Photo by Alexis Tarrazi

By Alexis Tarrazi
Senior Reporter

CARLSTADT (June 16, 2009, 2:20 p.m.) — Amid a budget storm that at one point had a 22-percent hike in municipal taxes on the table, the Carlstadt Mayor and Council unanimously voted at their June 4 caucus meeting to extend the police department’s contract another four years.

The contract was up for negotiation in September, but the council decided to act now to dovetail the decision with the current budget talks. “We are happy because this provided us with an opportunity to negotiate furlough, retirement and give-backs,” Councilman Joseph Crifasi said. “They had something we wanted and we had something they wanted.”

Specifically, the council extended the police contract from 2010 to 2013. Prior to this decision, police employees were furloughed, several officials retired and two officers were laid off.

For the first two years of the new contract, the police will receive a 3-percent increase. The latter two years, they will a 4-percent increase. “The contract negotiations went very smooth and very quick,” Councilman Dennis Ritchie said, adding that by facilitating the negotiations now the mayor and council avoided arbitration.

“No one is fully satisfied with it,” Ritchie concluded. “But when both sides are not as happy, it usually means it is a fair deal.”

Arbitration

Local municipalities have proved that the police arbitration process can be a gamble.

North Arlington police wanted a flat 5-percent increase for each year in their contract, while the borough sought to give a zero-percent increase for the first year; 2-percent raise the second; and 2.5-percent increase the third.

After waiting for more than one year for the arbitrator’s decision, North Arlington police ended up receiving an average of 3.8 percent more per year.

Rutherford police are still in arbitration.

Russ Snyder, president of the Rutherford Police Benevolent Association, said he couldn’t talk much about the details since the police and borough are still negotiating. “On our end, we weren’t looking for anything,” Snyder said. “Basically, we were just looking to extend the contract we already had.”

The borough countered with a different offer. “They came back with an extremely unreasonable offer,” he said.

Since an agreement could not be made between the two parties, the situation moved to arbitration. An arbitrator has yet to make a decision as of press time.

Curtailing overtime

In another budget move, Carlstadt council members voted to cut back police overtime at court hearings. Borough Administrator Jane Fontana noted that 90 percent of the overtime accumulated throughout the year, approximately $40,000, stems from court appearances.

To help cut costs, the council unanimously voted to have officers only appear at major cases or second hearings of tickets. Additionally, the council asked the court secretary to take into account the police officers’ schedules to avoid them coming in on days off.

“It’s logical,” Crifasi said at the meeting. “For example, with a $25 sweeper ticket, if someone comes up here to argue when the sweeper came and an officer is here for four hours overtime, whether they pay the ticket or not, we just paid an officer four hours overtime for a $25 ticket.”