Tulsa Police officers upset over current negotiations on new pay contract

A city full of mad Tulsa Police officers. The Tulsa Police Department's union says the offices are upset with Tuesday's contract ruling. <br/><br/>The city and the officers had been negotiating

Tuesday, October 5th 2004, 10:27 am

By: News On 6

A city full of mad Tulsa Police officers. The Tulsa Police Department's union says the offices are upset with Tuesday's contract ruling.

The city and the officers had been negotiating since spring. They agreed on everything but wages, so that was turned over to an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision is not what police wanted.

The city says the officers are getting a 6% raise, but police say that's not exactly true. The union says it breaks down like this, all officers receive a one-time, 2% signing bonus. Another 2% goes for raises based on performance, which less than half the officers receive.

And, the final 2% does increase some officers' pay, but in order to that, the city must decrease others, namely, the officers who have at least 10 years experience. They will receive between $350 and $950 less a year.

FOP president Keith Fallis: "They could not believe the mayor stood in this very building and promised to be a public service mayor but, he has not done one thing to increase the pay of police officers in the city of Tulsa."

The officers say since they went without a pay raise and gave up more than a million in overtime to help the city's strapped budget last year, they were hoping for better this year.

The city says if it gave more to the officers, it wouldn't be able to give raises to the other city employees who took pay cuts the past two years.