BY MICHAEL OLOHAN
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
ENGLEWOOD, N.J. –– City council members reversed themselves Oct. 17 and voted 4-1 to table an ordinance that increased the police department’s “extra duty” hourly rate to $75 after one councilman called the ordinance “unprofessional, weak and a giveaway” before negotiations begin this year with the local Police Benevolent Association.
The Englewood Police Department contract expires Dec. 31.
Council President Wayne Hamer opposed the motion to table the ordinance. He did not publicly state any reason for his vote.
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Reached Oct. 23, Hamer said he “didn’t see the need to couple” extra-duty pay with upcoming collective bargaining negotiations. He said those were separate and that negotiations have not yet begun.
Councilman Eugene Skurnick was the lone dissenter who opposed the ordinance when introduced Sept. 29 by a 4-1 vote.
The vote to table the ordinance drew little comment from other council members, but Skurnick was outspoken in why the ordinance should be reconsidered.
The funds used to compensate police officers for “extra duty” hours are reimbursed by utilities who contract with local police to hire off-duty officers for traffic and public safety duties at construction sites and utility work.
City Manager Edward Hynes said officers have not had an increase in extra duty pay since 1989, and that the increase “still puts them below the average of all police officers” in Bergen County.
While the police department initially pays officers “extra duty” time, it is generally reimbursed in a timely manner by the vendors, said Hynes previously.
He said the city is also compensated by utilities for use of equipment such as police cars.
Skurnick said Hynes’ statement was “incomplete” and said the police department budget represents one-third of local taxes, and along with the fire department, probably comprises 50 percent of local taxes.
He said the city is also paying for police officers to be on the streets out of funds earmarked for “security” in bond issues that the city approves and pays off over a long-term. “Those police officers are being directly paid by the city of Englewood,” he noted.
“Not that I’m opposed to it [the ordinance] and not that it’s bad or good. We are negotiating a contract with the strongest labor union in the state of New Jersey… this should be part of the negotiations. We should not be offline right before we begin negotiations on the next three years increasing the fee that we in fact are going to be paying in part out of our tax dollars,” Skurnick said.
“It’s unprofessional, it’s weak, it’s a giveaway,” he said of the ordinance, stressing a recent arbitration agreement between Jersey City and its police department in which “the arbitrator sided with Jersey City, and it included everything, everything, putting on uniform time…it was a whole host of things which probably saved Jersey City,” said Skurnick.
He urged colleagues to vote with him to table the ordinance to provide an opportunity to review the Jersey City-Police Department negotiations and decision.
Resident Sondra Greenberg, former mayor (1976-1982), said Skurnick’s motion to table the extra-duty ordinance was “absolutely correct” and that “those things should be negotiated.”
She said she was “shocked” when she was mayor that they were paying for the 15 minutes it took for officers to put on uniforms.
“I certainly respect the work they do but I do think there should be negotiations,” she said.
Chief Lawrence Suffern said extra-duty pay “is not normally part of [union] contract negotiations and emphasized that officers have not had an increase in approximately eight years.
In September, a state task force of four Democrats and four Republicans appointed by Gov. Chris Christie released a report on the fiscal impacts of the two percent “interest arbitration cap” that Christie instituted in 2011.
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The report states the interest arbitration cap has saved municipalities $531 million over six years. The four Democrats on the committee opposed the report’s early release. It was originally scheduled to be released by Dec. 31, but the four Republican members released it early.
While the Republican gubernatorial candidates (Kim Guadagno and Carlos Rendo) have supported renewing the cap, their Democratic challengers, (Phil Murphy and Sheila Oliver) have taken no position on whether to renew it before it expires Dec. 31.
Efforts to reach the city’s labor counsel, Genova Burns, were not returned by press time.