City, police union close in on collective bargaining agreement

After nearly two years of back-and-forth, the City of Springfield and the local Springfield Police Officers' Association are now close to a mutually agreeable collective bargaining agreement, according to a news release from the city.

The city and the police union began collective bargaining in March of 2013. In September, the city and the union reached a tentative agreement on all articles of the collective bargaining agreement, except wages.

The issue went to an arbitration hearing in January, and the arbitrator issued a clarified recommendation on the wage issue on Tuesday. The Springfield City Council voted to accept that recommendation on Friday.

Next up, the union members will vote Monday on whether or not to ratify the collective bargaining agreement.

If the collective bargaining agreement is ratified by the union, it will go before city council on Tuesday to decide if the agreement will be adopted.

The release says that in general, the arbitrator made the following recommendations about police wages:

•Fiscal Year 15: A wage and benefit increase equivalent to an annualized 1.08 percent given to some union members effective April 1, 2015.

•Fiscal Year 16: Equivalent of a 3.5 percent increase used for adjusting some salary steps and 0.827 percent across-the-board increase. No merit steps will be funded for union members during Fiscal Year 16. Effective July 1, 2015.

•Fiscal Year 17: Equivalent of a 3.5 percent increase used to fund merit steps. The remaining funds will be used to fund an across-the-board increase to reach the 3.5 percent total increase.

City council had the option on Friday of accepting the recommendation or instructing the parties to continue negotiations, according to the release.

The ordinance would go into effect upon passage by City Council and expire June 30, 2017, the release says.

City council approved the first collective bargaining agreement in the history of the City of Springfield in October 2014, when it approved an agreement with the Southern Missouri Professional Fire Fighters Local 152, the release says. Previously, the city underwent a process with all employee bargaining groups known as meet and confer, which was more informal and was revisited annually.