Morristown Approves Police Contract, Salaries for Elected Officials

After a long negotiation period, the governing body and Morristown PBA Local 43 have come to a consensus and signed a three-year contract. PBA Local 43 includes about 37 police officers

“We negotiated a three-year contract. The cost of living adjustments are under 2 percent, are about 1.9 percent, for those three years,” said Morristown business Administrator Michael Rogers. “We had some other structural changes that were made, including longevity and step structure, which I think will save taxpayers quite a bit of money over those years. I think it was a good contract.”

He added that the cost-of-living adjustments are about 2 percent “better than the years that was about 4 percent. In 2013, salary range is from $52,739 to $93,359. Rogers said that there are two important changes made to this contract:

• For patrol officers hired on or after January 1, 2012, there is a new step structure that increases the top-level salary step from six (6) to eight (8) years.  In addition, for employees subject to this new step structure, no step salary increase will occur in year 2013.

• Patrol officers hired on or after January 1, 2012 will be subject to a new longevity schedule.  The new schedule increases the first year of eligibility from the 4th to 5th year, and every 5 years thereafter instead of every 4 years.  Further, the highest longevity percentage decreases from 6% to 5%.  Thus, considering only the seven (7) patrol officers hired after January 1, 2012 and factoring in no future cost of living adjustments to base salary, conservative projected savings from this amendment is about $125,000 over a 25 year period.

“We ultimately got to an agreement that no one’s really happy with, but it was to avoid arbitration, and I think we got a good contract here,” said Rogers. “It’s definitely a better contract for the taxpayers.”

The council also approved compensation for the mayor and council members. Here are their annual salary amounts:

• Mayor Tim Dougherty—$26,042
• Council members—$9,676
• Council President Michelle Dupree Harris—$10,676

The ordinance is attached to this Patch article. Check back with Patch for more details on the police contract.