,467
|
|
|
|
|
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OKLAHOMA OUTLOOK FOR POLICE AND FIRE
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS 2007
Tuesday, January 10th at
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call for more information.
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Negotiating
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October 11 & 12 in
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printable brochure for these seminars.
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