St. Charles on verge of inking new contract with police

St. Charles' goal of completing negotiations on a new police contract should be reached in a couple weeks if everything goes according to plan.

The city won't make the details of the contract public until Wednesday, but officials confirmed this week that negotiations have concluded and the police union has approved the proposal.

All that remains if for the city council to take a vote on the contract Aug. 17. If the council votes to approve, then the city and the police union will officially ink the deal.

The deal would be another feather in the city's cap of what's been a year of packed with successful contract negotiations.

Public Works employees and electrical workers struck a deal with the city in March to take a wage freeze in exchange for a guarantee of no layoffs for the next year. Firefighters agreed to a similar deal in May that included tacking on another year to the current contract in trade for maintaining the current use of paid-on-call firefighters for another year.

The signing of a new police contract will leave just one labor issue on the city's radar. The city's police sergeants have attempted to form their own union, a process the city is still fighting. At this point, negotiations with the sergeants have ceased, and the matter is headed to binding arbitration.