NEWPORT BEACH : Police Say Salary Talks at Impasse

The head of the police association on Monday sent city officials a letter declaring an impasse in salary negotiations and asking for third-party mediation.

City Manager Kevin J. Murphy and Personnel Director Duane Munson said they do not believe negotiations have reached a standstill. However, both said they would consider non-binding arbitration, although such a process is unprecedented in the city’s 22 years of labor negotiations.

“I believe that we still have means for resolving our differences,” Munson said. “I haven’t given up yet.”

Tom Tolman, president of the 250-member police association, said the unanimous rejection last week of the city’s latest contract offer was “a result of poor treatment over time rather than an isolated instance of dissatisfaction.”

He said his organization would even pay for third-party arbitration if necessary.

“I cannot emphasize enough the frustration felt by (police employees) throughout the process of negotiations over the last several years,” Tolman said.

The police, who have been without a contract since July 1, are among two of Newport Beach’s six employee associations that have yet to negotiate agreements. The city’s blue-collar workers last week filed suit over a salary dispute, another first in Newport Beach labor relations history.

Many of both group’s complaints center on the city’s policy, adopted in 1961, that barring budgetary considerations, Newport Beach employees’ salaries shall be among the top three Orange County cities.

This year, city officials have offered no salary increases, citing the “budgetary considerations” clause, but the police association as well as the blue-collar group has argued that by not giving raises the city is breaking its own rules.

“There is obviously a major problem with salary,” Murphy said. Asked whether the city might offer a pay raise to reach an agreement, Murphy said he was “not willing to rule it out, but it would be very, very difficult to make a (salary) adjustment.”

Munson expressed hope that a new contract offer, including a creative schedule with longer hours per day but fewer days per month, might bring the police association back to the negotiating table, but Tolman said the prospects were grim.

“Our concerns go a lot deeper than an alternative work schedule,” he said. “We think we’re at impasse because there’s been no movement or discussion of the things that are important to us.”