A taxpayer victory while it lasted, a London move to rein in soaring police wages has been undermined by contracts in other cities that did the opposite, says the city’s deflated police budget chief.

“London will pay sizably more because of decisions made in other jurisdictions,” said Paul Paolatto, who was the point person on a London-led fight to stop soaring police wages in Ontario. “You can’t understate my frustration and disappointment.”

His comments followed a Windsor deal reached last week under which officers with three years’ experience will make more than $100,000 in 2019.

That contract — similar to one reached in cities such as Sudbury and Waterloo — gives Windsor officers raises of nearly 11 per cent over the next five years and effectively negates London’s work to make a deal last fall that led to an increase of less than five per cent during the same period, Paolatto said.

“Everybody’s throwing up their hands,” he said.

“We’ve made it easy for ­everybody to get settlements, but we haven’t accomplished ­anything.”

Last September, London’s police board announced a four-year deal that would guarantee London officers and civilian staff a total raise of 4.8 per cent over four years — much less than the previous deal of 11.2 per cent over four years.

But the deal includes a caveat that at the end of 2018, London employees will get a bump to bring their 2018 pay hike to the average of Ontario’s 12 largest ­cities.

Mayor Matt Brown sees the pay hikes by other forces as a lost opportunity to curb spending.

“We need to communicate clearly to boards across the province, to achieve sustainable targets over the long term they need to approach negotiations in a different way,” he said.

Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson said he’s not surprised by the Windsor deal. As long as contract standoffs can be arbitrated, or decided by a third party whose decision is binding, agreements will come in high, he said.

Mathieson also suggested the London deal didn’t put the brakes on spending, because it allowed wages to be increased so they don’t fall behind.

“The system can be arbitrated at any time, and that allows for cherry-picking of the best settlements,” he said. “The London agreement can be reviewed and police can get retroactive increases.

“It’s tough enough to negotiate a contract. Every community tries to do its best.”

Stratford negotiated a three-year deal last year with its police force. Wages will increase about two per cent annually.

Paolatto said if other Ontario municipal forces followed London’s lead, they could keep the average ­reasonable. At the time, he said if others didn’t take advantage, “then shame on us.”

By “us,” Paolatto meant communities that had signed onto a so-called co-ordinated bargaining strategy. In 2014, 38 communities backed a made-in-London bid to clamp down on a benchmarking system by police associations in which a lucrative contract deal struck in one place, becomes the basis for other boards to match. If boards balk, terms of the precedent agreement often are imposed by arbitrators.

Though London fought hard to reach its modest contract — ratified by a bare minimum of unionized employees — Paolatto said other municipalities have simply been “throwing their hands up,” and agreeing to deals that keep their officers in line with a more lucrative deal reached in Toronto.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens last week touted his city’s new contract deal as a success, saying it avoided the arbitration process.

But Paolatto said arbitration isn’t to blame for soaring police costs.

“I do not accept the arbitration system as an excuse. The responsibility resides with police boards, and we are failing the taxpayers of Ontario,” he said.

“We have an ability to manage these costs. There’s a tremendous amount of hubris amongst the police boards, and our inability to work together is allowing the (police) associations to divide and conquer us,” he said. “The cost of our arrogance is being borne by the Ontario taxpayers.

“We need the province’s help. We need it quickly or the Sunshine List across this province will be filled with emergency-service workers,” he said.

The so-called Sunshine List is Ontario’s annual disclosure of public employees in Ontario paid $100,000 or more.

Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, who as Treasury Board president is the Ontario minister in charge of public-sector bargaining, said she understands Paolatto’s frustration, but cautions against looking too closely at wage increases, without keeping in mind progress made through “offsets.”

“It’s tempting to see the bargaining from compensation increase. But if you look one layer deeper, in every contract I’m aware of, there are offsets that bring the total cost to the police-service board down,” she said.

“There might be a wage increase, but there are changes to benefits or policies that reduce costs to the employer. It would be misleading to look at the top-line compensation number.”

In London, for instance, the contract includes schedule changes designed to reduce absenteeism. “At the provincial level, with the contracts we’ve negotiated, we are sticking to net zero (additional costs) and finding offsets,” Matthews said.

With files by Norman De Bono, The London Free Press

jennifer.obrien@sunmedia.ca

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