TOLEDO, OH – The union representing Toledo’s police patrolmen, which was led by Mayor D. Michael Collins as its president for a decade, voted Tuesday to reject a proposed three-year contract hammered out last week with the mayor days before he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Chief of Staff Robert Reinbolt and Dan Wagner , president of the Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association, said the 476-member union voted down the contract Tuesday after a second day of voting. The union did not release the vote total.

The city and the union had been scheduled to meet with a fact finder because the two sides had been unable to come to an agreement. That impasse was seemingly averted late last week, Mr. Collins said on Friday.

But now the two sides will make their cases before a third-party fact finder.

“It was very clear that our membership did not want to accept the agreement and want to go to fact-finding,” Mr. Wagner said. “They want their contract decided by a third party.”

Mr. Wagner said the proposed contract would have granted 0.75 percent pay increases each year for three years and in the third year, patrolmen with 10 or more years of seniority would be deemed corporals and get an additional 3 percent pay raise that year.

“There were no changes in health care and there were some other things like increases in shift differential of 20 cents more per hour, bringing it to 70 cents an hour, for any field operations officer working anything other than the day shift,” Mr. Wagner said.

Mr. Reinbolt said Mr. Collins crafted the portion of the contract that would have created the corporal designation and given those officers a greater increase.

Toledo City Council last week approved contracts with the city’s rank-and-file firefighters’ union and the union representing police command officers. An analysis by the administration of Mr. Collins showed the firefighters’ agreement would cost taxpayers an additional $1.58 million over three years and the command officers’ agreement will cost about $300,000 additional over three years.

The contract with Toledo Firefighters Local 92 grants 0.75 percent annual raises for the three-year agreement and increases the department’s “minimum manning” requirement from 103 to 107. It will go up to 110 on Jan. 1, 2017. The minimum-manning requirement in the past has been blamed for the department’s over-budget overtime costs.

Council voted 8-2 in favor of the Local 92 contract. Councilmen Mike Craig and Tom Waniewski voted against the agreement.

The Local 92 contract also increases what the city must pay monthly for each firefighter’s medical insurance from $916 to $961 this year; to $985 in 2016, and then $1,010 in 2017. The city also must buy each firefighter a second set of bunker gear.

Council voted 10-0 in favor of the Toledo Police Command Officers Association agreement. Councilmen Rob Ludeman and Lindsay Webb were not present.

That contract grants 0.75 percent annual increases, but Mr. Collins said wages for Toledo Police Command Officers Association are set with a formula based on what patrolmen are paid. After the city reaches a new agreement with the Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association, compensation for command officers could change.

From The Toledo Blade