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(9:40 AM) City Police Officers Receive 2 Percent Retroactive Raises In Arbitration Award

In a 2-1 decision, a state Public Employee Relations Board panel has awarded Jamestown police officers a 2 percent pay increase for 2016 and 2017.

The Kendall Club Police Benevolent Association requested 5 percent pay increases for each year while the city countered with no pay increases, citing the city’s status exhausting the state’s constitutional taxing limit and financial issues as reasons the city has no ability to pay.

“With respect to the city’s position, however, the record contains countervailing evidence that weakens the case for a two-year freeze on police pay,” the decision states. “Despite the stresses it faced, the city’s careful and skillful budgeting resulted in a surplus of more than $1.2 million in 2017, despite the fact that, unlike in previous years, it received no profit-sharing revenue from its Board of Public Utilities. The Office of the State Comptroller, in its assessment of city finances, issued no designation of fiscal stress in 2016, and the union’s expert witness, Kevin Decker, testified persuasively that the data available for 2017 strongly suggested an even better score from the comptroller for that year.”

Arbitrators also increased longevity bonuses by $500 while saying the parties need to negotiate further changes in the longevity bonus clauses in the contract during discussions on a new contract. The arbitrators also chose not to make major changes to health insurance, saying the Kendall Club’s requests were likely too costly for the city when combined with the wage increases the arbitration panel imposed, though the arbitration panel did increase the officers’ health care contributions to 19 percent so that it is in line with other city bargaining units that received pay increases in exchange for higher health care contributions. Discussion of further health care changes, including the city’s request that retiree health care be eliminated for employees who use a sick leave buyout upon retirement rather than apply the amount toward future health insurance premiums, was likewise referred to the negotiating table.

The union also asked that officers receive additional pay when asked to work on a premium holiday that they weren’t previously scheduled to work. Currently, officers called in for a premium holiday with less than 72 hours notice receive additional pay. Now, all unscheduled premium holiday call-ins, regardless of the amount of notice given, will result in additional pay.

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