MOU Advice

[barkalot]

I am possibly going to be elected the president of our association. I've never done anything like this before, so I could use any help those who have can offer.

Our city is small and has limited money like most cities.

We are currently the least compensated in our area and we just gave up two years of COLAs in order to gain 3% at 50, for which we pay half. We gained another $100 on health insurance, so we were generally happy with contract.

I believe salary is going to be the issue in the next contract.

I'm wondering if there are any back door approaches to salary increases.

What I had in mind was asking for a percentage increase that is reasonable by anyone's estimation, but then also asking for some kind of mandated number of hours each year of training or something similar.

Say we asked for mandatory two hours of in-house training per month. Since that's 24 hours a year, at the low end that's a $46 a month raise, if all the training occurred on your work day, or $64 a month if it all occurred on your days off.

I guess one drawback is that the amount would not benefit our retirement since it would be overtime and not regular salary.

Anyway, it's just an example of what I was thinking.

Some other ideas we are playing with with regard to our MOU is a reduction in force policy, that is how the city handles reducing staff. Such as temporary workers first, part-time second, then by seniority, etc.

We are also considering trying to limit the city hiring part-time officers, such as those assigned to a specific task like traffic. I think the extra money should be given to the full-time officers as overtime to do the same task handled by a sign-up sheet or something similar.

Any thoughts?

[IMachU]

http://www.lacpoa.org/mou.shtml

Here is our MOU (officers union). I hope you can find something useful in it.

[barkalot]

http://www.lacpoa.org/mou.shtml

Here is our MOU (officers union). I hope you can find something useful in it.

Thanks! I got some ideas to get the ball rolling...

Other thoughts I have...

Can MOUs include such things as requiring the city to require outside groups to hire police protection? We have a community hall and a huge park with hundreds of people in attendance during certain sports seasons. There is usually only one officer on during these times.

[IMachU]

Usually, you have to have a deal with the city manager - when a contract is written, they should include a clause about hiring so many police officers for every 100, 200 or 500 attendees. We had an agreement with LA County Parks and Rec - now they put a clause in the contract they muyst have police protection - but not our agency. Sucks....

[SgtCHP]

Contact the Calfiornia Peace Officers Association (CPOA):

http://www.cpoa.org/

or Peace Officer Research Association of California (PORAC),

http://www.porac.org/

They have sample MOUs that you can use as a guide. Additionally, they will help you prepare for negotiations.

[barkalot]

Well, I am officially the POA president. Now I am not so sure I want this position!

The city manager seems to be pro-police and wants to see the department do well.

In some informal conversations the city manager has indicated the city paying our Social Security is probably going to come to an end. We currently pay half of our PERS contribution.

I noticed that in the recruitment flyer for the new police chief it appears to indicate the city will pay the new chief's Social Security and the entire PERS contribution.

I have a couple questions I hope someone here might be able to answer.

Can the city pay the above benefits to management and choose not to pay them to the officers?

I have no problem with the chief's higher salary and other fringe benefits such as a take-home vehicle and membership dues in associations, but getting better benefits seems unfair. What if the city decided to end medical for dependents but gave the chief medical for dependents?

It appears to me that benefits such as retirement and health, dental and vision should be equal across the board.

Secondly, if the city pushes for phasing out Social Security, do we simply push for raising our salary to make up for the lost benfit?

Some arguments I had for keeping it the way it is, are: 1) The city had a chance to opt out of Social Security at one time but did not 2) Social Security may not even be there when most of us retire and 3) the age for getting it if it is there will likely jump over 67 years by that time due to life expectancy. Police officers, however, have a much lower life expectancy, so they may never live to claim it.

Anyway, just some thoughts and questions I had.

As always, any help is appreciated.

[eagleI]

Can the city pay the above benefits to management and choose not to pay them to the officers?

Yes.

I have no problem with the chief's higher salary and other fringe benefits such as a take-home vehicle and membership dues in associations, but getting better benefits seems unfair.

"Fair" is not in their vocabulary.

It appears to me that benefits such as retirement and health, dental and vision should be equal across the board.

My agency negotiated for vision for officers for 20 years before we got it. All other city workers had vision care long before officers & they don't carry guns (that I know of!)

Secondly, if the city pushes for phasing out Social Security, do we simply push for raising our salary to make up for the lost benfit?

Your the first agency I've heard of that gets Soc. Sec.

I was POA President before. Good luck!
Best thing we got for calculating raises was the raise was based a salary survey of selected, comparable cities & we were plugged in the middle.

[barkalot]

I guess some cities do not pay into Social Security due to some sort of opt-out program that IRS (or some other federal agency) ended in 1986, I think.

Our city pays our Social Security as does another city in our county. Maybe since we are talking such small agencies, the cost has never seemed to be that big a deal.

Now, the city manager says the city pays too much of their total personnel budget to benefits. Apparently, a typical percentage is 35, while ours is 55-60. The city manager wants to reduce this number and the fastest way to do that would be for us to pay our own Social Security.

As long as our pay goes up dramatically to make up the difference, I don't see how we can keep this benefit. I think a arbitrator would side with the city.

The problem is our pay not going up to make up the difference. We are already under-paid based on a survey of other cities which was done by the City Council. I think at the time they thought the survey would show us we were well-paid and get us to stop complaining, but it back-fired.

We are also near the lowest paid in our county, which brings up another subject.

The salary for the new chief will be comparative to what other cities in our county pay their chiefs, regardless that the other cities have a better tax base.

For the city to then say we should not be paid comparative to other officers in the county, because we don't have the same tax base as they, seems hypocritical.

It should be interesting come December when negotiations begin.

Whatever happens, I can always follow the advice of one of my best friends, "You vote with your feet. If you don't like something, walk away and go to work somewhere else."