By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
9/3/09
Following months of negotiation and review from legal counsel on both sides, the town and its two police unions have settled on new contracts.
Under the deal, both unions’ employees receive a 2 percent raise for the previous fiscal year, a 2.5 percent raise for the fiscal year that began July 1 and a 3 percent raise for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2010.
The negotiations, which dragged on for over a year, and described by Town Administrator Kevin Mearn as “often spirited,” resulted in a three-year deal that Mearn called “fair for both sides.”
“This is in keeping with all of the other contracts the Board [of Selectmen] has approved on the town side,” he said of the raises.
The two police unions – for patrolmen and superior officers – were without a contract for the whole of the past fiscal year. Selectmen signed the new deal Aug. 27. They previously agreed to identical percent raises in new library and DPW union contracts.
But because Town Meeting in May voted no set aside be made for contracts reached in FY 10, the raises must be absorbed into the current Police Department budget, Mearn said.
At one point, Selectman Kathy Fagan sought to clarify whether the new contracts would alter Selectmen’s stance on Quinn Bill payments to police officers.
Because the state has cut back on what it usually reimburses the town for Quinn payments, the board has stated it cannot fund the full amount this year. Under the Quinn Bill, officers receive special stipends when they earn certain academic degrees; the town is only obligated to fund half the amount but the unions have stated they would seek the full amount. This has led to legally wrangling between the parties.
“The language from the old contract to the new contract is the same in terms of Quinn Bill coverage,” Fagan said. “It’s a question of interpretation of that language.”

– Scott MacKeen