2.5% Annual Pay Hike for City Police
New Contract Approved by Council
from staff reports
LOCK HAVEN – There were congratulations all around as City Council Monday night gave its okay to a new 4-year contract with city police officers.
Council approval followed a similar okay earlier from the Lock Haven Police Officers Association.
City Mayor Rick Vilello told The Record he’s been involved in five contract negotiations with police officers and said there had been more progress made this time around than in any other. He termed the pact “good for the police and good for the city.”
Force members other than the chief will be getting a 2.5 percent pay hike each year for four years, effective as of Jan. 1, 2014.
The current pact, to expire at the end of December, had included a 3 percent pay increase.
The new contract will see member officers paying more for their health insurance, 4 percent of the premiums next year, ending at 5.75 percent in 2017, the final year of the new accord.
Force members will also see four personal days per year, up from the present three per year, but with restrictions on the days they may be taken.
City administrators and other non-union personnel are due a retroactive pay increase of 2.5% for 2013.
City council Monday night continued the council tradition of approving the retroactive pay increases to the first of the year. The 2.5% raises are the same as in 2012.
Mayor Rick Vilello said the percentage figure is less than city police bargaining team members are receiving this year but slightly more than the negotiated hike with city AFSCME union employees.
The council approval on Monday was on first reading; a second and final reading is scheduled for Oct. 7.
Employees covered include city administrators and non-union hourly personnel.
Prior to the meeting the city used its adjacent municipal parking lot to showcase some of the new equipment purchased as part of a $1.94 million borrowing package approved earlier this year.
Items on display included a $160,000 street sweeper, replacing a 1983 model, and a leaf-collecting vehicle costing $140,000.
Vilello told the Record Oct. 4 is the closing date for city acquisition of the old PennDOT garage in the city’s hill section.
Purchase price for that facility behind Bob McCormick Ford is $327,000. Vilello said the city’s streets and parks division will be the first relocated to the new city holding; other city operations will be relocated over the next year to year and a half, the mayor said, city police the last to move.
He also said interest has been expressed in purchase and development of the current city maintenance acreage at Walnut and Park Streets.
Funding for purchase of the old PennDOT facility is also coming from the city’s borrowing package.
