2019-04-24 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

Home

Merit Appeals Board April 24, 2019 adjustment. So, all of the police officers get that within their final two years of their contract— and that was awarded to fire as well. So, within these next two years, the fire fighters will get a step increase—moving them up to the next step—not the next class, but the next step. So, they’re going up—so they stay within the same class. So, they get that. The other item—cost item that they received is the police officers, because they have a retention—they have a hard time retaining their officers—police officers. And there’s also a— it’s becoming increasingly harder and harder to attract qualified officers for a recruitment. This past January we did a recruitment for police and those were the lowest numbers we’ve seen. And it’s not unique to Hawaiʻi County, it’s nationwide. And I think so much of that is now just the current environment across the nation where the police—for whatever reason the public perception is really down. Morale is down, they had that whole movement with the NFL—with all that negative impact on the police department. So, I think being a police officer is not as attractive as it used to be. So, in order to try and offset some of that, in the contract agreement, the police officers were awarded a 1,800 to $2,000 stst bonus—lump sum bonus for—effective January 1 of 2020; and then January 1 of 2021 and that was for the stated purpose of retention. And for whatever reason, the fire fighters they pressed hard for the arbitrator to give them the same contract that SHOPO got. And so, when the arbitrator issued his decision, he incorporated that lump sum bonuses for the fire fighters as well without giving strong consideration to the purposes of the bonus. When we were on the fire fighter recruit that’s one of our most popular recruit list— MR. CHILLINGWORTH: Absolutely. MR. BRILHANTE: —and we get way more applicants than we have vacancies. MR. CHILLINGWORTH: Right. MR. BRILHANTE: We have—our fire department has the lowest amount of loss of seasoned employees out of any of the departments. When a fire fighter comes in, they stay for the 25 years. Very rarely do they leave. And if they leave, it’s some— CHR. NAMAHOE: Medical. MR. BRILHANTE: Yeah. Or some other kind of crazy aspiration, like, going to law school. MR. CHILLINGWORTH: Did you ask the arbitrator to reconsider the award in connection with the fire fighter’s bonus? MR. BRILHANTE: Because it’s binding arbitration, that’s pretty much where it landed. Unfortunately, when we get into these type of—and this is—I’m going to—I’m not sure if I Page 4