CORTLAND Mayor, police chief blast nonunion pay raises

Union workers got bigger raises before the economy soured, one official said.
By VALERIE BANNER
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CORTLAND -- The city's police chief and mayor say the raises city council offered to city administrators for next year are not adequate.
But council members say the raises more than cover cost-of-living increases and are fair.
Monday night council passed the first of three required readings to approve one-year contracts for the fire chief, finance director, police chief and police captain. The current contracts expire June 30.
Mayor Melissa Long said she submitted the recommendations for the contracts but did not agree with the amount of the increases.
"I feel whenever raises are given to administrators that are considerably lower than those given to the union-negotiated contract employees, this creates great dissension and low administrative morale. I would like to have seen the raise percentages increased," she said.
Call for increase
The administrators' contracts would call for increases of 2.4 percent. The three-year union contracts, which vary by department and are different each year, provide an average raise of 5 percent.
"You've given every other full-time employee in the city a 5-percent rate increase," said Police Chief Gary Mink, "and you've only given us half of that. We don't do half of the work."
Councilwoman Deidre Petrosky said the raises were given based on the cost of living. She said she thinks the amount given is fair because the cost of living has increased 1.4 percent in the last year. She noted that the union contracts were negotiated before the economy soured.
Mink, who said he spoke on behalf of the other department administrators, maintained that he and the others received smaller pay increases because they don't have the strength of the unions.
"Because we have no leverage, you take the stand with us. You should take the stand next year when the union contracts are negotiated," he said.
Councilman Frank Stocz, chairman of council's finance committee, said council will re-examine the raises given to union employees when those contracts expire next year.
"We have to start someplace," he said. "It may appear that department heads are going to be discriminated against because we chose to start here."
Mink said he is a "sacrificial lamb."