Citizen fighting for the police

[KitORiley]

Here in Springfield MO the city manager and the chief are really good "buddies" and have decided to take away the police depts holiday pay. Which many use as part of their retirement. The chief sits on the fence and wont pick sides. :( Its a mess. A citizen took it upon himself to make a website and message board to help support the police and inform the public of the true facts of the situation.

I tip my hat to him. The people feeling threatened by the website (city management) have been trying to make things hard on him and he keeps fighting.

If anyone would like to take a look the website is http://www.HelpOurPolice.com

[ngcsubutterbar]

I don't think there will be a problem here, but going on precedence I have to close this for further review. Sounds like a worthy site.

[KitORiley]

how long do i need to wait to find out?

[ngcsubutterbar]

thanks for your understanding.

[KitORiley]

np at all thanks

[KitORiley]

I had been asked if anyone could sign the petition or if it could only be local residents.

I spoke with the owner of the site and message board and he said anyone could sign and show their support.

thanks so much

Kit

[Michelles]

I signed up for support.

Thank you!

[Ranger__101]

I don't think LE will have a problem with that one. Just threating a law suite should take care of it. THey can't treat one class of city employees different from another.

AKA -- all employees have to be treated equal and discrimination is not permitted in employment.

[KitORiley]

the city manager here doesnt care. The chief is in his pocket.. will not back up the officers saying he sees both sides of things.

post on there that sums it up very nicely is


"Great Site. Read the post and find them very informative. By the way if the moderator would like a copy of the merit rule that is in question. Should he post a mailing address I am positive he would be provided a copy of it.
Anyways, everyone has seen how Tom Finnie reaction to this issue has been on tv and newspaper interviews. He's a pampous ***. But what everyone does not know is this. Tom Finnie tried to present a city council salary ordinance to include the Police Department. That ordinance would have capped our holiday hours and only given us a %5 raise over two years. Please bear in mind that the city originally gave police officers a sample ballot that would allowed us to not take a raise and to have our holiday hours left alone. When they found out this would have been the winning vote. They took that option off the ballot.
They were only offerring the officers a %5 raise over two years, but gave the fire department a , someone correct me if im wrong, I believe it was a 21% raise over five years.
Police and Fire both have the same pension system. We both stand to lose the same financial benefits from capped holiday hours. So why is the fire department getting up to 4 times the amount of a raise for compensation of lost holiday caps, and the police were not offerred the same as well.
Ok so this is what caused the Officers to not vote. Finnie gave us two crappy raise options to vote on. We decided as a group that we would not vote on something that was going to cost each and every officer hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of his retirement.
Well we then started speaking to City Council to see if they knew what was going on, to plead our case. That is for the city to uphold their terms of employment. I believe that Council was supportive, that questioned Finnie's authority.
So In return Finnie created a new administrative directive. All departments employee's in the city must use any accumulated holiday hours within six months of acquiring them, that was effective 12-04. He then goes on in his memo how he holds each department head responsible to make sure this is done.
Chief in turn sent out nasty grams to his subordinates to do the same..blah..blah..blah.
Ok so Finnie has now side stepped Council. I forgot to mention this. Councicl had asked both sides to sit down and hash this out and then to bring the issue back to counicl, the issue being what terms we would accept in exchange for a raise.
So through an administrative action, which Finnie has the power to strike with his pen, he capped holiday hours. As for a raise, forget about it. They have made no offers for us to recieve a raise. They have also made threats to force us to burn up our holiday hours.
When I say they, I refer to the administrative portion of the city, Finnie, Cumley,etc.
I don't honestly believe council is aware of everything that is going on. Carlson and Finnie are holding hands on this pay issue. But as for council I would suggest they wisen up to Finnie's actions. This issue unfortunately will only be settled by the citizens of Springfield.
The Chief doesn't support us, wanna know why. He has publicly stated to officers in large groups, that he is an at will employee of Tom Finnie."

[mcsap]

WE have a contract. They can't take anything away without negotiating it with us. And we will NEVER give up our triple time holiday pay.

[Jeff L]

Triple? Wow, I would patrol those streets on Christmas morning with a big cheesy grin ;)

[mcsap]

I do JUST that. I was doing that last night until midnight.

[KitORiley]

WE have a contract. They can't take anything away without negotiating it with us. And we will NEVER give up our triple time holiday pay.

my husband would like to know where you work

edit: nm i looked harder and found out.

This is the husband speaking now. The problem here is, in MO there is no collective bargining. Each year we have a meet and confer with city management to try to get a raise and each year we get screwed. At this point we do have step increases that are guaranteed on each officer's hire date anniversary as long as the officer gets a passing evaluation that year. the most I will make at this point is $50,000 once I reach year 16 and I'm at year 6 now. Thats pretty piss poor but I'm to old to start over anywhere else at least as a police officer. If I leave here before retirement I will not go anywhere else to be a police officer.

[ngcsubutterbar]

I know in GA it's illegal to collective bargain. I'm 'guessing' that's an old carry over law from the 'farming' era.