HOWELL – The Township Council has ratified a new contract between the municipality and the Howell Policemen’s Benevolent Association (PBA).
The council ratified the contract during a special meeting on Sept. 26.
Ryan Hurley, a state delegate for Howell PBA Local 228, and Chris Nagy, president of Local 228, negotiated the agreement on behalf of the patrolmen and detectives who are employed in the Howell Police Department. The starting salary for a patrolman will remain around $35,000.
The union’s members had been working under the terms of a contract that expired on Dec. 31, 2016.
During the meeting, resident Barbara Dixel spoke on behalf of “Howell’s finest” and praised the legacy of the police department.
“From Police Chief Harvey Morrell, who was the founder and first chief of the police department, to Police Chief Ronald Carter, to Police Chief Andrew Kudrick, the Howell Police Department is among the most professional, most dignified and most respected police departments in our United States.
“If other police departments would take a lesson from Howell in professional conduct, professional work ethics, respect for their job and (respect) for the citizens they are hired to protect, this country would be a safer place to live in,” Dixel said, adding that “Howell’s finest are our lifeline.”
“From emergencies of all kinds, to crime scenes, to traffic congestion, to traffic accidents, to drug busts and saving lives, to student education in our schools, to seeing that our 63 square rural miles are safe to live in, Howell’s finest are on the job at a moment’s notice,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Rob Nicastro, Councilman Bob Walsh, Councilwoman Evelyn O’Donnell and Councilwoman Pauline Smith voted yes on a motion to approve the new contract and Mayor Theresa Berger voted yes, adding “absolutely.”
“It is always beneficial for the town to ensure our police department knows how much we value their services. Howell is blessed with a chief of police who is forward thinking, our police department is exemplary,” Berger said.
At one point during the negotiations, municipal officials filed a petition seeking arbitration in an attempt to reach an agreement with the PBA.
In August, PBA representatives asked the council to withdraw that petition and to continue negotiating directly with the union. Slightly more than a month later, after two more mediation meetings between the two sides, the new contract was announced.
The union thanked residents for their support in a Facebook post on Sept. 27, saying, “Howell PBA Local 228 would like to take a moment to thank all of the residents, people and businesses we serve 24 hours a day in Howell. Thank you for your ongoing support. Our officers would never be able to accomplish their objectives without your help. We give back to our community all year long, but we can only get it done by having you behind us. Thank you.”
The new contract will run from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2019. The PBA was able to negotiate a 1.25 percent raise on the top pay only, which goes into effect Jan. 1 of each year. Employees hired after Jan. 1, 2018, will not receive some of the benefits current officers have, including longevity pay and an education incentive, according to Hurley.
“(Longevity pay) is a retention pay, it is to retain employees. You invest so much money into them by training them, sending them to the police academy and then getting them up to speed and proficient at being police officers that an employer would not want to lose an employee they have invested so much in, to another agency,” Hurley said.
He said that through negotiations, the union was able to limit the elimination of longevity pay to new hires. A new hire would not have had a longevity payment until his 11th year, which would have been 2029.
“That is why I think it is just a little absurd that the (council) wanted it in there. This is not something that is going to help taxpayers now,” he said.
New hires after Jan. 1, 2018, will not be eligible to receive an education incentive.
“We encourage all our officers to seek higher education and go back to school … it was paid after the fact, so you would have to foot the bill on your own and after you graduated or proved you passed the classes you took, then you would get an incentive paid back, but now it is completely eliminated,” Hurley said.
The new contract also eliminates one holiday for new hires after Jan. 1, 2018.
“We do not take the days off, we take them as pay, so really they are eliminating a portion of our pay by taking a holiday away, but we were able to retain what we had for our current employees, but for new hires (after Jan. 1, 2018) they will lose one of the holidays and one holiday equates to about one-half of 1 percent of our pay,” he said.
All of the PBA members are bound to leave their current healthcare program, Direct10, and enroll in Direct15 which will carry a higher copay and a higher deductible, according to the union representatives.
Hurley said the new agreement creates “haves” and “have nots” in the police department, with some employees receiving benefits that other employees will not receive.
He said the new contract “is the worst one we have had in about two decades. We work in a great town and we have community support. We have the support of our business owners and property owners and I think that has always shown in contracts we have settled, and we have been able to negotiate things very fairly between the township and the PBA over the years until this one.”
Hurley said “this is not terrible” and said the officers are “still in great shape,” but he expressed concern that years from now the individuals who are hired in and after 2018 will be the officers negotiating contracts on behalf of the union and will remember they were denied some of the benefits their predecessors enjoyed.