Police union, city make progress

Kalispell and its police union made some headway during a contract negotiating session on Wednesday, but a final agreement is not yet in place.

City Manager Jane Howington offered a compromise that the Kalispell Police Association accepted.

It will result in police officers getting a slight bump in pay when they take vacation time and holidays when scheduled to work swing or graveyard shifts.

The extra pay will not be applied to personal days, sick time or compensatory time.

Officers currently get paid 75 cents extra per hour when working swing shifts and $1.50 extra when working graveyard. But they don’t get the extra pay when they take vacation time or holidays. Instead they are paid as if working day shift, even if they currently are working swing or graveyard.

The city plans to go to a shift bid process.

The city didn’t budge from its previous offer of a 1.3 percent longevity increase for the 31 police officers. Howington said that will result in the city spending an additional $21,000 for fiscal year 2012 budget.

She added that she didn’t see a difference between cost-of-living increases and longevity pay increases because both result in higher base pay.

Police union attorney Matthew Thiel said he wants to keep pace with the seven other largest cities in the state.

The union originally asked for a 3-percent cost-of-living increase and reduced that request to 2.5 percent last month.

“Right now, we have no more ability to pay. We will probably have to do catch-up at some point,” Howington said.

Another issue the city will have to pay more for later is correcting a situation where some police officers and firefighters are paid more than their supervisors.

The city and union agreed to meet again on June 29. The current contract expires June 30.