Police accuse township of ‘stonewalling' in contract negotiations

Byram - Claiming that the administration is not dealing fairly in its contract negotiations with municipal employees, Byram police officers are asking the council for help. While specific details of the proposed contracts have not been released, Police Benevolent Association spokesman John Hulse claimed at last week’s meeting of the council, that the township’s position includes a four percent pay cut as well as an overall reduction in the compensation package. Going before the township council, Hulse said the township is refusing to allocate funds to increase municipal salaries, chosing instead to spend money on other less crucial projects. “How do we convince our members to stay calm when they read the papers every day and see the town spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on projects like bike paths, soccer fields, study after study on Route 206, while at the same time trying to cut our salaries by nearly 4 percent? That’s a tough pill to swallow for anyone,” said Hulse while addressing council members. Contract negotiations for the police, the Department of Public Works, clerical workers and administrators have been going on for several months, but according to Hulse, the process has hit a brick wall. “What we had hoped would be a speedy process with both sides being reasonable, has come to a grinding halt after five months,” said Hulse. “Faced with the town’s stonewalling tactics, the PBA was left with no choice but to request the assistance of a state arbitrator. We came into this hoping to deal honestly and fairly but that hasn’t happened.” The cancellation of the talks by the police union came as a surprise to the municipality’s point person in the negotiations: Township Manager Gregory Poff, who believed the process was moving along normally. “I was under the impression that everything was proceeding smoothly. I thought we were negotiating in a friendly manner,” said Poff. “To say that the township was not willing to sit down and talk to them was surprising. They made the decision to stop negotiations with the town and apply for an arbitrator.” Poff was also taken aback by PBA claims that the township is looking to cut salaries. “I don’t know what Mr. Hulse was referring to with regards to a 4 percent decrease,” said Poff. “In some situations there are calls for wage increases. I do not know where these figures he quoted came from.” The township is looking for changes in the overall compensation and benefits package specifically in the areas of health care and longevity compensation. Currently, municipal employees and their families receive health coverage at no cost to them. But with dramatic increases in the costs of health care over the past few years, Poff said, the township can no longer bare the entire burden. “Health care costs have increased 50 percent in the last four years. This is not a matter of eliminating health benefits but we need some help from our employees to realize some cost savings,” he said. In addition, Poff explained, the township is looking to eliminate salary increases automatically granted to employees which are not based on performance or merit, but on years of service only. The township has recently spent significant amounts of money on acquisition of open space land, park improvements and designs for Route 206 and the Village Center. Despite the PBA contention that the monies spent could have been used to compensate the police, Poff says those funds did not come out at the expense of municipal employees. “Most of the projects were grants the township has received or dedicated funding other than municipal tax,” explained Poff. “The dedicated tax to fund open space was approved in a referendum by the residents of Bryam.” Despite the fact that the guidelines for the contract under negotiation were provided to the township manager by the council, Hulse hopes council members will now intervene. “We are confident in the council, we are not at war with the council,” said Hulse. “We were here to let them know we have some problems. They are the ones we vote for. This situation is very demoralizing to our members.” Only the police and fire departments are affected by arbitration. Those contract negotiations will now be put on hold until an arbitrator, recommended by the state, can be agreed upon by both sides. According to Poff the contract talks with all other municipal employees is continuing without any substantial interruption or problems.