Elk Grove Village approves police contract

Elk Grove Village officials Tuesday night inked a five-year contract with the police union guaranteeing a 4.25 percent raise in the first year for the department’s 68 officers.

The current police union contract is set to expire Saturday, April 30.

The new contract goes into effect Sunday, May 1. The 4.25 percent raise, which does not include step increases for new officers also amounting to 4.25 percent, ranks the village’s police department in 10th place among 20 neighboring departments in terms of wages, Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said.

“We’ve always kept them at ninth place,” Johnson said.

This year, due to a pay freeze the police wage ranking slipped to 16th place.

“This contract is a very fair contract for the employees, officers and the community,” Johnson said.

The department will eventually regain its ninth place ranking in years two through five of the contract. Salary increases in those years will be determined by surveying what neighboring police departments’ wages are at the time, Johnson added.

“We always felt our officers deserved to be in the top half of our surveyed communities,” Johnson said.

The towns of Arlington Heights, Elmhurst, Mount Prospect, Rolling Meadows, and Schaumburg are among the communities surveyed.

Negotiations that started six months ago ended with both parties signing the contract Tuesday night during the village board meeting.

“I think it’s a good contract,” said Officer Brian Lyp, who was on the police union’s negotiating team.

Lyp said neither side got what they wanted, to which Johnson added, “anytime you get a contract where both sides don’t get everything they want, that’s a good contract.”

The village’s 205 union employees and 105 nonunion workers voluntarily took a pay freeze, saving the village $850,000 in the current fiscal year ending Saturday. Their wages last increased in May 2009.

At a previous meeting, the village board sanctioned raises for nonunion employees as part of a $40 million operating budget for 2011-2012 that was also approved Tuesday. All nonunion employees, including rank and file and management, will receive 2.25 percent increases in their base pay, and up to an additional 1 percent merit increase, as of Sunday, May 1.

The remaining union employees — firefighters and public works — will get a 3.25 percent pay raise May 1 as guaranteed by their respective contracts, which they waived in 2010. The fire and public works unions have a year remaining on their contracts.

Employees who have been on the job 15, 20 and 25 years also will see their annual one-time longevity bonus checks increase by $25. The longevity bonus was put in place nearly 40 years ago as inducement to keep trained employees.

The employee raises will cost the village $723,000 in 2011. That’s because there are fewer employees since the village eliminated 38 positions this year through attrition and consolidation of jobs by merging departments.

Other cutbacks made this year include reducing special events spending, and deferring large purchases and replacing of aging equipment.

The village’s total budget decreased from $104 million to $84 million, and the operating budget has gone down from $42 million to $40 million in the last three years, officials said.