10-24-16 Health and Public Safety

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consistency and good reasoning behind the goals and objectives that were wished to be desired across the bargaining table. The proposed ordinance before the Council is a four (4) year deal that sets forth between two percent (2 %) and two point five percent (2.5 %) increases over the next four (4) years. It also reflects the goals Chief Ruszkowski set forth that stressed recruitment, retainment, and reward. As a part of that, the Chief and his staff worked very closely with Mr. Glowacki, who did a ton of work on this deal, to achieve those goals. There have been shift incentives placed into the deal in light of the fact that we have two hundred and forty -one (24 1) men and women serving our Department with eighty (80) officers that could retire next year that have met the twenty (20) year requirements. She turned the presentation over to the Administration representatives to further elaborate on the deal's provisions. Committee Chair Voorde interjected by stating it is important to remember to look at the entire package and not just the salary increase percentage because there are many things in the package that will increase pay for officers that is not calculated into that bottom line. Stephanie Steele, Assistant City Attorney with offices on the 12th Floor of the County -City Building, stated as was said we came into the bargaining with recruitment, retainment, and reward in mind. The agreement was ratified by the FOP and we have received very good feedback from the employees who appreciated the areas of improvement we focused on especially bringing salaries up to par with our neighboring communities. It is a four (4) year agreement and we are focused on that to provide some stability and predictability going into the year 2020. In this agreement we accomplished several things. First we have removed the Patrolman Third Class status, officers now can come in at Patrolman Second Class which makes us more competitive with other area police departments. Together with different incentives we are providing, gives us the same salary bracket as other departments that are nearby. With the idea of retention in mind, we have created different incentive categories beginning with officers who have been with the force for four (4) to nine (9) years and going all the way to officers who have more than twenty (20) years. These are incentives that will create more of a pull to stay and share the knowledge they have gained over the years. We have increased critical duty days from seven (7) to eight (8) which acknowledges for them the holidays that other employees are able to get. We also included an incentive for sign language efficiency which was suggested by Council Attorney Cekanski- Farrand. With the goal of rewarding in mind, we have really taken a look at what were the needs of the Department and where do we want more officers to stay. We have put a lot of the incentives into the second and third shifts which experience a higher volume of the higher crime than some of the other shifts. We have also increased the pay for the field training officers, with the idea in mind that we want to reward those who are doing a wonderful job training the new officers. Other incentives include the military incentive pay. This agreement will meet our three (3) goals. Ken Glowacki, South Bend Police Director of Financial Services with offices at 701 West Sample, stated he would speak about the reasons behind the different incentives. Right now the number of sworn officers is at two hundred and forty -one (241), we had budgeted two hundred and fifty (250). Going forward we know we are going to lose eight (8) officers next year who are in the drop plan, this makes it imperative to try to retain the officers we have. Eighty (80) officers have more than twenty (20) years of experience who could retire at virtually any time. We need to put incentives behind our experienced officers to get them to stay on the force while 2