Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano police lieutenants will go to 12-hour work days next month after approval Tuesday by the Common Council, but union patrol officers who were expected to do the same are still negotiating the issue.
The Shawano Professional Police Association has been without a new contract since the end of the year after a hangup over contract language associated with the new 12-hour schedule, according to city officials.
The council in January approved a letter of agreement with the police union that would have extended the terms of the existing contract but would have also allowed a move to 12-hour work days.
Under the existing schedule, officers work 7 1/2-hour shifts for six days in a row before getting three days off.
Under the proposed 12-hour shifts, officers would work two days in a row, followed by two days off, then three days on and two days off, followed by two days on and three days off.
City Administrator Brian Knapp said the city believed the agreement was acceptable to the union when it was approved by the council in January, but both sides have not been able to reach agreement since then over language issues.
Knapp said the city is still in negotiation with the union over a new contract beginning in 2017 that “may or may not” include the 12-hour shift schedule.
Knapp said the new schedule for the union is “off the table” for 2016.
In spite of that uncertainty, the city went ahead with plans to offer the department’s three non-represented lieutenants the same shift schedule that had been offered to the union.
The lieutenants will work an additional 130 hours a year under the new schedule, putting in 2,080 hours instead of 1,950, but at the same hourly rate of pay as previously approved.
“It gives us more supervisory time and it extends to the lieutenants more (days) off,” Knapp said. “And it should result in better supervision of the shifts that we do have.”
The agreement with the lieutenants was approved by a vote of 5-1, with Alderman Bob Kurkiewicz objecting.
“Are we putting the cart in front of the horse with this?” Kurkiewicz said, noting that the union hasn’t yet accepted the new schedule.
Kurkiewicz also objected to the additional expense of roughly $13,000 a year that had not been budgeted and would have to come out of the city’s fund balance to pay for the extra hours.
Knapp noted that the council approved spending as much as $80,000 for additional hours for the entire police force, including the lieutenants, in January when it was thought the union would accept the new schedule even though that amount also hadn’t been included in the budget.
“Now we’re talking about simply rolling it back to only $13,000 for three individuals,” he said.
“I’m not saying they’re not worthy of it, I’m just questioning the process and the way we’re following it,” Kurkiewicz said. “Is this an area where I feel comfortable spending the contingency fund? Not at all. I think this is something that should go through the budgeting process.”
Alderman Woody Davis, who chairs the finance committee, said the committee spent a great deal of time going through negotiations with the Police Department.
“We came down to the idea that this was the proper thing to do; that this was the right decision,” he said. “There were changes being made in the department — different hours, different times — and we simply felt this was the proper thing to do.”
Knapp said the lieutenants and Police Chief Mark Kohl had also requested the city consider the change.
“There would seem to be enough benefits, morale and supervision wise, to justify it,” he said.
Alderwoman Rhonda Strebel said the new schedule was also intended to help address the wage compression issue between patrol officers and lieutenants.
“Compression has been a big issue for many years,” she said. “We’ve been slowly chipping away at it. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re finally starting to make some headway so that there is a difference between the represented and the nonrepresented police force.”
Strebel said the wage compression issue “severely affects the morale and the leadership in that department.”