The Plattsburgh Common Council has approved a new contract with the city’s police union.
Plattsburgh Police Local 812 of Law Enforcement Officers Union Council 82 have been working without a contract for five and a half years, with their last contract expiring on January 1st, 2017. At Thursday evening’s meeting the Plattsburgh Common Council approved a new contract through 2025 that also provides retroactive wage increases.
Local President T.J. Rabideau says they’ve worked on a new contract with several different mayors over the years.
“We just never came to an agreement and at this point we were able to reach that agreement through mediation with the city at this point.”
The contract includes a 1.5 percent pay increase retroactive to 2017, which is applicable for those who have retired or become disabled. The back pay will be paid in two installments totaling $1.7 million.
Mayor Chris Rosenquest said the biggest challenge in finalizing the contract was setting a fair pay rate that will retain and attract employees.
“When we came to look at what was fair, when we looked at making sure that they got raises that brought them up to some reasonable wage that’s a good working standard of living wage here in the region, we felt that the 1.5 percent increases paid retroactively back to 2017 was fair. Moving forward we understand that getting people in the door is a challenge. So we looked at increasing that bottom one-two year entry level pay to be more attractive as well as a small very minor increase in retention and longevity starting around year eight.”
Rabideau says the wages are the most important elements of the new contract.
“We’ve put in there raises to improve the starting wages and we’ve also improved wages for officers who have been there for several years. So it’s basically a contract that will help us be to more competitive with our other agencies and hopefully that will allow us to recruit some good police officers to come work for us at our department.”
While the Common Council voted unanimously to approve the contract, there was some criticism of the process. Ward 3 Democrat Elizabeth Gibbs says she is glad there is a new contract, but says she did not receive the documents in a timely fashion.
“I’m happy to support the labor contract but I have to know what I’m voting on. I absolutely support the police department. There are a lot of people in that police department that have jobs because of me. Management has a structure because of what I fought for. And I am absolutely pro-labor. But we have to have the information and we, I did not have that information as of Tuesday night. And I like to make sure that I know what I’m voting on. I still have some questions but I feel that taken as a whole it is better to ratify it and if it is being presented it is the best version that we are going to bring together on the table.”
Mayor Rosenquest countered there was ample opportunity for any city councilor to get the information.
“The lion’s share of the work and the details of the contract had been shared throughout this process. The financial impact was well known and that had been talked about since certainly I came on and even before I came on. You know my door remains open and I have monthly one-on-one meetings with councilors. We have the Mayor Pro Tem meeting once a week and Mayor Pro Tem pushes out all of this information in his weekly reports as well.”
Union members will receive their retroactive pay in two segments: the first at ratification and the second at the beginning of the next fiscal year in January 2023.
