BY MIKE CETERA
A poster to this blog asked to see the most recent Aurora police contract, which expired March 5. The union and the city have not reached agreement on a new deal, but officers continue to work under the terms of the old contract. You can find a copy of the contract after the jump.
Some highlights:
-- "Each employee shall receive up to a maximum of one hundred eighty (180) calendar days of sick leave at his regular pay rate per separate illness. Provided, however, that no employee shall be eligible to receive said paid sick leave if the injury was contracted or incurred while engaged in occupation or employment other than with the Aurora Police Department. When any employee exhausts his sick leave, such leave may be extended at the approval of the Chief of Police upon application in writing by such employee. Approval of such extension shall not be unreasonably withheld. Further, notification of such approval and any extension shall be delivered by the Chief of Police to the Human Resources Department."
-- Union members cannot strike and cannot participate in a "work stoppage, slowdown, or withholding of services." The city cannot "lock out" union members.
-- Base salaries beginning in March 2006 were $59,113.60 annually for an officer with 6 months to 1 year on the job up to $75,379.20 for an officer with more than 25 years on the job. This does not account for overtime and shift differential pay.
How does this compare with other departments? We'll try to find more comparisons in salary and benefits, but a cursory look at what area newspapers reported on recently approved new contracts shows:
-- In Plainfield, first-year officers earn a salary of $48,131.
-- In Joliet, the 2006 salary range was between $39,300 and $79,514.
Having not seen the contract language for these departments, it's unclear if salary comparison is truly apples to apples. Stay tuned.
You can find the expired Aurora police contract below:
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Mike: Why not quote the contract instead of "what area newspapers reported"? They are public documents and are available online at policepay.net. Joliet, to use your example, starts officers while on probation at $40,872. After their probation is up, they jump to $54,637. This year, a twelve year veteran in Joliet makes (before wage differential and specialty assignments) $82,695. Joliet officers get free healthcare - Aurora officers currently pay 2.5% of their gross base salary to health insurance. I could go on and on. Please check your facts before presenting certain cherry picked "facts" that you gleaned from "what area newspapers reported".
CETERA RESPONDS:
As union attorney Tim O'Neil pointed out above, there is a Web site that hosts contract information. From what I can tell, however, the free subscription available online at policepay.net only gives out basic information. So I'll stick to my plan of talking to individual departments to get their contracts.
There are, however, some interesting facts from the freebies on the site (registration required):
* Among the 200 largest cities in the U.S., Aurora (which, according to the Web site was 146th in population) ranked 47th for police pay when you don't account for "cost of living." Adjusted for cost of living, Aurora police pay ranked 63rd as of Jan. 1, 2006. On that same list, Chicago (the third most populous) ranked two spots lower at 65. The index, which compares total compensation for the average police officer over a 30-year career, seems to suggest that Aurora Police compensation is/was better than police in the city of Chicago receive.
* Naperville police get more: The department was ranked 25th (adjusted for cost of living) and 54th (when not adjusted).
* Rockford police get less: Ranked 73rd and 91st.
* Peoria police get more: Ranked 7th and 57th.
* Springfield police get less: Ranked 199th and 199th.
Even though the index compares 200 cities, the Web site warns that not all of the cities are comparable. "In addition, there are non-monetary variables that cannot be measured, such as quality of life in each city," according to the site. Thought I'd pass that along as a caveat.
The site also offers information on maximum first-year salaries for the top 200.
Aurora (rounded up to $59,114) ranked 16th in the nation in maximum first-year base pay and was the only city outside of California to make the top 30 highest paid.
The free stuff on the site (you can't even subscribe at this point if you want to), from what I can tell does not offer direct comparisons to other departments' benefits, such as health insurance.
Here's the maximum first-year base pay for other Illinois cities that made the list:
* Naperville, $50,138
* Rockford, $39,368
* Peoria, $39,969
* Springfield, $37,445
Step One. We got the old contract. Thank You.
Step Two. What are the specific issues in contention? Tim O'Neil, you state that we should get the facts first...I'm asking for them.