Bellevue police get 3-year contract after arbitration

10/17/2005

BELLEVUE, Ohio City Council has approved a three-year contract with Bellevue s unionized police officers that was reached in arbitration after nearly a year of negotiations.

The pact, approved last week, is retroactive to Nov. 1, 2004, and runs through Nov. 1, 2007. Under its terms, police sergeants will receive 4 percent pay raises each year. Patrolmen will get a 4 percent raise the first year, and raises of 3 percent and 3.75 percent, respectively, in the final two years.

Communications officers will receive raises of 3.75 percent for all three years.

Mayor David Kile said employees will have to cover half of the premium increase for their health insurance. The wage increases and the resulting increases in fringe benefit expenses will cost the city more than $100,000 extra next year, he said.