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Austintown trustees OK union contracts
By Elise Franco
Austintown
Township trustees approved new three-year contracts for the police and fire unions.
Trustees voted Monday to approve contracts through Dec. 31, 2012, that will give the two safety-services unions wage freezes, responsibility for a higher percentage of their health care and an annual $750 bonus.
“They’ll get the $750 bonus in each year of the contract,” said Mike Dockry, township administrator. “It’s part of the negotiations you come to when dealing with these issues.” He said the wage freeze is in effect for the duration of the contract with no reopener clause.
At the top of the police union pay scale, a lieutenant made $31.77 per hour in 2009. An officer with up to one year of experience made $21.71 per hour. In 2009, the annual salary for a fire captain was $58,639. A full-time, first-year firefighter’s annual salary was $28,840.
The unions also agreed to pay 50 percent of any health-insurance increase to their 2009 base rates. The unions already pay 10 percent of health-benefits costs.
For example, if an employee’s health care costs the township $600 per month, the employee pays 10 percent of that cost. If the rate were to increase to $800, the employee and the township would split the additional $200.
Dockry said the township will renew its premiums July 1.
He said this puts all of the unions on the same health-care plan.
“I don’t know of anybody in the public sector who will be paying what these folks are paying for health care,” Dockry said.
Contracts for the road, parks, zoning and clerical departments already have been ratified, and Dockry said trustees should be able to approve contracts for the dispatcher and part-time firefighters unions in about a month.