After months of negotiation and arbitration looming, the Tyrone Borough Council ratified a contract with the union representing its police.
\nThe vote of council was unanimous.
\nThe contract runs through December 31, 2007 and calls for a policy that no full-time police officers shall be laid-off for economic reasons until the expiration of the contract.
\nIn the contract the borough will maintain for full-time officers and their dependents medical and hospitalization insurance, prescription drug coverage, vision plan and dental coverage with the premiums paid by the borough.
\nThe borough will make a one-time payment of $10,000 to officers Greg Ray and Thomas Goodfellow as a buy out and full release of any and all claims for any post-retirement and\/or post-employment health care coverage.
\nThe borough will maintain the sole responsibility to include but not limited to the hiring of employees, the advancement of full-time police officers to higher ranks, the determination of the number of police officers retained in employment, scheduling of officers, suspension, demotion and discharge of officers and a maintenance of standards of quality and performance.
\nOne of the original demands of the police union was more full-time officers.
\nThough not in the agreement, Borough Councilman Jeffrey Watson said that a good faith measure was put into place.
\n\u201cThis contract had a lot of give and take into it,\u201d said Watson. \u201cThe officers gave up a lot in benefits and negotiations were intense for a while. Thankfully we hammered out a final deal. The contract doesn\u2019t specify the number of full-time officers that should be in place, but as a good faith measure, the borough has agreed to hire one full-time officer by the end of the year.\u201d
\nTyrone Borough Police Chief Joe Beachem is happy that an agreement was reached.
\n\u201cI am glad that things are settled,\u201d said the chief. \u201cOne more full-time officer will help us with continuity. \u201c
\nThat was one of the goals in this contract according to Watson.
\n\u201cOur goal was to increase continuity,\u201d said the councilman. \u201cThere are times in which a part-time officer may not see a full-time officer for three to four weeks. This will be an increased benefit of service to the community.\u201d
\nThe current maximum hourly rate for a patrol officer in 2002 was $16.11 per hour. Under the terms of the new contract, there will be three percent yearly increases through 2007.
\nAs Mayor Pat Stoner walked to the Municipal Building today, she smiled and said, \u201cI\u2019m just happy to have a police contract signed.\u201d
\nThe new officer that will be hired by the end of the year will be hired according to the Civil Service Commission.
\nThe contract was signed by union officials on Tuesday and by borough officials this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After months of negotiation and arbitration looming, the Tyrone Borough Council ratified a contract with the union representing its police. The vote of council was unanimous. The contract runs through December 31, 2007 and calls for a policy that no full-time police officers shall be laid-off for economic reasons until the expiration of the contract. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}