Warren council OKs pay freeze

Photo

Warren Mayor Michael J. O'Brien

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Pay freezes were the order of the night Wednesday as Warren City Council approved contracts with three-year pay freezes for members of two police unions and four-year freezes for nine elected and appointed officials.

The police department pay freezes come wrapped with a payoff for police officers and city residents: The department soon will increase in size from 62 officers to 65 with the return of three officers from layoff.

The only “perk” for members of the patrolman’s union and ranking-officer union is that workers will get an extra holiday each year and an increase in longevity pay, costing the city $16,865 in 2011. Officers give up four hours of overtime pay at election time.

A concession from workers is creation of a tier system that starts new police officers at $14.38 per hour (60 percent of the top of scale) and rises to 90 percent after six years.

Officers with three years’ service or more currently make $23.97 per hour.

New hires also will contribute 20 percent to the cost of their health care instead of the 10 percent paid by current employees.

Brian Massucci, Warren personnel director, said the tier system eventually will save the city a significant amount of money.

The workers ratified the agreements earlier.

City employees have been working under a pay freeze for the past two years except for things such as step- increases and longevity.

Mayor Michael O’Brien said the three returning officers will be back in a Warren uniform “as soon as their schedule can be worked out,” but he seemed pretty sure of who the three officers would be.

“Three of the officers coming back to work are very aggressive officers,” O’Brien said, adding that they will be a great asset to the city.

Two officers who are retiring this year also will be replaced, officials said, meaning that five recall letters will go out today.

“It’s obvious that you brought back officers over pay increases,” Councilman Eddie Colbert said, addressing the police officers.

Three pieces of legislation also were approved Wednesday that freeze the pay for the mayor, safety-service director, auditor and deputy auditor and the law director and four of his assistants from 2012 through 2015 — the term in office of mayor, auditor and law director.

The legislation also required for the first time that all of those officials pay 10 percent of his or her health-care costs for the first time.

Councilman Al Novak sponsored the legislation, saying it was only fair that the elected officials and their nonunion appointed employees share in the pay freezes and health-care contributions that all unionized city workers have approved in their contracts.