Naperville, police union trade shots over contract

Naperville's police union says the city is threatening to “double-cross” its officers by discussing layoffs immediately after approving a new three-year contract agreement.

But city officials say union members were fully aware of the city's precarious financial situation and that the salary increases they were seeking likely would result in a reduction in force.

Attorneys for both sides are calling the positions of their counterparts “disingenuous.”

The new contract provides officers with combined raises of more than 9 percent over the next three years. That includes annual wage increases of 3.3 percent for 2009-10 and 3 percent in both 2010-11 and 2011-12.

It also calls for a 50 percent increase in police personnel health insurance premium contributions, from 10 percent to 15 percent of the total premium cost.

The pact is retroactive to May 1, 2009, and runs through April 30, 2012.

The agreement was reached after nearly 18 months of talks and on the eve of a binding arbitration hearing, officials said. The arbitrator signed off on it as a “consent award.”

The contract, approved behind closed doors by the city council in a 6-3 vote, was announced late Thursday by City Manager Doug Krieger.

But Krieger triggered a firestorm by saying the pact resulted in “wage increases beyond what we wanted to pay or believe we can reasonably afford.”

He suggested the new contract could force the financially strapped city to lay off some police officers.

Union officials said they were shocked to learn the city would consider layoffs within days of approving a contract that the city itself proposed.

Tamara Cummings, general counsel for Fraternal Order of Police Local 42, said the pact was based “on the city's proposal on wages and insurance, not the union's.”

She said Krieger's claims that the salary increases go beyond the city's ability to pay are “disingenuous and blatantly misleading.”

Both Cummings and FOP President Vince Clark said the possibility of layoffs never was raised at the bargaining table.

“The point is they have a duty and obligation to negotiate things such as layoffs,” Cummings said Friday.

If the city pursues layoffs, she said, the union will, at a minimum, file charges with the Illinois Labor Relations Board and could seek recourse from the courts.

She said it's too early to formulate specific plans, “because we're sort of on the defense here.”

Clark said the union actually accepted two contract offers from the city and both included similar salary increases.

The first proposal was for a two-year deal with no increase in officers' insurance costs. Even though that proposal came from the city's bargaining team, it was rejected by the city council in closed session, he said.

The city then came back with the three-year offer that increases officers' insurance premiums and it was that contract both sides aproved.

Cummings said the city made no mention of possible layoffs.

She said union members entered the contract in good faith and the city now “seeks to double-cross them, breach the spirit of their agreement and break the law in Illinois by laying off those same police officers who entered into the agreement in good faith and in the best interests of all concerned in Naperville.”

“They set us up to fail,” Clark said Friday. “It's just a game. They wanted this signed, they got it. They wanted these wages, they got it.”

“We're blatantly disappointed by the ethics of the city.”

City attorney Margo Ely, however, said the union was well aware of the city's budget deficit, currently estimated at $5 million for the fiscal year beginning May 1. It also was aware of staff reductions citywide over the past two years.

“The city's financial situation is not a secret,” she said.

In addition, she said the union knew the city does not have the revenues necessary to provide pay increases for police officers that far outstrip those available to other city employees.

Ely, who was not at the bargaining table, said the city and its labor attorney, Dwight Pancottine, made that all clear and “never once did the FOP ask, ‘How are you going to pay for this?'”

“Public safety will be a primary concern” before any layoffs are made, she said, “but to the extent that we end up with wages we can't afford” some reductions are likely.

The police contract talks began about 18 months ago and included work with a federal mediator.

When the talks were taken to arbitration, both sides faced different risks because the arbitrator would be forced to accept either the union's or city's proposals with no middle ground.

Clark, however, says the city is hiding behind the arbitrator who signed off on the deal.

“This is a double-cross to turn around and make us look like the bad guys,” he said.