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the Article. Seattle Police make
concessions, give OK to new contract Fort Wayne Police
contract with city hits snag Louisiana $423 million
shortfall in police retirement Elgin officials, police
settle contract dispute For Delaware county
police officers, pay is an issue St. Petersburg Police
sign new three year deal Huntington, WV adopts new contract with police Independence gets new
work agreement Look At The Last Issue
(12/16/04) POLICEPAY.NET
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the Health insurance errors lead
to delay From The Journal Gazette, December 22, 2004 The
City Council put off for three weeks a new four-year contract for The
pact calls for 3 percent raises each of the four years, some changes to
retiree benefits and a discussion forum to promote communication between
union representatives and police administrators. The contract
for members of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents the
department’s rank and file, will carry the officers through the next mayoral
election and the annexation of much of The
delay came after Councilman Don Schmidt, R-2nd, discovered errors in the
amounts officers would pay for health insurance. Officers are supposed to pay
the same as non-union city employees, but the figures did not match. The
delay is mostly a formality, as the Tuesday meeting was only a committee
meeting to give the contract preliminary approval. Final approval could not
come before Jan. 11 anyway. Police
Chief Rusty York said the negotiations and resulting contract went well. “I
thought the whole process was very constructive,” The
Fraternal Order of Police, which represents officers with the rank of
sergeant and higher in the department, will vote on a similar contract at the
end of this month. PBA
members voted 163-16 to approve the contract Dec. 2, union president Hollis
Burton said. About half of the membership voted. The
contract will give officers a 3 percent pay raise and $200 extra for their
annual uniform allowance, a change the union had been pushing for. Officers
currently receive $1,500 a year to defray the cost of maintaining their
uniforms, but that amount had not increased in several contract cycles. Still, Officers
will also see the extra money show up on their paychecks a month earlier than
in previous years. They will receive uniform money in April and October –
times when police normally switch between their summer and winter uniforms, When The
chief or the assistant chief of police, a deputy chief, the PBA president and
a member of the union executive board will sit on the committee. The contract
calls for the labor management committee to meet once a quarter, but Next
year, The
committee will also explore what improvements can be made to three police
outposts and how the During
the last round of negotiations in 2001, both the PBA and the Fraternal Order
of Police were concerned about possible changes in their insurance and
insurance coverage for retirees. Retiree benefits took a high priority for
the FOP again this year, president Jack Woodruff said.
A The unfunded accrued
liability for the Municipal Police Employees' Retirement System, or MPERS, swelled by $44 million this year from $379 million
last year -- and more than doubled from $195 million two years ago. That's the difference
between the money in the fund and the amount needed to pay the anticipated
pensions of its members. MPERS Actuary Charles Hall -- who
calculates risks, premiums and other statistics for the retirement system --
said the increase was expected. Hall said a recent
demographic study established new averages for the life expectancy, salary
growth, disabilities and other characteristics of retirement-system members. That review -- which is
conducted every five years -- found, for example, that retirees and family
members who also receive benefits were living longer than previously thought.
"We did expect the
unfunded liability to increase for that reason and it did," Hall said.
"People are living longer because of improvements in health care." Hall said losses in the
stock market also have added to the funding gap. MPERS
lost $200 million over a two-year period, but has since gained it back. MPERS manages more than $1 billion in
retirement assets for 9,500 full-time police department employees throughout The growing gap means
retirees won't get a cost-of-living increase again next year because of a
state requirement that the system have 95 percent of the money needed to pay
the anticipated pensions of its members. Currently, MPERS
can pay less than 73 percent of the pensions. Hall
said "the gap is so large that we'll never be able to grant a
cost-of-living increase" because of that requirement. For From
the Star Press, December 19, 2004 A Star
Press survey of "If
you're looking at five to six counties in County police
officer Todd Dailey is the chairman of United Auto Workers Local 321. The
union represents county police officers and some other local emergency
services employees. Dailey said the union and Sheridan "are on the same
page." "It's
gotten to the point where the sheriff's office can't attract any significant
number of applicants," Dailey said. "And I'm pretty sure we've got
some officers who have been here up to 10 years that are looking at going
elsewhere. That would be a significant blow." Dailey
said he has serious concerns about what this will mean to the Delaware County
Police Department. "If
you look at all the new subdivisions that are going into unincorporated
areas, the number of persons the sheriff's office is servicing is not
shrinking," he said. Delaware
County Council sets budgets for county departments, including pay for
deputies. But
some council members have not recently shown much inclination to make better
pay available. In a
special council meeting on Nov. 30, only four of seven council members showed
up to hear Dailey and fellow officer David Hanauer
talk about pay for "special teams" - officers with special skills
who fulfill investigatory or rescue roles, like scuba diving. The
officers asked that less than $14,000 be appropriated for retroactive 2004
pay for those special teams. Council
members were unwilling to even make a motion to consider the pay. "It
didn't come on the floor," council member Ron Quakenbush
recalled. "Nobody made a motion to approve or disapprove. It just didn't
get any farther than that." Quakenbush noted that council did approve that special teams
spending in the 2005 budget. Some
people contacted by The Star Press wonder if the fate of the county police
department is really that dire. Bill Engelbrecht, a retired Ontario Systems executive, was on
the Engelbrecht noted that his observations were based solely on the
state of the department prior to his departure from the board more than 10
years ago. As for
difficulty finding patrol officers, Engelbrecht
said, "They could easily fill any opening they had, 10 times over. I
know we didn't have a big turnover. "The
number of complaints was minimal. The guys were content all the time I was on
the merit board." Engelbrecht said that it didn't seem obvious that more patrol
officers were needed. "They
seem to get the job done. If there was crime not being taken care of, you
would want to increase it, but it seems under control." Quakenbush said council members are sympathetic to county police
officers. "We'd
like to give them more money if it was available," Quakenbush
said. "But they're not the lowest paid deputies in the state. "I'm
not saying they don't deserve it. But we have a budget to balance." Seattle Police make concessions,
give OK to new contract From
the Yesterday,
the Seattle Police Officers' Guild and city officials announced that the
1,100 officers in the guild voted to approve the contract. "We're
happy about this," Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said
yesterday. "I don't think the guild got everything it wanted, but
neither did the city." Chief
Gil Kerlikowske issued a brief statement, saying
the contract "recognized the professionalism of our officers and the
difficult and dangerous job they perform for our community." Sgt.
Kevin Haistings, president of the Seattle Police
Officers' Guild, was guarded in his characterization of the new contract,
saying officers can live with it. "It's
certainly not where we thought we'd be," Haistings
said. "This is a labor town. People know what it's like at the table. It
wasn't all fun and games." The
contract provides for a raise of 9.5 percent over the next four years and
requires police to pay 5 percent of the monthly cost of their health
insurance. Officer accountability was also a bargaining issue, and the
contract now calls for creating a voluntary mediation process for citizen
complaints against officers. "There
are some new things we think are positive for accountability," Ceis said. The contract must still be approved by the City Council.
The tense standoff between The police union and top city administrators have reached a "tentative agreement" on the terms of the
officers' contracts, said Rick Ciganek,
police union president. The city council still must approve the deal. Under the proposed contract, the 140 union members will receive
a 4.5 percent raise for 2004, another 4.5 percent raise for 2005 and a 4
percent raise for 2006. The 2004 raise would be paid retroactively to the
start of the year. In exchange, the police officers will pay 7.5 percent of their
health-care benefit costs. They now pay none. "Our members have ratified it; now, it's in the hands of
the city council," Ciganek said. The police officers have been working without a contract since
the end of 2003 when their last one expired. Sometimes-heated talks between
the two sides broke down months ago over pay and medical benefits and an
arbitrator was expected to decide the case within a few months. The union and city officials returned to the table recently and
struck a compromise so arbitration could be avoided. But Ciganek
said "We were asking to be on track with City Manager David Dorgan could not be immediately reached for
comment. But throughout the negotiations he insisted that police officers
contribute something toward their medical benefits to help offset the
skyrocketing cost of health-care insurance to the city. The police union conceding that perk clears the way for the city
to begin having the same expectation of other employees and unions. In recent months, the police union increased pressure on Dorgan,
picketing outside city hall with their family members and speaking out at
city council meetings. The union even had put up a large sign near the center
of downtown criticizing the city for not agreeing to their contract terms. The lengthy tug of war between the police union and city hall is
not new, as the officers' previous contract had to be determined by an
arbitrator since the two sides never could reach a deal. The city remains in negotiations with the firefighters union
about its next contract. Pact: Free benefits may end for all in Police work agreement is approved for From The About 200 Independence Police Department employees have a new
work agreement. The Independence City Council approved the three-year pact
Monday night, retroactive to July 1. Many employees will receive a 2.5
percent increase, said City Manager Robert Heacock,
plus a “longevity” increase of 0.5 percent. In addition, a “market
adjustment” of 1 percent will be awarded in January. Carl Perry, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No.
1, representing “I am very pleased that this is finally over,” Perry said. “It
was a long and difficult negotiation, but we are pleased that we are back
under the protection of the work agreement.” Police employees were among the most visible Heacock, meanwhile, congratulated Perry and
others involved in the labor talks. “This was a difficult work agreement to resolve, but I think it
addresses a number of concerns,” he said. One of those concerns, he said, was the success with which the
city was able to compete for new, high-quality officers. “Recently we had slipped out of competitiveness with other
jurisdictions in our area for those new hires,” Heacock
said. The agreement also adjusts salaries on the top end of the
officer pay scale. The lowest three steps of the “police officer” classification
will be deleted, and three steps will be added to the top of the wage scale
for those classified as “master police officer.” The agreement runs through June 30, 2007. FOP concedes to city paying for 80 percent of health insurance From The Herald-Dispatch, December 14, 2004 The council voted 9-1 to adopt the contract,
which was approved unanimously earlier this month by members of Fraternal
Order of Police Gold Star Lodge 65. The contract adoption comes after months of
stalled negotiations between union members and Mayor David Felinton’s administration, with some heated exchanges
during the interim. The FOP’s previous contract
expired June 30, but was extended until both sides could agree on a new
contract. "This is a contract that is good for the
officers and the residents as well," Felinton
said. "This will bring the last group of city employees in line with
health care concessions, which we think will save us a lot over the long
run." The FOP’s contract is
the third and final step by the city to reduce health insurance costs, which
have been a key factor in A 2002 study by Huntington Forward, a group of
local business leaders and citizens, reported the city’s health insurance
plan was too expensive and unrealistic in today’s economy. The medical insurance plan in the FOP’s contract is identical to the one city firefighters
and city employees who belong to American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees Local 598 approved earlier this year. Under the FOP’s
previous contract, the city paid 100 percent of most health insurance costs. Under
the new contract, the city will pay for only 80 percent of the costs, while
union members will pick up the remaining 20 percent. In addition, monthly deductibles for most medical
services will increase from $100 per person to $250 per person. The new
contract also requires union members to pay monthly premiums of $25 for
family coverage and $12 for single coverage. How much the health care concessions in the
contracts will save the city is not known, city Personnel Director Sherry
Lewis said. In March, Blue-Cross-Blue Shield, which acts as a third party
administrator for the city, estimated the city would save $350,000 in the
first year of the new contracts. "The bulk of the savings occurs in the first
year of the contracts," Lewis said. "We wouldn’t see $350,000 in
annual savings during the final three years of the contracts." In return for health insurance concessions, the FOP’s contract calls for pay raises ranging from 8.4
percent to 11 percent during the first year. Annual pay raises in the remaining
three years of the contract ranges from 3 percent to 4.4 percent. Overall,
pay raises in the new contract will cost the city $437,000 more than what it
paid in salaries under the previous contract. Alan Rohrig, chairman
of the pay raise committee for the FOP, said the raises are similar to what "We never like to take a step back when it
comes to health insurance coverage, but in this day and age, it’s a
reality," Rohrig said. Because the contract will cost the city an
additional $1 million over the next four years, it will be difficult to hire
more police officers, Policing From the UNION-TRIBUNE, December 12, 2004 Law enforcement in The paradox is that in the same
list of the 10 largest Surprisingly, if not stunningly,
the one major city in the United States with a population over 1 million with
a lower overall crime rate than Norm Stamper, a deputy police
chief here in the 1980s and later police chief in Stamper, who started with the SDPD as a beat cop in the 1960s, warns bluntly of the
need for a larger police force here. "It's a city of 400 square
miles. William M. Lansdowne, Mayor Dick Murphy, referring to
the city's ratio of police officers to residents, told the Union-Tribune's
editorial board during the recent mayoral campaign that "I think 1.65
can get the job done. I think that a higher ratio would do a better
job." Former San Diego police chief
Bill Kolender, now San Diego County Sheriff, says
city officials repeatedly promised him that they would raise the ratio of
police officers per 1,000 citizens to 2. "It never happened," Kolender notes. Indeed, the Police Department's
statistics dating to the 1960s show that the ratio of about 1.6 officers per
1,000 citizens has remained remarkably constant here for 40 years. How many police officers does "Four thousand,"
Stamper snaps. Bill Farrar, the "Of the 30 cities of
500,000 or more population, Farrar cites a litany of other SDPD deficiencies. "Most cities have an
80,000-mile limit for their police cars. "Our police computers, MDTs, are so old nobody makes parts for them anymore.
They belong in a police museum somewhere," Farrar says. Farrar also notes that police
pay in San Diego City Councilman Brian Maienschein, chairman of the council's Public Safety and
Neighborhood Services Committee, lauds the city's police for doing an
"outstanding job" and cites But Maienschein
agrees that the city needs more police. How many more? "There is no
magic number," says the 5th District councilman. In defense of the city,
Maienschein points to current plans adding $100
million in new funding to police and fire forces over 10 years, including $10
million more this year. In the meantime, Maienschein praises Lansdowne for his policy of finding
ways to "get more out of what you have." Lansdowne, a consensus hire
recruited by the city in 2003 on the strength of his success as police chief
in San Jose, chooses his words carefully in making his case for bringing the
force to 2,100 by 2006 and adding a net of 300 police to the force over the
next decade. Lansdowne knows he is part of a city team that includes the
mayor, city manager and City Council. With each additional police
officer costing the city about $100,000 a year in salary, pension
obligations, training, equipment and medical insurance, adding 300 more cops
is a major investment; all the more so when San Diego's municipal finances
are under considerable strain. Lansdowne, as the newly arrived
police chief in a city suffering obvious financial distress, is
understandably reluctant to dwell on the SDPD's
staffing and equipment deficiencies. But his own description for his
strategic plan is revealing. Asked for the top item on his
agenda, Lansdowne says: "Putting together a strategy for rebuilding the
department." Rebuilding is the operative word for a department that
virtually everyone agrees has too few cops, outdated equipment and that
clearly has been underfunded for years. And what is a priority goal in
Lansdowne's strategic plan? "Staffing," says the chief. "Over the next decade,
we'll need another 300 officers and 70 civilians," Lansdowne says. By
2006, Lansdowne plans to bolster the force sufficiently to reach the department's
authorized strength of 2,100 officers. The department has also resumed
purchasing new police cars and is gradually replacing its outmoded vehicle
computers. The police hiring freeze that
saw The department is also buying
what Lansdowne calls the "right kind of less-lethal equipment,"
including Taser devices. That's part of a larger
effort that includes improved training and supervision to reduce what some
see as the most serious blot on the SDPD's
professional reputation – the incidence of police shootings in circumstances
where non-lethal force might suffice. Nearly all patrol officers now
carry non-lethal beanbag shotguns in the trunks of their patrol cars. New
department policy also calls for supervising sergeants to be dispatched to
the scene immediately in circumstances where patrol officers may face a
choice of using deadly or non-lethal force. The result, says Lansdowne, is a
sharp decline in officer-involved shootings. But no amount of improved
training and supervision can compensate entirely for the San Diego Police
Department's lack of numbers. In ways large and small, the shortage of police
officers presents recurring problems to the police and to the people of Nowhere are those problems more
apparent than in the department's struggle to sustain a policing innovation
that gave the SDPD a national and international
reputation. Originally known as community oriented policing, its current
label in the department is problem-oriented policing, POPS,
or sometimes neighborhood oriented policing. "It's a philosophy, not a
program," says Norm Stamper, who first advocated a version of community
oriented policing as an SDPD lieutenant in the
early 1970s. Stamper's inspired, some would say
revolutionary, concept was to make the police less reactive and more
proactive. That translated to working with citizens in The proactive part involved
citizen-police partnerships that work to identify and solve potential law
enforcement problems before they escalate. Developed in fits and starts
during the 1970s, community oriented policing was firmly established as SDPD policy in the 1980s and continued in successive
evolutions through the 1990s and into the current decade. Stamper credits
former Chief Bill Kolender and his successor, Bob Burgreen, with anchoring community oriented policing in SDPD practice and doctrine. The measure of this remarkable
policing innovation's success is that it has been adopted in one form or
another by more than 80 percent of the police departments in the Community policing also has
spread internationally. Foreign police departments in Europe, Latin America
and In San Diego, the tangible signs
of community oriented policing are undeniably impressive: a network of 16
storefront neighborhood police offices throughout the city, teams of trained
community service officers, plus nearly 800 members of San Diego's Retired
Senior Volunteer Patrol. The uniformed but unpaid RSVP
members patrol neighborhoods in radio-equipped marked cars, provide a law
enforcement presence, take routine reports from citizens, do fingerprinting
in non-criminal cases, perform vacation checks on unoccupied homes and visit
invalids who might require assistance. All this provides invaluable help to
the police and to Lansdowne estimates that proper
implementation of what he calls "problem oriented policing" should
occupy 40 percent of a police officer's time. "At full staffing, we could
do that. We can't now," admits Lansdowne. Out on the streets, police are
virtually unanimous in complaining that they lack the time and numbers to do
community policing the way they would like to. Officer after officer
interviewed for this project cited examples of proactive work they could be
doing in neighborhoods if only their numbers permitted more time away from
radio calls. Decades ago, police often
disparaged community policing as "social work." Today there is
near-universal support among police for this widely successful law
enforcement innovation. What's lacking now in Sgt. Wesley Albers, a seasoned SDPD cop with 15 years on the force who is currently
assigned to Southern Division, spoke words echoed by officer after officer on
the subject of community policing. "The essence of community
policing is problem solving. We love the concept but you have to have the
resources. When we are at minimum staffing or near minimum staffing, we can't
do that," Albers says. Exactly how many more police
should be added to It's true, of course, that the
size of the police force isn't the sole determinant of a city's crime rate.
Some experts even assert that there is no provable correlation between crime
rates and the numbers of police. Culture, family structure and stability,
religious faith, demographics, socio-economic conditions, the quality of
education, investment in public services and infrastructure, civic
institutions and strong civic leadership are all key factors in the complex
matrix that determines a city's crime rate. But just as obviously, effective
policing is vital to containing crime. Cops are the front line in the
permanent battle against criminals. Waging that battle successfully requires
a police force that is well trained and equipped, well led, guided by an
effective crime-fighting strategy and large enough for the job at hand. By any measure, Sgt. Albers says he chose to
apply to the San Diego Police Department the day he graduated from college in
The decade of falling crime
rates here from 1992 to 2002, the near-total absence of police corruption and
the internationally recognized innovation of community oriented policing
would appear to vindicate that judgment. But, as noted, there is
consensus on the need for a larger police force. "We need more
people," Albers says flatly. "More police equal more
public safety. Response times are less. We try for two officers per call. At
minimum staffing we can't always do that. At minimum staffing, it can be 20
minutes to your closest cover unit," he adds. "How many cops are
enough?" Albers asks rhetorically. "Who knows? But we do know what
happens when we don't have enough." Officers win 3 years of pay
raises After lengthy negotiations, the
police rank-and-file agree to a 4 percent increase this fiscal year; in the
next two years, they will get 5.5 percent raises. After
almost a year of negotiating, nearly a dozen meetings, and many offers and
counteroffers, a majority of Officers
will receive a 4 percent increase this fiscal year, and a 5.5 percent raise
for each of the ensuing two years, council member Bill Foster said. "I
think all parties are glad to put this behind us," Foster said,
"and now we can look toward a brighter future." Patrol
officers in the Police Benevolent Association voted on the contract Friday,
approving it by a margin of about three to one, said Andy Houston, the city's
director of internal services. Police supervisors, represented by the Fraternal
Order of Police, had already approved roughly the same terms, The
city council signed off on the FOP agreement on Thursday, and is scheduled to
address the PBA contract during their meeting this Thursday, Foster said. He
predicted it would pass with little discussion. Union
leaders could not be reached for comment Friday evening. Police
officers have complained that low pay was contributing to a flood of officers
leaving the department for other agencies, with more than 80 leaving this
year, according to union leaders. City officials said they have tried to
address the problem with a variety of benefits: take-home patrol cars,
interest-free home loans. Currently,
entry level officers in This
year's raise will be retroactive to October, the beginning of the fiscal year
that ends in September. Foster
hopes the new agreement will help keep good officers. "This will keep us
competitive," he said. "As long as we maintain a good competitive
collective bargaining package, we will slow down any exodus." _____________________________________________________ |
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