The West Springfield Town Council discusses a settlement of the police patrolmen’s union contract.
Photo Credit: West Side Media
WEST SPRINGFIELD — During the March 17 meeting, the Town Council approved a transfer of $150,000 from the reserve for wage negotiations account to the patrol officer’s account and the educational benefits account.
The transfer will fund the fiscal year 2025 general fund cost of the contract settlement for the West Springfield Police Patrolmen’s Association.
There was $135,000 allocated to the patrol officers account and the remaining $15,000 to the education benefits account.
Chief of Staff and General Counsel Kate O’Brien Scott explained that this is a settlement of the police patrolmen’s union contract.
O’Brien Scott explained the details of the contact. The agreement is three-year deal with cost of living increases of 3%, 2% and 2% over the three years.
The agreement also includes the implementation of body worn cameras.
O’Brien Scott said, “Now that we have that agreement, we’ll be moving forward with figuring out a system and storage for all of that footage and putting that in place.”
The officers will receive another increase to their pay when that goes into effect or at the end of the life of this contract.
“Whatever is sooner,” O’Brien Scott stated.
The contract also included the agreement of the patrolmen to use the town’s time and attendance system.
O’Brien Scott explained the system. She said, “Every employee in town, if you are an hourly employee you clock in and clock out. Because the police have a little bit of a different job, they are not using the time clocks at this time, but they will be submitting a time sheet in which they account for all their hours worked so overtime, details, regular shifts and then bi-weekly they will submit that.”
Once West Springfield have everyone in the system, they will be using it to process payroll. Right now, payroll is manually entered into the town’s financial management software, which O’Brien Scott described as “laborious” and “ripe for human error.”
The new system will have employees having ownership of their time before getting approved by a supervisor and sent to payroll. It will work alongside their detail tracking system.
“They were the last large group we have that’s not using it, so it’s now been implemented townwide. The only smaller group left is the police supervisors, and we are going into negotiations with them soon,” O’Brien Scott said.
The Town Council unanimously approved the transfer.
The Town Council then discussed a Community Preservation Committee fund allocation of $1 million for the Hillside Phase 3 affordable housing project.
The project was requested by the Sisters of Providence, who in 2018 received $750,000 in Community Preservation Act funding from West Springfield to help build 36 affordable housing units for senior citizens on its 27-acre campus of Riverdale Street.
Town Council President Sean Powers said that after a “long and robust” subcommittee meeting, it was agreed that they have some additional questions they would like to be answered and tabled the agenda item to its next meeting on Monday, April 6.
Powers stated, “At that point in time, the petitioners or at least the Sisters of Providence will be giving a more formal presentation hopefully including some of the answers to the questions we have.”
Powers also stated if anyone has any questions about the project to contact the Town Council or reach out to your district councilor.
