Starting Thursday, an arbitration panel will hear the reasons why employees with the Jamestown Police Department should or shouldn’t receive a pay increase in 2016 or 2017 from the city of Jamestown.

A three-member arbitration panel will hear from both city and the Kendall Club Police Benevolent Association officials during the hearing. The three-member arbitration panel includes independent arbitrator Howard Foster. According to the University at Buffalo website, Foster is a professor emeritus for the School of Management organization and human resources department who has arbitrated more than 800 labor-management disputes. Todd Thomas, city clerk and administrative services director, is slated to represent the city and John Crotty is scheduled to represent the police union on the arbitration panel.

Since the start of 2016, the Jamestown Police Department employees bargaining unit has been without a new contract with the city. Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor, said it is up to the arbitration panel what will be determined, but it will most likely just be if the union’s employees will receive a percentage pay increase for the two years there was no contract. He said they can also determine benefit levels and health insurance contributions but, in his past experience, those items are usually not determined by an arbitration panel.

“With the ones we’ve been involved with or have followed, they strictly deal with salary,” he said.

Teresi said the union has proposed a 5 percent increase for 2016 and a compounded 5 percent increase for 2017.

“This was one of the main reasons we reached an impasse because they would not move off of that position,” Teresi said. “The two-year cumulative 10 percent plus increase would impact the budget by $650,000 to $700,000, and, obviously moving forward, would build as time goes on.”

Teresi said city officials budgeted a zero percent increase for the police union for both 2016 and 2017. Also, with the city at 100 percent of the constitutional tax limit, city officials cannot increase property taxes to pay for the raises proposed by the police union.

The mayor also said it is his understanding the union has asked for the arbitration panel to not only deal with the two years there was no contract, but to also making a ruling moving forward on a new contract. Teresi said he doesn’t believe it is legal or past precedent for the panel to rule on a future contract. He believes by law that they can only rule on the two years without a contract.

Teresi has said publicly that he would like to see the arbitration proceedings open to the media and the public. He said the police union has stated they want the doors closed to the proceedings. He added the arbitration panel will make a determination whether the proceedings will be open to the public at the start of the hearing, which is scheduled to start at 10 a.m.

The proceedings are like a court trial, Teresi said. Each side will present witnesses testifying to their point of view. Then both sides will submit written arguments. He said the arbitration panel then will take days, weeks or months going through the verbal and written arguments to make a determination. He added once the panel’s determination is made, city officials will make public their decision during a Jamestown City Council meeting.

The city is also without a current contract with the International Association of Firefighters Local 1772. Teresi said negotiations between the city and the firefighters union has also reached an impasse. He suspects the firefighters union is waiting on the decision by the arbitration panel on the police union before either returning to the negotiation table or filing the paperwork necessary to go to binding arbitration.

“We are always open and willing to keep talking,” Teresi said. “If the other side decides not to, we are prepared to go the arbitration route.”