Carol Stream trustees ink contract with police union

Carol Stream trustees have signed a new three-year contract with the police union representing 52 patrol officers.

Annual pay raises in the pact, retroactive to May 1, 2015, are expected to cost the village roughly $392,000 during the life of the deal.

The previous contract with the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council expired at the end of April 2015. Negotiations began that June and "took a hiatus" later that year because of uncertainties with the state budget and the potential loss of state funding, Assistant Village Manager Bob Mellor said.

"We both understood what the situation was," said Mellor, adding that it was "best to wait it out a little."

"Discussions with the union proceeded amicably throughout negotiations and involved a significant cooperative effort between the village and union employees to develop terms and conditions that are both fair and beneficial to both sides," Mellor wrote in a memo to the board.

Union members will receive 3 percent pay increases in each of the first two years of the new contract, retroactive to May 1, 2015, and May 1, 2016.

Officers also will get a 3.25 percent pay raise on May 1, 2017.

Those increases include "equity pay adjustments" designed to align their salaries with those of police in comparable DuPage County departments.

For the current fiscal year, officers at the bottom of the pay scale received $63,244.78, while those at the top got $91,223.47.

The contract will run through April 30, 2018.