Langley police contract questions raised, approved anyway

Published 2:46 pm Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Questions about the Langley Police Guild agreement’s vacation accrual, holiday overtime pay and salary raises were raised Monday by a city resident.

They were all too late, as the Langley City Council approved the agreement unanimously but promised to look into those issues when going over the three-year deal again in 2018.

Sharon Emerson told the council she did some quick comparisons to other small-city police department contracts and found that Langley’s deal was more brief and had higher holiday pay, vacation accrual and vacation cash-out limits.

“The next time this comes around, more energy should be spent,” she said.

Councilwoman Rene Neff said some of the incentives may be vestiges of a time when the city operated with only a pair of police officers, compared to the three and a chief that it has now. Mayor Fred McCarthy backed the agreement.

“Generally, it’s a good agreement,” he said, acknowledging that it is short at 11 pages, compared to the 30-plus that Emerson said she reviewed from some Western Washington police departments. “It has tended to work well for us.”

The guild agreement covers Langley’s three officers, two of whom are recent hires. It includes openers — agreements to discuss — on wages and benefits in one year. One of the changes is that an officer serving 24 hours on-call results in four hours of overtime, which can be put into vacation or deferred compensation.

Police Chief Dave Marks, who previously served as an officer and as guild president, said the organization asked the city about raises separate from other city employees too late in the negotiating process, which began last fall.

“The budget had already been agreed upon,” Marks said in a phone interview prior to Monday’s council meeting.

The Langley Police Department will operate with a three-officer and a chief rotation for the first time in at least a year beginning Feb. 21. New hire Lucas Adkins is scheduled to graduate from the police academy Feb. 19 and will serve his first shift the following Saturday.

Marks expects the city’s police overtime to be “a lot less than last year.” According to the city’s 2015 budget document, Langley paid $14,588.82 in police overtime in 2014, but budgeted for $10,000 in both 2014 and 2015. Overtime police pay spiked dramatically in 2013 to $28,605.21 after being budgeted for $8,100.