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Campbell cops to get first raises in 8 years
CAMPBELL
City police will see their first raises in eight years because city council has accepted a factfinder’s recommendation for increases in their current three-year contract.
The pact was settled last year but was reopened only for wage talks. Arguments before a state factfinder took place last month.
Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday that OKs 2.96-percent raises for seven officers hired after 2005. That raise is retroactive to March 2012 and continues through 2014.
For six officers who were hired before Oct. 17, 2005, the contract calls for two lump-sum payments of $1,000 in 2013. One patrol officer and one cadet whose wages are lowest will see an additional 3.96-percent raise in 2014.
Retroactive to March 1, all bargaining unit members will be paid from $30,598 a year for a cadet to $36,700 a year for a senior patrolman.
The city has been in fiscal emergency since 2004. It argued in hearings before the factfinder that it’s in no position to give raises.
City Law Director Brian Macala said council would give up control of the situation completely if it voted not to accept the factfinder’s report.
He said the issue would go to an arbitrator from the State Employment Relations Board, and the arbitrator’s decision would be binding.
“We’re mitigating damages,” said Council President George Levendis.
The raises will cost the city $43,175 next year and $46,816 a year beginning in 2014 and thereafter. The factfinder stayed within a general-fund budget surplus of $59,758 when he factored the cost of the raises, said Campbell Finance Director Mike Evanson.