Sean C. Morgan
The city of Sweet Home and the police employees union will enter mediation on Feb. 11 in an attempt to settle a new contract.
The two sides have reached tentative agreements on all but two items in the contract, salary and a union proposal for an extra comp day. Negotiations started last April. Police officers and dispatchers have been bargaining without a contract since July 1. The city and union last met on Nov. 16.
“Basically, this Police Department, compared to the comparable cities is the lowest-paid, and the city’s proposal is guaranteed to keep them there,” said Neil Bednarczyk, the union’s negotiator.
Comparable cities in a survey prepared by the employees included Stayton, Florence, Lebanon, Silverton, North Bend, Prineville, Astoria, Lincoln City and Newport.
The average pay in those cities is 9.5 percent higher than in Sweet Home, Bednarczyk said. Dispatchers make 12.9 percent less than in comparable cities, but the comparables are harder to find because some cities don’t operate a dispatch center.
The difference in pay can be traced back to the decline of the timber and lumber industries in Sweet Home, he said. “At some point, you have to start addressing the inequity.”
The city has a healthy budget, with a 19-percent carryover, he said, and it’s not as if the city’s standing on the “precipice of bankruptcy.”
The other issue arose from the 12-hour shift the officers work, Bednarczyk said.
An average month is 173 1/3 hours, but officers work an average of 181 hours per month without overtime, he said.
The officers want a guaranteed weekend, he said.
Police officers may be called to break up a fight or to the scene of a crash, he said. “The life of a police officer is incredibly stressful. They really value some time away from the stress.”
The 12-hour shift, which was implemented at the request of the officers, “gave us more time in a way, but in actuality it’s not more time off in a month,” Bednarczyk said.
In addition to the stressful, dangerous job police officers do, equitable pay helps retain employees, Bednarczyk said. That’s important because the city foots the bill for training the officers, some $60,000 to $70,000.
“They have had turnover, and the guys that have left have gone to bigger departments,” he said.
In the long run, he asked how much more it costs the city when its salary doesn’t attract certified officers.
“Our very last offer, they didn’t even want to entertain it,” he said. “We were prepared to move on that the last day of bargaining, but we didn’t give it to them because they said, ‘What part of no don’t you understand?’”
The city’s last offer was the same as the city’s general employees’ bargaining unit’s, with no raise this year.
Bednarczyk did not say what the union’s last offer would have been.
The union opened negotiations last year proposing a 5-percent raise the first year, 2010-11, followed by a 2.5-percent increase every six months the following four years to correct the inequity compared to other cities.
The last offer the union did propose was a three contract, with a new 5-percent step added the first year, followed by the addition of two new steps and an adjustment to the entire salary schedule of 2.5 percent per year in each of the following two years.
“Somehow, they’ve got to move toward getting us caught up,” Bednarczyk said.
Other cities, such as Stayton, have had pay freezes, he said. “Maybe our guys would have agreed to that if they were getting paid what Stayton pays.”
Stayton officers at the seventh step, the top step, receive $4,355 per month. Sweet Home officers at the fifth step, the top step, receive $4,131 per month. Employees typically increase one step each year, based on an evaluation.
Further, Stayton picks up the officers’ retirement contributions, Bednarczyk said.
The city’s offer would increase starting pay for a new hire by 5 percent by eliminating the entry wage rate, said Akin Blitz, a labor attorney with Bullard Law representing the city in negotiations. New employees hired after the effective date would be hired at what is now step two, thereby making the city more attractive to applicants when hiring new officers.
The city would add two new 3-percent incremental steps at the high end of the police pay scale; but officers would not be eligible to move up the step until their anniversary of date of hire after July 1, 2011.
Under the union proposal, a police officer at the top step would see his wage increased 20 percent over three years, Blitz said.
“The city does not disagree that wages of its police officers are behind the wages paid to police in a set of cities that are looking at as wage comparators,” Blitz said. “Sweet Home has argued that it simply cannot afford to pay more than the city has offered, and notes that two of the cities the parties are looking at froze police wages in 2010 – Stayton and Newport.”
The city has worked hard to try to keep wages at the police department as competitive as possible, considering the demographics and economic constraints of the community, Blitz said. Police officers have, since 1999, received on average a wage increase of approximately 3.7 percent per year. Dispatchers have received an average yearly increase of 3.6 percent.
“During these negotiations the city bargaining team has been acutely aware of the financial struggles facing the Sweet Home community, the State of Oregon and the nation,” Blitz said. “The city has tried to weigh the needs of police employees against the realities of the current economic situation.
“The city manager, mayor and council and the city bargaining team feel that the City’s wage proposal, which in effect, gives an opportunity for the majority of police employees to receive an approximate 6-percent wage increase, based on merit and job performance spread over the three-year life of the contract, is quite fair and very respectful of the service our police officers provide daily given the current economy and related fiscal impacts.
“The city bargaining team also believes that, in view of the financial limitations of the city’s finances, it is simply the best the community can offer. Bargaining units elsewhere are settling contracts without any wage increases. The city’s offer to the police officers mirrors Sweet Home’s offer that was accepted by the city’s other union group, made up of non-police employees.”
In addition, the union wants to be paid an extra nine hours of comp time off work per month if working a 12-hour patrol shift, Blitz said. The city contends that there is no basis for such a pay element, argues that officers earn plenty of time off now, and in any event, the proposal is simply not affordable.
“The economy has wreaked havoc on the City’s ability to pay more,” Blitz said. The city anticipated a loss of property tax revenues due to tax compression of $293,400, and it turned out to be $458,500, which impacts what the city can collect now and in the future in the police and library levies.
In 2010-11 city real estate market values dropped $34,544,450, Blitz said. In the prior year the values dropped $18,583,450.
“The police are funded on a five-year levy and cannot get any more revenue under the finance stream available,” Blitz said. “There is no way that the council or city ,anager can raid other non-dedicated funds to channel more money to police operations.The city finances and staffing is at minimums in the other departments as well.”
The mayor and council and the city manager are required to adhere to City fiscal policy as adopted by the Council in the budget, Blitz said. Those policies require the City to operate on a current funding basis, maintain contingency and reserve account balances as specified and avoid borrowing from other funds to increase a particular fund.
Thus, the City is striving to settle the contract with the police union in a way that allows the police department to “live within its means under the police levy,” Blitz said.
Other problems are looming, not the least of which is a mandated increase in PERS contributions, Blitz said. Effective July 2011, the City will be required to increase is PERS retirement contribution rates. Public employer contribution rates statewide on average will increase at least 30 percent.
Blitz explained that for the police officers, the Sweet Home retirement rates are projected to increase well below that, but by 1 percent nonetheless.
The unions don’t see this as an increase in employee benefits because the PERS retirement payout remains the same, and the underfunding is a PERS problem for which workers are not at fault, Blitz said.
He added that uncollected taxes and 15-percent unemployment im-pact the city’s consideration of just how far the city can go in negotiations in view of the limitations of the adopted budget and limited ability of citizens to pay more in these times.
Blitz noted that the city is divulging its position due to the fact that the union has taken the discussion into the open, and The New Era requested comment.
“The newspaper contacted the city for its perspective,” Blitz said. “The city manager, police chief and labor negotiator were quick to point out that ordinarily they would not seek news stories as negotiations progress, and that since the AFSCME union negotiator had (talked to the newspaper), they would insure that the public was fully informed by speaking with the newspaper in detail.”