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Posted: 3:23 p.m.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
No raises for police supervisors and patrol
officers
Fact-finder says Middletown police union
should accept one-time bonus
By http://www.journal-news.com/staff/ed-richter/" rel="nofollow - Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
Middletown
police supervisors and patrol officers won’t be getting a raise in the final
year of their contract.
A State Employee Relations Board fact-finder
ruled Monday in favor of the city of Middletown
in a wage re-opener with two police bargaining units represented by the
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 36.
Middletown City Council approved the
fact-finder’s report and recommendation after a short executive session.
The police unions were seeking a 3 percent
across-the-board raise, retroactive to Nov. 1, 2014, for the final year of
their three-year contract, which expires Oct. 31. Fact-finder Philip H.
Sheridan Jr. recommended the city offer, and the police bargaining units
accept, the $1,000 presented to all other city employees under the
Performance-Based Compensation program.
The unions argued that they went the first
two years of the contract without a wage increase and that the city had the
ability to grant the raises because of increased revenue through delinquent
income tax collections, increased tax collections from the public safety levy,
significant private development, elimination of some police positions, spending
cuts and a healthy carryover from 2014. They said wages of the Middletown bargaining units were below
average when compared with similar bargaining units in other communities.
However, the city countered by offering a
zero percent increase. City officials said they have been prudent with finances
as Middletown
lost revenue as a result of the recession, reduction of local government
funding and the estate tax, population reduction, declining property values,
cost of living increases and a ratings downgrade from Moody’s Investor
Services.
In the fact-finder’s report, City Manager
Doug Adkins told Sheridan that Middletown continues to face a number of
problems such as deferred maintenance, maintaining streets, sewer issues, other
capital issues, and blighted housing. Adkins said the city has had to cut spending,
reducing the city’s workforce and not filling vacant positions. He said the
unanticipated revenue from 2014 was used to bring the city’s gas and pension
funds out of negative balances.
The city has offered full-time employees a
one-time Performance-Based Compensation of $1,000 for 2015 that is based on the
city’s financial health instead of giving cost of living increases, and was a
result of cost-cutting measures in 2014. The city did not offer wage increases
to any of the other bargaining units or to non-represented employees.
The report said because the police
bargaining units chose to go to fact-finding, the Performance-Based
Compensation was no longer being offered, and because the city believed these
units had fared better than the other units.
In his ruling, Sheridan found the city was able to pay a
reasonable wage increase but did not see the uncertainty of city revenues and
expenditures to support the re-opener as a substitute for a full, three-year
agreement, pointing out that five months of the re-opener period had already
passed.
“A city that is flush and able to fund wage
increases for its deserving employees does not cut its work force and its
expenditures for city infrastructure,” Sheridan
wrote. “The city’s budget process has been conservative and reasonable.”
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