Donora: Police contract causing confusion
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
Donora council talked Thursday about a section in the police union contract that has been interpreted differently by union members and borough officials.
Councilwoman Cindy Brice asked council members if they had a problem with the police contract because she heard it may have to be reopened.
President Mike McDowell said he didn’t have a problem with the contract, but he did have a problem with talking about it outside of an executive session. Brice argued that it wasn’t a negotiation issue and it should be public.
Councilman Joe Greco, a retired police officer for the borough, said contracts can’t be reopened, they can only be amended and Solicitor Steve Toprani agreed.
Brice, who is married to police Superintendent Jim Brice, said she heard there is a paragraph that is being interpreted differently by the full-timers in the union than it is by others on council and Toprani.
The solicitor generally explained the situation by saying the confusion is that at least some full-time officers believed a part of the contract said that all open shifts were to be filled first with full-timers for overtime before they could be filled with part-timers for regular pay.
Toprani said that while they may want to treat any open shift as overtime, it’s not unless it’s filled by someone that it created overtime for.
In other words, if the open shift is a vacation day or a day off that is known about in advance, that doesn’t create an overtime situation because it can be planned for in advanced and filled either with part-timers or the department can choose to not fill that specific shift at all.
If a shift is left empty unexpectedly, or there is no other way to cover a shift and it creates an overtime situation, it must be offered to full-timers first for the overtime opportunity before it can be offered to a part-timer.
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