A tentative contract with the collective bargaining unit representing Red Bank police calls for three-percent pay raises this year and next, borough officials said Tuesday night.
The terms of the proposed pact were approved by the borough council in a brief public session following an extended one behind closed doors.
The contract now goes back to Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local 39 for approval, after which the council would vote on it.
The contract covers 42 officers all non-civilian employees of the department except for dispatchers and Chief Mark Fitzgerald, said Mayor Pasquale Menna.
Police have been working under extended terms of a contract that expired last December 31.
Each of the last two contracts with the PBA ran for four years. “We felt, because of the economy, that this one should only be for a period of two years,” Menna said after the session.
Unike the six-month contract reached with the Communications Workers of America Local 1034 in June, the police pact contains no provisions for a furlough program or a four-day workweek. It also contains no change to language under which police make no contribution to the cost of health insurance, Menna said.
The CWA deal also called for pay to rise at an annualized rate of three percent.
The only other significant change in the contract is a provision under which a new officer’s one-year probationary period would begin upon his or her graduation from the police academy, rather than when he enters the academy, Menna said.
