A special meeting of the Falls City Council, set for Thursday night to consider changes to the union contract covering police patrol officers and detectives, was canceled earlier in the day over what was described as a need for “technical changes” to the proposed memorandum of agreement.
Council Chair James Perry had called the special meeting to consider the contract changes after the proposal was “pulled” from the agenda of the council’s regularly scheduled July 10 meeting.
“It’s confusing,” Perry said. “We wanted to approve this to be able to recruit against other municipalities for officers. I’d like to be able to get it passed and get done with it.”
The memorandum of agreement, with the “technical changes” is expected to be placed on the agenda for the city council’s next meeting on Wednesday.
In a memo to council members, Mayor Robert Restaino said the proposed contract change “is intended to assist with recruiting new patrol officers by improving our competitiveness in the labor market and addressing other matters through labor negotiations.”
“If approved, the foregoing proposed agreement will greatly help the city to achieve its goal of maintaining departmental staffing continuity,” Restaino said.
The mayor noted that the contract change had been “approved and recommended” by Police Superintendent Nicholas Ligammari.
The agreement will “modify the wage schedule for (patrol officers and detectives)” by almost $7,000 in their first year of employment. In his memo to the council, Restaino said the increase in pay would have “only a modest impact” on the police department’s 2025 budget.
The new agreement also calls for the city to hire “parking attendants” to “enforce the city’s parking rules, regulations and restrictions, including the issuance of parking tickets.”
In recent years the city has seen a dramatic decline in the number of applicants for the police officer civil service exam. Perry and others have said they hope a raise in the base salary for officers would increase the number of applicants.