WARREN City council to vote on contract

Neither group is being offered pension pickup.
WARREN -- City council will decide whether management employees and nonbargaining workers will get raises of 4 percent the first two years and 3 percent the last year under a proposed three-year contract.
Council will vote tonight on the proposed contract with Warren Management Association, which represents more than 20 upper-management employees and city department heads.
Council also must approve a plan outlining those same raises for more than 60 nonbargaining and salaried employees, many who work in the municipal court.
Lawmakers rejected a previous proposal for WMA because it contained a provision that would make the city responsible for paying the employees' shares, along with the employer's share, toward the state retirement system.
This pension pickup would have been phased in over the contract's three-year life.
Rejected: Council rejected a fact finder's report in September that would have given the city's 42 patrol officers 4.5 percent raises each year for three years.
The proposed contract also would have required the city to pick up the employees' shares toward pension.
City officials said that contract would have broken the city; union members said it was fair.
The stage will be set for further talks with the patrol officers union if council approves both measures tonight, giving the outlined raises but not the pension pickup, officials said.
Negotiations between the city and patrol officers union broke off last week without agreement. A new round of talks is being scheduled.
Officials have said WMA's agreement includes a stipulation that allows them to go back to the city and ask for pension pickup if it's granted to patrol officers.