MERCER COUNTY Police insurance must stay

The carrier won't let the commission change its package at mid-year.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- The Southwest Mercer County Regional Police Commission can't cut off any health insurance benefits for its full-time officers, even though the police don't want some of those benefits.
The commission, at the insistence of the Fraternal Order of Police, voted in May to rescind an amendment to the police contract that had added vision and dental insurance and some additional life insurance to the benefits package.
The additional benefits were put into place Jan. 1 after the commission changed insurance carriers and found it could add those benefits to the package without any additional cost.
The catch was that, should the monthly insurance premium go above the $14,450 the commission was paying under the old insurance package, the FOP would have to pick up that additional expense.
The FOP complained in April that the issue had never been made a part of negotiations and, though its members were making use of the added benefits, the FOP wasn't willing to pick up any additional expense. It advised the commission to cancel the additional coverage.
Must wait
The commission agreed and voted to do so at its May meeting, but James DeCapua, commission chairman, said Tuesday that he has been informed by the insurance carrier that the commission can't arbitrarily change its insurance package in mid-year.
Any change can be made only at the anniversary of the contract date, and that will be Jan. 1, DeCapua told the commission.
That means the commission is on the hook for the additional benefits for another six months, he said.
That also means the benefit will still be available for use by full-time police officers and their families, he said.
DeCapua said he has asked the FOP to meet with the commission on the issue in hopes of persuading the police to participate in the package by picking up some of the cost.
The monthly premium for the total insurance package has already reached $15,555 a month, which means the commission is picking up an additional $1,105 a month that it had expected the FOP to pay.
Part-time police
In other business, Police Chief Riley Smoot told the commission that the department has received only three applications for part-time police positions the department is trying to fill.
The budget allocates money for seven part-time officers at $10 per hour, but Smoot said the force has only four available for duty right now.
DeCapua said the need for part-time officers might soon increase because two full-time officers have applied for jobs with other departments and that would leave Southwest short-handed.
The department has been trying to attract minority candidates to its force for years with very little success.
Smoot said none of the three current applicants are members of any minority group.