Wasilla council to consider police contract

WASILLA — After more than a year of negotiations, Wasilla officials are a step closer to completing contract negotiations between the city and the union representing its police officers.

A public hearing on the matter is set for the June 13 Wasilla City Council meeting. Public safety is the largest portion of city’s budget, accounting for about 38 percent of the projected expenditures in the recently approved biennial budget. Of the approximately $7 million dollars spent on public safety, the two largest portions are $3.2 million for patrol officers and $2.5 million for police dispatchers. Dispatchers and patrol officers are both covered under collective bargaining negotiated by Teamsters Local 959, who did not return calls for comment.

The previous police contract expired in May 2015. Police officers have worked under the expired contract with the union until a new contract could be negotiated between the parties, according to city officials.

According to city documents, the proposed contract has a slew of changes. Some appear to be relatively minor tweaks, like a provision establishing a procedure for employees to submit a written request for a disciplinary hearing, and a provision allowing take-home cars to be used by employees living within 15 air miles of the city, instead of 30 road miles.

Other provisions appear to have sprung up in between the time the previous contract was signed and the negotiations that produced the latest contract. For example, the draft contract says city officials “will continue to offer two healthcare plans,” while the expired contract refers only to a single plan.

Another major provision allows for the city to switch the work schedule of patrol officers and dispatchers to include mandatory overtime, which mayor Bert Cottle said was intended for use in emergency situations.

Correspondence included with the proposed contract also hints at the nature of negotiations between city and union officials. Union members will find themselves entitled a retroactive pay raise equivalent to a step increase for all represented employees and an increase based on a three-year average of the Anchorage Consumer Price Index. In year two of the proposed contract, officials will get the three-year-average increase plus 2 percent. In year three, city officials will receive only the three-year average. On the same page laying out the pay increases and retroactive pay, the union agrees to withdraw a health care grievance.

Asked what that line referred to, Mayor Bert Cottle declined to comment about the particular details or nature of the grievance. Cottle said both city and union officials had made concessions during the negotiations.

“I think there’s been compromises on both sides,” he said.

The discussions have been conducted largely out of the public eye. Councilman Brandon Wall has pushed for negotiations with the union to be conducted in open sessions, and said asking for more open negotiations had resulted in delays.

“We’ve talked about that, and the more I talk to people on both sides of negotiations, it ended up not being a good idea, and may have actually hindered the negotiations,” he said.

Instead, the city administration will make a presentation about their objectives for future bargaining sessions before they begin, Wall said.

Ultimately, the process took too long, Wall said. He declined to specifically blame either union or Cottle administration officials.

“What I’m not very happy about is the negotiations have taken a year longer than the needed to take,” he said. “We have to pay for attorneys. We have to pay for our time city staff to go through a whole year of negotiations that should have been wrapped up in June 2015, not June 2016. I’m not very happy about that.”

If approved by the city council, the proposed contract will last until May 31, 2018.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.