Township contract with cops disputed

The acting administrator and trustee chairwoman called it a typographical error.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- A contract approved last month between township trustees and the police patrol officers union is headed for an unfair-labor practice complaint.
At issue is a provision regarding the ability of the 43-person Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association to buy accumulated sick time at retirement.
Christina Griffith, acting township administrator, said the pact was negotiated to mirror the sick time buybacks contained in the contracts between the township and the police rank, dispatchers and road department unions.
Those contracts allow employees who retire with three years' notice to the township to buy back 60 percent of the remaining 50 percent of their accumulated sick time. With two years' notice, the rate is 40 percent of the 50 percent accumulated sick time; and with one-year's notice, it's 20 percent of the 50 percent accumulated sick time.
But when the tentative agreement was written, the 50 percent wasn't included, so that the provision reads that the patrol union members can buy back 60 percent, 40 percent or 20 percent of their remaining accumulated sick time depending on the notice given to the township.
Griffith and Trustee Chairwoman Robyn Gallitto called it a typographical error.
What union voted on
Mark Jacobs, a patrolman and co-director of the patrolmen's union, said the union voted on a proposal presented by the township that included the 50 percent accumulated sick time buyback.
"That's what our membership voted on and accepted," he said.
Jacobs expects an unfair-labor practice complaint to be prepared by the OPBA attorney and filed with the State Employment Relations Board by late next week.
"There's no animosity about it," he said. "They feel one way and we feel another. We'll take it to SERB to decide. They're the neutral."
The three-year contract, which was to run from Jan. 1 of this year through Dec. 31, 2008, also called for 4 percent raises each year. Union members also were to contribute toward hospitalization costs, with 5 percent co-payments this year and 7.5 percent and 10 percent in 2007 and 2008, respectively.