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Preliminary Agreement Reached on New Police Contract 

Preliminary agreement has been reached in the salary and benefit dispute betwen the City of Monrovia and the Monrovia Police Officers' Associaton (MPOA).

 

The MPOA’s membership voted over the past week to accept the deal points for a five-year labor contract that had been agreed to by both City and MPOA negotiators.

 

Wording of the new contract must still be drafted, then sent to the City Council for ratification.

 

Negotiations on an earlier proposed 3 1/2 –year contact hit an impasse in March when the MPOA turned down a City offer of salary and benefit increases totaling 16.5%, demanding 23.2%. The Council then unilaterally implemented one-year raises for sworn personnel ranging from 4.04% to 6.19% and negotiations began again in June.

 

The new agreement calls for 22.25% in raises spread over five years for sworn personnel – 5% in the first year (with half taking affect now and half in December, the same split agreed to by Monrovia’s firefighters in a contract approved earlier this month), 4% in each of the next three years, and 5% again in the fifth year.

 

Non-sworn employees of the Police Department, who are also represented by the MPOA, will be receiving $60 toward medical coverage in the first year, raises of 3% in the following three years and 4% in year five.

 

City Manager Scott Ochoa said that the longer term of the new contract will enable both the City and its officers to get what they need.

 

He said that spreading the raises out over five years will allow time to finance and pay down future retirement and disability obligations, “stabilizing rates and giving the City the protection of cost assurance over the long term. It’s a financially responsible plan that the community can afford,” he said, “and at the same time it maintains our competitiveness in the recruitment and retaining of first class officers.