Board of Aldermen
February 23, 2016 Page 12
Alderman Cookson
That’s a possible explanation, thank you for that.
Attorney Bennett
It’s the best guess | can give you.
Alderman Cookson
It’s creative. Vacation, you can calculate overtime based on vacation? | just wish this would have been
discussed more.
President McCarthy
| think, Alderman Cookson, what those are used for is to calculate the straight time that leads up to the total
time after which vacation is approved overtime is approved. So if I’ve taken 5 days of vacation and |’m to my
40 hours for the week by the vacation and then I’m called into work the next day then that day counts as
overtime because | have 40 hours that is already accounted for. | think that all of those things fall into that
category essentially.
Alderman Cookson
None of these existed prior to this particular contract. How was overtime calculated prior to and why is this a
benefit to this contract.
Attorney Bennett
In fact that’s exactly how overtime has been calculated in the past. That is incorporating the process they used
prior to this and they just put it into the contract this time.
Alderman Cookson
So they are just codifying it?
Attorney Bennett
Correct, they are not new categories, in fact the police UAW contract included the exact same categories
under their overtime.
Alderman Dowd
This contract was approved unanimously at the Budget Review Committee. Also the last time that the
patrolmen’s contract came through the similar raises were approved because we were having trouble retaining
police officers and the cost of replacing them was excessively high because all of the surrounding communities
were paying more, at least the way | remember it. Those raises were presented, the “me too” is to maintain
the separation between the supervisors and the patrolmen. That’s the reason that these are the percentages
that they are at. With all that is going on relative to the crime and the drug traffic here locally | for one would
not prefer to see the supervisor's being concerned about trying to take this to court or arbitration, I’d rather
them be concentrating on what’s going on in the streets and preventing crime.
