VERO BEACH — After years of wrangling over benefits, wages and other union police matters, the Vero Beach City Council approved a three-year contract with the police union.
The council voted 5-0 to accept the contract. The union, which is made up of officers from the rank of sergeant on down approved the contract after two previously failed attempts recently.
The city brought in an outside attorney to spend months hammering away the details: His charge as well as that of City Manager Jim O’Connor’s was to get cut police spending.
Labor attorney Jason Odem said the city will save about $22,000 to $26,000 a year starting next November when there will be two less holidays on the books. There are currently 11 paid holidays.
By having fewer holidays, there will be less overtime — officers get 2 1/2 times their rate of pay — to shell out. Also within the contract is a new provision that says that police must actually work the holiday to get the overtime. The new contract an officer will get compensatory time and no longer get over time if his or her day off falls on a holiday.
Odem and many members of the city council expressed relief that the contract was finally resolved.
“For every article (of the contract) that we thought that we hammered down, a new one would arrive,” Odem said.
City police who have not had a pay raise in three years are now going to be required to put more of their own money — and less of the city’s — into their pension accounts.
