The Evanston City Council is scheduled Monday night to approve new four-year contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police covering patrol officers and police sergeants.
A summary of the contract proposals included in the City Council packet says the new agreements will provide a total wage increase to the sergeants of 30% over the four year term, while the patrol officers will see a gross wage increase of 23% over the same period.
A copy of the patrol officers contract included in the packet indicates the bulk of the increase would come this year and be based on results of the Baker Tilly compensation study conducted for the city last year. That study indicated that many city employees were underpaid, compared to workers performing similar jobs for other nearby communities.
Patrol officers would then get 3% pay hikes in each of the remaining three years of their contract.
A copy of the sergeants contract was not included in the packet, so details of how their pay increases would be distributed across the contract period were not immediately available.
The city’s adopted 2023 budget calls for a half-million dollar reduction in Police Department salary and benefits over 2022 levels. It’s not clear from the city council packet how the city anticipates funding the pay hikes called for in the new contracts.
The contracts also would add Juneteenth to the schedule of city holidays for police and increase longevity pay hikes to 4.5% for officers who complete 15 years of service and 6.5% for sergeants with 25 years of service.
For both groups the contracts would eliminate a 6th step on the salary scale.
The city has yet to reach agreement with its two other unions — AFSCME and the International Association of Fire Fighters. As with the police unions, their existing contracts expired at the end of 2022.
Comments are closed.