City, FOP prepare for court battle over police contract

Geographical salary comparison is the main sticking point for Fremont’s Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 37 in fighting the city for its contract in the Court of Industrial Relations.

The Court of Industrial Relations is used by cities, police and fire unions to solve contract disputes because the public safety officers cannot strike.

The union’s position is that the comparable array for the contract should include at least one city within the Omaha metro area such as Papillion, LaVista or Bellevue. That stance is based on the fact that the officers share many comparable working conditions because of crime spillover, commuter interchange of the workforce with Omaha and cooperative agreements and cooperation of officers with Omaha and the metro suburbs.

“We don’t dispute the comparison with Columbus, but we share similarities with the others too,” said FOP member Sgt. Bob Buer. “It’s not that we are being greedy, we are looking for fairness city-wide. What we plan to prove is that we have similar work environments to cities like Papillion and LaVista.”

The city’s position is that the Fremont Police contract should only be compared to rural cities such as Columbus.

“When you look at the array, it should compare you to like communities and populations,” Mayor Scott Getzschman said, adding that Fremont better compares to cities like Columbus, Hastings and similar towns. “That’s where we best fit into.”

Buer said nearly half of felony thefts in the city, especially shoplifting, have offenders or suspects from Omaha. In 2010, the only attempted homicide in the city was perpetrated by an Omaha woman and detectives have said a significant number of crimes within the city lead them into Omaha, he said.

“Our statistics show that on average more than one incident report a day involves someone from Omaha,” Buer said. “We’ve been bringing this up for 10 years in negations.”

The mayor said that while he believes crimes like shoplifting are serious, Fremont doesn’t have the violent metro crimes.

” I pray we don’t ever have the murders, shootings and stabbings Omaha has every day,” Getzschman said. “The officers work very hard and I’m glad they’re here. They protect our citizens well.”

Buer said the crime coming in from Omaha also impacts officers safety.

“It does make it more dangerous,” he said. “We’re dealing with people we don’t know. You always have to be on your toes. This isn’t the small town it used to be.”

Statistics show that the department’s caseload increases every year and cases are on record pace again in 2011.

“More and more calls become two officer calls because of the magnitude of the calls,” he said. “It isn’t so much about wages, it’s about who we compare to and fairness. In the city’s economic development and goals and ventures they don’t say they can’t look East, but with salary comparisons they’ll only look West.”

Getzschman said the impasse between the city and the union is why the Court of Industrial Relations exists.

“It’s at the CIR and in their hands now,” he said. “It really boils down to them providing direction on what cities should be in the array. It’s in the best interest of the taxpayers and the FOP that we have the CIR. Whatever the CIR decides, we’re going to have to live with or the FOP is going to have to live with.”

Buer said that every expert the union has consulted about the issue has believed the FOP would likely be awarded at least one metro city as comparable by the Court of Industrial Relations. He said the city has budgeted as much as $150,000 to fight the union in court.

“We don’t understand why the city is willing to spend taxpayer dollars to fight when the chance of them losing is significant,” he said. “It’s not like we weren’t not willing to sit down and talk.”

The mayor said a decision for the union could provide a trickle down effect, with other unions in the city wanting the same comparison array for payscales. That, he said could become very costly.

“I’d like to pay everyone more in the city. We have some of the finest employees in the country,” Getzschman said. “But where do we get the money?”

A date for any hearing has yet to be set.