Police Patrolman Union.

Last week the Policeman's Patrolman Union invited all of the candidates for council to a candidates night.

There were many questions that had been asked and answered by all of us.
some about possible downtown parking meters (see previous post)-some about retirement funding issues- some were asking our thoughts on the possible charter changes and the possible effects of.

Well tonight I can tell you that they did not like my answers!

Tonight the Police Union is endorsing:
Rick Metts Councilor at Large
Joe Dichiario Council Dist #4
and they will not be endorsing either candidate from Dist 2 because they claim it was a close vote.
So, what can we take from this lack of endorsement??
Me and Hopfgarten are seemingly now on the same side- No endorsement
We both have experience with budgets at town level. interesting!
I did mention the bad "O" word while we were there.
I also think they did not like the fact that a town ordinance was not past this year.( I of course was chairman and so I'm the fall guy. ) This ordinance was proposed by yes, you guessed it The Police Patrolman's Union.
This information was in the Eagle tribune a couple of days ago and was quoted by the head of the Union as a win-win for the town. it goes something like this

The town passes an ordinance that mandates that a majority of the major roads details MUST hire an officer at $44/per hour. The officer would get $37/per hour as pay. a couple of dollars are allocated for retirement and the town would make the extra, therefore bringing in town revenue.
That's the Win-Win for the town according to the Union.

Right now we don't mandate that any company has to hire an officer, in fact if they so choose to could select to hire flagman for $17 per hr instead.
This option goes away with a town wide ordinance that they seek.

here's the issues that i see

Who chooses which officer gets what detail work?
You ask me what does that matter!
Is it the officers who are ready to retire that get the bulk of this detail????
So what, who cares the details are not paid by taxpayers anyway you say!
** this red type is added after learning how this actually gets done.
The officers are on a rotating basis for detail work and once at the top of the list, they decide if they want the detail or not and either way, the officer then goes to the bottom of the list. making this a fair and equitable way to handle this. No officer is given preferential treatment!

AHA

That's were you are wrong!

The closer to retirement age an officer is, he may get the bulk of the details, therefore making his last three years salary totals increase big time.( see above which was added after this post) Their retirement is based on their best 3 yrs salary,which would include OT, plus any extra detail dollars in that equation. So the higher the salary- the better the retirement will be.
Who pays for the retirement. Yes you guessed it US TAXPAYERS!
And we all know that there is a major problem with this system and it needs to be addressed before the towns go bankrupt.
The last 3 years as a councilor, the town was forced to pay 1.5 Million dollars out of our Unreserved Fund balance. With NO end in sight. It keeps growing!
That is unless of course, Concord ( reps ) and the towns can do some fixing!
Does it look like a win-win now????
After this post was completed- the police union has put their proposal online. I will provide the link for all to see what the proposal actually says.
http://www.derrypoliceunion.com/Documents/Proposed%20Detail%20Ordinance.doc


What do you! The taxpayers think!