HUTCHINSON, Kan. — As expected, the Hutchinson City Council started off its agenda session Tuesday with a public hearing over a memorandum of understanding between the city and Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 7.
The issue is over the sick leave payout policy that the city has put in place for all employees. The local police bargaining unit wanted the council to consider keeping the existing payout plan for all bargaining unit members hired before Dec. 31, 2013, and apply the city’s new sick leave payout proposal to members hired after Dec. 31, 2013.
Negotiations for the contract had stalled and a federal mediator met with the two sides once and had no luck. The next step was to send the issue to a fact finder which never happened. The FOP’s attorney requested a number of records going back as far as 1993, but according to Tom Sanders, Human Resources Director, they are only required to keep records for three years.
They apparently were provided some records, but the local FOP President, Tyson Meyers, claims the records aren’t accurate while Sanders says they are, although he admits some of the numbers given are estimates. Some records were not given because of privacy issues, but officers waived the right to privacy under the Family Medical Leave Act.
The city decided to adopt the city’s final proposal where employees hired before July 1, 1993, would be grandfathered under the sick leave payout provisions in effect prior to the 2014 contract year and employees hired on or after July 1, 1993, would be subject to the new sick leave payout provisions as proposed.
Under the policy, an employee will actually be able to collect more sick leave than before, but will lose the amount of sick leave which is paid out after that employee begins to increase the amount of leave used after reaching a certain threshold.
It also reduces the amount of leave paid out to a percentage of their wages and not their full wage. So, if an employee continues to keep their sick leave threshold at less then 35 percent of their year allowance, they get 33 percent of their balance paid out. If it increases to more than 45 percent, it then drops all the way to zero. This happened after several employees were paid more than $10,000 after only working a few years, but had built up their sick leave at the then maximum number of 499 hours.
The attorney for the FOP, Steve Bukaty, warned that the decision of the council could lead to the filing of an unfair labor practice or even a lawsuit, but that didn’t sway the council and they voted for the final proposal.
The council did approve having the back pay granted for those members of the FOP who have had their merit step increase delayed due to the protracted labor impasse for the 2014 contract year.