by Tess Wolfe
Reporter
Munroe Falls -- Almost a year in the making, a new union contract will give the city's police officers a 3 percent pay hike each year through March 2010.
The pact, which covers nine full-time and eight part-time officers and the department's only sergeant, was approved by City Council March 18.
"I'm happy [the contract] passed," said Police Chief Scott Bellinger. "We've worked on it for a long time."
According to the city's finance director, David Bailey, negotiations began when the previous contract expired March 31, 2007. He said, the terms of the new contract are retroactively effective from April 1, 2007, and will be in effect until March 31, 2010.
"It was a congenial process," said Matt Baker, chief spokesperson and negotiator for the police union. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
He said the union notified him March 7 it would agree to the new contract.
The city made the deal retroactive, because it wasn't fair to "penalize" union members for the time that elapsed in negotiation since the previous contract expired, said Baker.
Baker, who called a yearlong negotiation process "normal," said the points of disagreement between the city and the union mainly involved wages, insurance and scheduling.
Munroe Falls Law Director Jack Morrison, who negotiated the contracts on behalf of the city, did not return calls for comment.
Baker said a conciliation meeting, which is mediated by a third party appointed by the state, had been scheduled for March 17 but never took place. Any recommendation made by the mediator would have been binding for both the city and the union.
Instead, the two parties reached a resolution on their own, said Baker.
"We're glad they didn't have to go through conciliation," said Mayor Frank Larson. "It's not a very different contract than would have been the case a year ago."
The officers will receive a 3-percent pay increase each year the contract is in place, Bailey said.
According to the contract, a first-year, full-time police officer with an annual 2007 salary of $35,982 would get $37,061 in 2008, then $38,173 in 2009,
The way insurance benefits are paid for and reimbursed for the sergeant and full-time police officers also has changed.
The previous contract required officers to pay annual insurance premiums on a flat-rate basis. Annually, single coverage cost $200; two-person coverage cost $400; and family coverage cost $800.
Under the new contract, officers will pay a percentage of the premiums the city pays for employee health insurance coverage. Union members will pay 10 percent of what the city pays for each employee's coverage. For example, if the city pays $287 monthly for a single-coverage policy for an officer, that officer must contribute $28.70 to that rate each month.
As an incentive to decline health insurance coverage, and officer who does so will receive a quarterly payment from the city to accept coverage.
An officer who declines coverage will receive $86 from the city on a quarterly basis, said Bellinger.
Bellinger said the city sought to have officers contribute to their premiums on a percentage basis because that is becoming the standard practice throughout the state.
"The insurance question drove a lot of the discussion," Bailey said. "That was the biggest issue."
Part-time police officers do not receive insurance benefits, so they are not affected.
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