New Island Lake pact with police awaits ink

You get what you pay for.

A cliché, maybe, but one that resounded with Island Lake village board members who decided to hike police officers' pay in an effort to keep them from leaving to go to other forces.

"You have officers on the street who have the experience, who know the community," Trustee Fran Sadoski said. "You can't retain them without (high enough) salaries."

The village board recently OK'd a 4 percent per year pay raise for all 15 sworn officers in the Island Lake Police Department as part of a new, four-year contract, Sadoski said.

Acting Police Chief John Fellmann said the parties still must sign the new contract, which was approved by the board earlier this month.

"All that is left now is to put pen to paper and officially sign the peace treaty," Fellmann said. "We're just very happy to have (negotiations) concluded."

Trustee Rich Garling said the new contract also corrects some concerns the board had with the previous contract.

"We were able to better manage the forces that we have," Garling said, noting that the old contract allowed police officers to decide if a grievance filed against them would go into their personnel file or not.

Garling said there was also a flaw in the compensation time policy that allowed officers to accumulate overtime, turn it into comp time and sell their vacation days back to the village at the end of the year.

"The vacation time is there for a purpose," Garling said, noting that officers should use their vacation time to recharge and come back to work rested.

He said both sides benefited from the new labor contract.

"Overall, it was actually a good contract," Garling said. "It was a fair contract for everybody, I think."

Next, the village will work to create new contracts for sergeants and dispatchers.

"It's kind of a one thing at a time," Sadoski said, noting the board hopes to have those contracts completed before the end of the year.