Carpentersville sergeants on a health kick

The recently approved police contract for the eight Carpentersville sergeants includes a strong focus on physical fitness and incentives for not taking sick days.

As part of the contract, any police officer hired after Sunday who subsequently becomes a sergeant has to pass what’s known in police circles as the “power test.”

The physical agility test, the same one Illinois uses for would-be officers, measures strength and endurance through a 1.5-mile run, sit-ups, bench press and sit-and-reach tests.

The test is voluntary for any Carpentersville sergeant hired before Sunday. Authorities estimate it will take between five and 15 years before a new officer becomes a sergeant and takes the test.

There will be disciplinary consequences for those who fail the mandatory test multiple times that include a written warning and an unpaid suspension — a sergeant will not be terminated for flunking the test.

Village Manager J. Mark Rooney, who advocated the contract’s health focus, is a member of the U.S. Army Reserves and no stranger to physical fitness tests. He says healthy cops will avoid injury, save money in health care and workers’ compensation cases and obtain “physical confidence” to subdue suspects without the use of guns, batons and Tasers.

“It just makes them safer out there doing their job,” Rooney said.

If a medical condition prevents a sergeant from completing the test, the department and village would devise a special exam for that sergeant.

Now that the new contract is in place, sergeants on the job for at least 10 years can also put half of their unused sick days toward post-retirement health care costs. Sergeants receive 12 sick days a year and will get to bank six of them annually.

This will help cut down costs associated with shift coverages.

“You’re rewarding the guys who are not calling in sick,” said Sgt. Todd Shaver, president of the Metropolitan Alliance of Police Chapter 379 that represents the sergeants.

Also as part of the contract sergeants agreed to:

Ÿ Modest wage increases, namely nothing the first year, 2 percent the second year and 1 percent the final year. The three-year contract runs May 1, 2010, through April 30, 2013. So a first-year sergeant making $72,500 a year will make $73,940 the second year of the contract and $74,679.40 the final year.

Ÿ Take one less paid holiday. They used to get eight but they will only get seven.

Ÿ Cash in only one of their four personal days. They previously could have exchanged two.

Meanwhile, negotiations with the rank-and-file officers are expected to conclude this week.