Village, Patrol Officer Union Head To Arbitration Over Contract

An arbitrator will be used to iron out a new contract between Caledonia and its patrol officers, according to the Journal Times. 

The paper reported that the village's Personnel Committee discussed the issue in closed session on Tuesday. 

“Basically at arbitration you present your case,” Village President Ron Coutts told the paper. “Then it will be up to the state arbitrator.

The Caledonia Professional Policemen’s Association Local 403, which has 26 members, has been in negotiations with the village since November. 

In March Tom Lebak, then the Village Administrator, told represented by the unions are still operating under the provisions of the old contract and they currently don’t pay anything into their retirement system while non-represented employees have been paying 5.9 percent of their wages towards their pension since June 30, 2011. 

Any other employees that had previously been in a represented union other than the patrol and firefighters' union – including the highway department and sergeants' union – started paying into their pension since Jan. 1, 2012 when their contract ran out. 

Currently, fire and police union employees pay 10 percent of the insurance premium while non-represented employees are paying 15 percent of their premiums. 

However, the insurance plan for union members has a deductible that is $500 more than the deductible in the policy for unrepresented employees, Lebak said, and union members' pharmacy co-pay is higher and their office co-pay is $25 more. 

The village is also still in closed-session negotiations with 35 union-represented employees of the .