EAST LONGMEADOW – Appropriations Committee Chair Eric Madison said one of the reasons for the Police Department’s high overtime budget in recent years is due to contracts with the department’s officers that allows for it.

Madison said at the Appropriation Committee’s Feb. 9 meeting the police chief has no control over contract negotiations with the department’s officers. That duty falls with the Board of Selectmen, which has increased overtime gradually over the course of more than a decade during contract negotiations.

Previously, Selectman William Gorman said the town’s decision to open up a search for a new police chief was due to the department’s high overtime budget. The selectmen also agreed to add a residency requirement for applicants.

The contract for Police Chief Douglas Mellis, a Springfield resident, is set to expire at the end of March, which also prompted the selectmen to go out to bid for the department head position.  

Board of Selectmen Chair Paul Federici said he believes this year’s contract negotiations with the department’s officers is “all but settled.”

Madison said the biggest triggers for overtime in the department are vacation, personal time, and sick time.

“Two officers can be off on the same shift at any given time via the contract,” he added. “Employees may take vacations without 24-hour prior approval, which makes planning for that coverage quite difficult ... I asked [Mellis] to provide me with the current liability for vacation days where the staffing is as it stands today. The current liability is 434 days of vacation alone.”

Officers receive 13 sick days annually starting July 1, Madison said. The unused sick leave is allowed to accumulate without limitations up until an officer reaches 25 years of service.

He added officers receive three days of personal leave annually; they receive court time with a four-hour minimum, travel time, two hours minimum of overtime for breathalyzer callbacks, accident investigations, and photography. Officers receive four hours of overtime minimum for callbacks for duty about any particular reason.

Madison said the committee conducted a study to compare the town’s police department with similar ones from neighboring communities, which included Longmeadow, Ludlow, Wilbraham and South Hadley.

He noted for every 1,000 members of a community, two officers should be working for the departments. The average ratio of population to officers from the neighboring towns was 1.93 officers. East Longmeadow’s is 1.62 officers per 1,000 residents. In order to reach the average, the town would need to hire four new officers.

The salaries of town police officers are also 14 percent higher than officers in the other communities, he explained.

Selectman William Gorman said his board reviewed the police budgets of other municipalities such as Holyoke, West Springfield and Greenfield prior to a vote at the selectmen’s Jan. 12 meeting to cut police overtime from $320,000 down to $150,000.

Appropriations Committee member Russell Denver asked Gorman how he came up with data to compare East Longmeadow with the communities he focused on.

“What difference does it make where I got them?” Gorman responded. “I got them.”

At its Feb. 2 meeting, the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to amend the police overtime budget by moving $50,000 previously designated for a Reserve Fund into the police overtime budget, bringing the department’s FY17 overtime budget to $200,000.

Selectman Angela Thorpe said the board’s previous decision to move $50,000 of police overtime money to a Reserve Fund was not allowed by law.

“We’re not able to do that according to our attorney and according to [the Appropriations Committee],” she explained.

The board agreed to have interim Town Administrator Gregory Neffinger oversee the police overtime budget to make sure the department’s costs do not exceed the original $150,000 budget.

Madison made a motion during the Feb. 9 meeting to recommend amending the department’s overtime budget further by increasing it to $250,000 and also to hire an additional officer of approximately $49,000 from the department’s personnel line. The motion was ultimately tabled until the committee’s Feb. 23 meeting.

Madison said he agrees the town needs to determine the definition of an acceptable amount of police overtime, but “I don’t think we need to do it at the cost of public safety.”

Federici added, “Being understaffed causes the overtime, which causes other injuries and things. When you’re understaffed it makes it even worse.”

Mellis said he believes adding a police officer would be more beneficial to the department than an increase the overtime budget beyond $250,000.

However, the department would need to hire an additional two officers to get closer to the average population to officer ratio because one officer is set to retire and another will become a supervisor to fill that retiree’s position.

“The next academy in Springfield starts March 28,” he added. “Documentation has to be received by Feb. 28. At this point in time we’re way behind. There’s a two-week cycle for the PAT test, there’s a medical, there’s interviews that need to be conducted, and submission to the Board of Selectmen to pick a candidate.”

Mellis said overtime has always been a “headache” for the department, even prior to his hiring as chief 11 years ago.

“These were piecemeal guarantees during the negotiations,” he explained. “We’d love to give you a 5 percent raise; we can’t, so we’ll give you another vacation day or we’ll give you another earned day. They add up as point in case as we found two or three years ago when we found out that we have cadets that were making $1,000 a week at the [Springfield Police Academy].”

He added the department cut the basic recruit weekly pay to $900.

“That was an item that got away from everybody because they just looked at it and there’s a 2.5 or 3 percent increase for the union,” Mellis said. “That figure automatically went up ... We’ve tried to turn that back, [but] we couldn’t get it back. “

He said the department would not embrace any kind of step increase.