County, FOP Pen 4-Year Contract

CREST HAVEN — Going to work can be tough; going to work in jail can be grueling even on good days.
That’s how 67 employees in the Sheriff’s Department spend their workday; they are correction officers and correction officer sergeants.
Freeholders, on Aug. 26, approved a four-year contract with those officers who watch over an average 300-plus inmates at the Cape May County Corrections Center, which was designed in 1981 to hold 180.
The contract was negotiated with Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7.
Union members voted 67-0 in favor of the pact, which will become effective Jan. 1, 2009 and continue until Dec. 31, 2012.
“They are going to experiment with 12-hour shifts,” said Stephen O’Connor, county administrator. Many police departments and corrections center are on such shifts, he said.
“That will be starting this October,” O’Connor said.
If either party to the contract, officers or county, believes there is a safety issue, or if the longer shifts cause high absenteeism, “we will revert to eight-hour shifts,” he said.
One of the major holiday concessions in the contract was to “give up,” the day after Christmas, and Lincoln’s Birthday. A resolution was passed at the same meeting taking that action this year, before the new contract starts.
Correction officers were the first county employees to have salary hikes suspended for six months, if an individual has seven undocumented sick days, down from eight in the prior contract.
“Also, any officer who has major discipline taken against them, the salary increase will be suspended.
They will lose an annual increase, and pay for their entire health benefit for the time they are suspended,” said O’Connor.
Salaries, scaled on steps, vary widely. It takes 11 years for an officer to reach the top scale, said O’Connor.
A correction officer hired for the first three years of the contract will earn $31,473. That amount will increase to $33,473 in the last year of the contract.
Over the life of the contract, top people will get 4.6 percent increases in each contract year.
They will also get a rank differential, which was $5,000.
“This gave an additional $350 in each of the first three years,” said O’Connor.
That gives a final rank differential to sergeants and officers closer to $7,000, in the last year of the contract.
A “final thing,” noted O’Connor in the last year of the contract only, officers and sergeants who have not had any (undocumented) absenteeism and no major disciplines, will get an additional $2,700 in base salary, for sergeants and officers on the top step.
For top officers, at the end of the contract, with performance and attendance factored in, at the end of the contract will earn $81,072, as of January 2012. For sergeants, that figure will be $87,882.
O’Connor said the contract with lieutenants and captains is still being negotiated. Civilian employees in the department are covered by the contract with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com