Fort Smith FOP seeks meeting to talk wages, benefits

Members of the Fort Smith Fraternal Order of Police met March 16 with Fort Smith City Directors George Catsavis and Andre Good to express concerns about wages, benefits and a perceived lack of support for the police force by city staff and board.

The biggest issues expressed by Sgt. Don Bales, president of the FOP, were benefit disparities between city employees and fire and police employees and loss of wages from delayed cost-of-living adjustments, regular step increases and merit pay.

“The loss of wages due to lack of proper STEP/COLA or MERIT pay increases are taking its toll on our officers. Morale is down and seems to be getting worse,” Director Good noted in a March 22 memo to City Administrator Ray Gosack.

Snow days and vacation “sell-back” are two examples of benefit disparities, according to Good’s memo. City employees are paid if they don’t come in on snow days, and paid time and a half if they work on designated snow days. Police and fire employees are required to work snow days and receive no extra pay for doing so.

According to Good’s memo, police and fire employees are not allowed to sell back unused vacation. Other city employees have the ability to do so.

“They question they asked is, ‘Are we the same City employee or not?’” Good noted.

During the meeting with Catsavis and Good, a police officer complained that the board and city staff are more concerned about funding the Fort Smith Convention Center than “our service men and woman that place themselves in harm’s way daily.” The officers also mentioned a public meeting was called two years ago at which no member of the board attended.

However, the FOP does not oppose the 1% prepared food tax. The tax was enacted Feb. 24 by the Fort Smith Board of Directors to resolve a more than 10-year search to plug an annual deficit predicted to occur when state turnback money dried up. The state turnback program ended for Fort Smith in June 2010 from which the city received about $1.8 million a year. Barring a successful citizen-initiated referendum, the tax will go into effect June 1.

Good’s memo indicates that the FOP wants to meet with Gosack and members of the board, but no meeting date had been set as of the March 22 memo.

On March 24, Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey e-mailed Bales about his interest in meeting with Gosack.

“If you are still interested in meeting, please contact Mr. Gosack to discuss a mutually agreeable date and time to meet. Also, please advise me as well,” Lindsey wrote in the e-mail.

In an April 8 memo to Mayor Sandy Sanders and the Board of Directors, Gosack addressed the wage, benefit and other concerns noted in Good’s memo.

“The FOP is of the belief that the General Fund is subsidizing the convention center costs. This is not the case, and hasn’t happened since 2003 when state turnback revenues began being used for convention center operating costs,” Gosack explained.

As to benefits, Gosack noted that police and fire receive many benefits other city employees don’t, including education incentive pay, clothing allowance and a laundry allowance.

“It would be extremely costly for the city to provide parity in all benefits among all city employees,” Gosack said.

Gosack admitted that raising wages for all city employees has been tough. He reminded the board that they chose to minimize pay increases in recent years to avoid layoffs.

“Ironically, the greatest number of (police) resignations occurred in 2006, which was the year that sworn police and fire employees received an additional 2% pay increase that other employees didn’t receive,” Gosack wrote.

Gosack also addressed the perceived lack of funding support from city coffers for the police department: “The General Fund resources allocated to the police dept. has increased from 36% in 2006 to 40% in 2011, and 15 new positions have been added since 2006. A greater portion of General Fund resources are being directed to the police dept. than in the past.”

Gosack also reminded the board of the increased amount of the city’s share of the 1% countywide sales tax that has gone to police, fire and other public safety services. In 1994, the city spent 33% of the revenue on public safety, and increased the amount to 76% in 2003.