Council Members Defend Vote Shooting Down Police Contract

The four members of the Cranston City Council who voted against a new police contract at last week's Finance Committee meeting defended their actions in a letter to the editor yesterday.

The letter, signed by Councilmen Steve Stycos, John E. Lanni Jr., Paul Archetto and Councilwoman Sarah Kales Lee, states that police "deserve a raise" but "11.25 percent raise over three years," referring to raises for ranking members of the department, "is too much when inflation is running at 1.5 to 2 percent a year."

The council members said they think the contract would cost Cranston residents more than $1 million per year starting in July 2015.

Here's the complete text of the letter:

As members of the Cranston City Council, we know first hand what a fine job the Cranston police perform, arresting criminals, maintaining a safe city and calming disruptive people in our neighborhoods. It was difficult for us to vote against a new three year police union contract negotiated by Mayor Allan Fung. As a result of out votes, the contract was defeated by the City Council.

The police deserve a raise, but the proposed 11.25 percent raise over three years is too much when inflation is running at 1.5 to 2 percent a year.  We project the across the board raises, extra longevity payments, plus additional automatic annual pay raises, or steps, for officers and other new contract provisions would cost Cranston citizens more than $1 million a year, starting July 1, 2015.

The police union did agree to some important concessions in the new proposed contract, including reducing sick days from 27 to 25 a year and paying $25/month for their health insurance upon retirement. Those changes, however, were not enough to counterbalance raises that far surpass the rate of inflation.

Mayor Fung also claims savings of $382,809 for not hiring six new police officers this year. The savings are only for this year, so they have no long term impact on costs a In the meantime, Cranston gets less police protection. That’s not a good deal for our city.

In addition, if we had agreed to the contract, we know other city unions would have demanded steps and large raises in the future.

As city council members we must balance the need to reward the fine work of our police with Cranston citizens’ need for other services and their ability to pay higher taxes.

When Mayor Fung and the police union sit down again at the bargaining table, we ask them to be mindful of that balance.

John Lanni, Council President

Paul Archetto, Democratic Majority Leader

Steven Stycos, Finance Committee chairman

Sarah Kales Lee, At large councilwoman