Arbitrator 1, Woodstock PD 0

A few months ago I wrote about the squabble between a few highly paid, senior cops at Woodstock PD who felt cheated, when the chief brought in lower-paid beat officers on over-time to dress up the Coffee with the Chief meetings. These "senior" officers had a deal with the chief, they thought, that gave them the gravy first.

No matter that the beat cops were closest to the ground. I mean, if you are going to introduce the residents to their beat officers, it makes sense to have the beat officers at the meetings, and not a highly-paid senior officer.

The problem? Over-time pay. So maybe the chief should have just had the one beat officer who was on duty attend the Coffee meeting. Or move the hours around a little and "arrange" for the beat officer to come in when he wasn't going to draw over-time pay? If you could get around the union, that is. Or, rather, "work with" the union.

Anyway, the disagreement (grievance) went to arbitration, and the arbitrator sided with the senior officers and the deal. Naturally, the chief didn't like that, so he (the City) appealed to the county court. Judge Meyer drew the short straw, and he ruled on Tuesday, and I am sure correctly, that the arbitrator was right.

Don't you just wonder how much the City spent trying to get its way?

According to today's article in the Northwest Herald, "(Chief) Lowen has said that he believed the standard cost of two hours of overtime to the city was about $40 an officer."

WHOA! Wait a minute! Really? Two hours OT will cost only $40? That's $20 for one hour of OT. Assuming OT is 1 1/2 times regular pay, then a senior cop in Woodstock earns only $13/hour? I don't think so!

I suspect a senior cop's salary in Woodstock is $70,000; it's probably more. Let's say, it's just $60,000, because it's easy to divide that by 2,000 (for the approximate number of working hours in a year), which makes his basic hourly rate $30. And makes OT $45. And makes two hours of OT $90.00.

OK, coppers. How far off am I?

Now, assuming that the shouting match really was over just 14 grievances of two hours at $20/hour, what was at risk? $560? And for that Woodstock spent how much in legal fees? $5,000? $10,000? More?

No wonder the number of traffic tickets in May went way up!