Sheriff’s department negotiates salary increases

By Rick Morain

Jefferson Herald

Negotiators for the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and AFSCME Council 61, Local 3949 (the sheriff’s department employees), held their initial bargaining sessions on Tuesday, Feb. 8 in the boardroom at the courthouse.
The union negotiator proposed a five-year contract starting July 1, with deputies to receive annual salary raises of 15 percent, and dispatchers and jailers to receive 10 percent annual raises. Those employees would also receive annual merit increases of 1 ½ percent if they are judged to have earned merit pay.

Part-time employees would receive annual pay raises of five percent.
In addition, the proposal called for contract language to be adjusted to reflect 12-hour shifts for all job classifications. Earned vacation time could be taken during an employee’s first six months of employment with the approval of the sheriff.

All other language in the current contract would remain unchanged.

The sheriff’s negotiator countered with a one-year contract that proposes salary increases of three percent for deputies, two percent for jailers, and one percent for all other classifications.
Work schedules would be established by the sheriff under that proposal, deleting the contract language regarding specific hours for shifts. There would be no change to the vacation provisions of the current contract, and the contract’s provisions for discipline and discharge would be deleted since they are permissive topics of bargaining.
In addition, the sheriff’s department proposal calls for changes to the sick-leave section of the contract. An employee would need to notify the sheriff or immediate supervisor of an illness before the start of his or her shift. Sick employees would be expected to be at home, a physician’s office, the hospital, or en route to one of those locations. Abuse of the sick-leave provisions would result in non-payment of sick-leave to that employee.
All other language in the current contract would remain unchanged.

Provisions of the new contract will be made public once it is finally negotiated. Iowa law permits collective bargaining for public employees to be done in open session after the first two sessions if both sides agree to do so. In this case, negotiators for both sides said that they consider third and subsequent bargaining sessions should be closed to the public, which they said promotes more give-and-take in the discussions.