Cop Contract: Health Savings, 13.5% Raises

New police officers who retire before serving 25 years on the force will have to wait until they turn 52 years old before they can start collecting city pension benefits.

Meanwhile, officers will get long-sought raises, including retroactive overtime payments.

Officials touted the pay hikes and cost savings contained in a new police contract, during a Monday afternoon victory lap press conference held on the second floor of City Hall.

The cause for celebration was last Friday’s 259 – 13 ratification vote of the new six-year police union contract by the members of Elm City Local. The contract now goes before the Board of Alders for final approval.

Like any successful negotiation, this one included ​“wins” for each side, as well as compromises. The two sides detailed those specifics at Monday’s press conference.

Overall, the six-year retroactive deal would finally give some predictability for officers who have been working for three years without a contract. It also halts a drawn-out arbitration process. Early signs are that it may also lessen an exodus of officers from the force.

Like many recent labor accords with municipal unions, this agreement would have the city trade pay raises for retirement and healthcare concessions, including requiring union members and their dependents to designate primary care physicians and get annual physicals.

If the Board of Alders approves the new contract, local officers will receive a cumulative 13.5 percent in pay raises through Fiscal Year 2021 – 2022 (FY22), which is the last year covered by the prospective deal.

Those salary increases would include a cumulative 8.5 percent in retroactive pay, to be disbursed in lump sums over the next three years. The payments would date back to when the current contract expired in July 2016. Chief Administrative Officer Sean Matteson said the pay increases will add around $10 million to the police budget over the six years of the contract.

The deal includes 100 percent retroactive reimbursement for overtime pay at the new higher rate. The union pushed for that provision during negotiations, and the city had sought a lower figure.

As for union concessions, the new contract would also impose a limit on the number of officers who can retire each year, as well as a retirement age minimum for officers with less than 25 years on the job.

Matteson and Labor Relations Director Tom McCarthy Monday laid out the key wins for the city in exchange for those pay raises. They said the document itself will become publicly accessible in full as soon as the mayor formally submits the proposed contract to the Board of Alders. Click here to read some of the details of the new contract, courtesy of a document obtained by Westville alder candidate Dennis Serfilippi..

“It’s not perfect,” Matteson said, ​“but it is a fair contract.”

One such measure will affect when newly hired police officers will be able to collect their pension benefits upon retirement.

Under the current contract, an officer becomes entitled to a pension after 10 years on the job. That pension increases significantly after that officer hits the 25-year mark working for the department.

If that officers decides to retire after 10 years but before 25 years, she can start collecting her pension benefits as soon as when she would have hit the quarter-century mark working for the department.

So, for example, if an officer who joined the force when she was 24 years old retires at 44 years old, she can start collecting her pension when she turns 49 — which is when she would have reached the 25-year mark, had she not retired.

Under the new deal, any officer who doesn’t have 25 years on the force has to wait until she turns 52 years old before she can start collecting pension benefits. This seemingly small change, Matteson said, will have dramatic cost-saving implications for the city’s Police and Fire Pension Fund (P&F), which is currently roughly 40 percent funded.

“If this rule had been in effect over the last five years,” he said, ​“the police and fire fund would have saved more than $20 million in payments.”

“The savings in this aspect of the contract alone,” Mayor Toni Harp said, ​“will pay dividends for the life of the contract and years beyond that.”

Matteson said that the new labor agreement also limits the number of officers who can retire any given year to 20. Last year, he said, around 18 officers retired. The year before that, another 18. The year before that, 34.

As with previous city labor contracts, the new agreement would create a Health Incentive Plan (HIP) that would require union members and their dependents to designate a primary care provider with Anthem, the city’s insurance provider, and to visit their doctors at least once per year for basic checkups.

If union members do not comply with the preventive health care measures starting July 2020, they will be charged an additional monthly fee of $50 for a single person, $75 for a couple, or $100 for a family.

“The settlement now, through the ratification vote last Friday, is one of relief,” Elm City Local President Florencio Cotto, Jr. said. ​“Members now can expect what they’re going to get.”

“The settlement,” he continued, ​“is one of joy.”

This deal, Interim Police Chief Otoniel Reyes agreed, sends ​“a resounding message to our officers that we care about them, that we respect the work that they do, that we honor the work that they do.”

Read an earlier version of this article below.

Police Union Contract Passes 259 – 13

City cops and City Hall put an end to a longstanding labor impasse as police union members voted overwhelmingly Friday in support of a new contract.

The six-year contract would give officers a cumulative 12.5 percent wage increase, with three of the years retroactive, along with 100 percent retroactive reimbursement for overtime pay at the new higher rate. The union had pushed for that latter provision.

After 12 hours of voting on the second floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., members of the police union, Elm City Local, voted 259 to 13 in support of the new contract.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m., and the final tally was announced at 7:33.

The newly ratified contract now moves to the Board of Alders for a final vote before going into effect and replacing the police union’s last five-year contract, which expired on June 30, 2016.

Friday’s ratification vote formally puts an end to the binding arbitration process that the union and the city had found itself in since last November as the two sides struggled to strike a new deal.

“I hope that this puts a three-year ordeal behind” the city’s rank-and-file union members, Elm City Local President Florencio Cotto, Jr. said after the final votes were tallied. ​“And gives the officers a better sense of stability.”

While Cotto and union Vice President Jonathan Lambe declined to disclose any of the specific terms of the deal before the ratified contract is formally submitted to the Board of Alders, Mayor Toni Harp did confirm in an email statement that the new contract includes retroactive pay increases for the union members.

“Today’s ratification vote completes marathon negotiations and an arbitration process to at last bring a labor accord to the city and its police officers union,” she said. ​“I’m pleased to know there’s retroactive compensation built into the agreement for the city’s hard-working policemen and women, and going forward, I’m confident its provisions will stem the trend of poaching from New Haven’s well-trained, exceptional police department.”

Cotto, who spent 13 hours at the department’s 1 Union Ave. headquarters on Friday as his fellow officers came in to cast their ballots, agreed that the new contract should put an end to the pay, healthcare, and pension uncertainty that the 352-member union has felt for the past three years and two months.

Fears of healthcare and pension givebacks have driven retirements and resignations from many senior members of the department, including former Chief Anthony Campbell. Higher pay and better benefits with suburban and Yale’s police departments have also driven officers from the NHPD, which offered a base starting pay under the last contract of $44,000 per year.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Cotto, a 13-year veteran of the NHPD who became the union president earlier this year.

“I think it makes us competitive with” police contracts in other Connecticut cities, like Bridgeport, Waterbury, and Hartford, he added. ​“I think, hopefully, people are now going to put us at the forefront when they’re applying to all the big cities. We’ll be put first.”

“In terms of pay,” Lambe said, ​“we feel that it will be more in line with the current market value.”

The few officers who spoke to the Independent as they cast their ballots before the polls closed at 7 expressed excitement, and relief, at the prospect of finally having a new contract.

“It’s definitely an improvement,” 31-year-old Officer Justin Harpe said.

“I think it’s the best deal we’ve seen in a long time,” said a 10-year NHPD veteran who declined to share her name.

“For the most part, for the majority, it came out as a good deal,” said Sgt. Rich Miller, who has served on the union’s executive board for the past 15 years.

Interim Police Chief Otoniel Reyes also told the Independent after the final tally just how grateful he is that the officers in his department finally have a new contract.

“Our officers risk their lives every single day in their selfless service to our community and deserve financial stability and peace of mind,” he said.

“The uncertainty of the contract over the past three years has been detrimental to the overall health of our department. I commend the men and women of the NHPD for their unwavering commitment to the mission and for honoring their oath, day in and day out, in spite of the uncertainties and the challenges our PD has faced over the past three years. I want to thank President Florencio Cotto and the members of the board for bringing this contract to fruition. I also want to thank Mayor Harp for demonstrating her commitment to public safety and honoring the sacrifices of the men and women in blue.”

Cotto said that the turning point for contract negotiations with the city came in May, after the mayor and the union held dueling press conferences, publicly slamming one another for acting in bad faith.

“We try not to play the politics side of it,” Lambe said when asked about how negotiations might have shifted once the expired contract became an election-year campaign vulnerability for the mayor. ​“We just want a competitive working contract for our membership.”

But, Cotto said, the tenor, urgency, and seriousness of negotiations did seem to shift after those May press conferences.

“I believe both sides from that moment, they took each other at their word,” he said. ​“They honestly came to the table and negotiated in good faith.”

While Cotto and Lambe did not disclose any terms of the agreement, including how long the ratified contract will last, the city has in other recently signed contracts with various municipal unions traded pay increases for healthcare cost-cutting concessions.

Those have included requiring all union members to participate in Health Incentive Plans (HIPs) as a means of identifying potentially costly and dangerous health conditions early on.

They have also included encouraging members to sign onto high-deductible, Health Savings Account (HSA) plans, which require higher employee contributions towards medical claims, but which can be less expensive, and more appealing for younger, healthier employees.

Right before Cotto and Lambe went into the police headquarters’ first-floor office space to read the final vote tally, the new union president reflected on the importance of finally having a new contract for the union members.

“It’s our livelihood,” Cotto said.