Council signs off on new police deal
Contract continues health coverage for admitted dirty cop
TROY, N.Y. » The Troy City Council on Thursday night formally signed off on a short-term labor deal with city police officers they hope will open the door to a longterm contract.
With council President Carmella Mantello abstaining because her nephew, Nicholas Laviano, is president of the Troy Police Benevolent and Protective Association, which negotiated the deal with the city, the remaining eight members voted unanimously to approve an agreement that will run only until the end of the year, though it bridges a five-year period during which union members have worked under terms of an expired deal.
The new deal includes a pay bump of around 2 percent for most officers, but no retroactive payments to cover the period when the two sides were at impasse. The agreement also includes increases in some health care co-payments and allows the city to pay officers every two weeks, in line with most other city employees.
“Part of keeping our community safe is ensuring our public safety departments have the support they need to protect our families and neighborhoods,” Mayor Patrick Madden said in a statement issued after Thursday’s council meeting. “The bipartisan approval of this important agreement acknowledges the important work of the dedicated men and women of the Troy Police Department who serve our city and continues my administration’s efforts to fairly resolve all remaining outstanding labor agreements with the city’s negotiating units.”
The deal expires at the end of the year, at which point all six of the city’s unions would again be operating under terms of expired contracts. City firefighters agreed to a similar short-term extension in 2016 that expired at the end of that year, while the other four continue to operate under terms of contracts that expired Dec. 31, 2012. City officials have said negotiations continue with all six unions on long-term agreements.
Laviano gave an impassioned plea Thursday night on behalf of the officers he represents, pointing out not only how city police salaries lag behind surrounding agencies, leading to an ongoing string of officers taking their experience — and city-funded training — to other communities, but how those who remain have continued to do “the job they do, day in and day out, whether they get a raise or not.”
“Tonight,” he continued, “I’m asking you to put politics aside and do the right thing. Don’t do the Republican thing. Don’t do the Democratic thing. Do the right thing.”
The deal with the PBA, though, leaves in place part of a controversial addendum inked between former mayor Lou Rosamilia and former PBA president Robert Fitzgerald that will continue to provide health insurance for two former officers, including Brian Gross, a 10-year veteran of the force who was forced to resign in June 2015 after admitting he tipped off a drug dealer about a 2013 raid. Council members expressed outrage at that clause during discussions at an Oct. 18 Finance Committee meeting, but agreed by another 8-0 vote, with Mantello again abstaining, to sign off on the deal after a brief executive session with Jonathan Bernstein of the Goldberg Segalla law firm, the city’s new labor attorneys.
Bernstein had said before going behind closed doors that the entire contract — which council members agreed was a good one overall for the city — would have to be negotiated again if council members did not agree to it.
The agreement signed in June 2014 by Rosamilia and Robert Fitzgerald, then president of the PBA, but not presented to the council until 18 months later, at a December 2015 meeting, called for any union member with 10 years on the force to be eligible for lifetime health insurance coverage. It also redefined retirement to include not only PBA members who voluntarily leave the force, but also those who are terminated by the city. Those general guidelines were removed from the new agreement, though it will remain in effect for two former officers — including Gross — who took advantage of the deal.
Gross was assisting the state police Community Narcotics Enforcement Team with a 2013 investigation of a Rensselaer County narcotics ring when he tipped off one of the subjects of the investigation of an imminent raid. Police simultaneously executed search warrants on five residences on Feb. 12, 2013, but failed to find any evidence of drug dealing, despite extensive prior evidence.
Gross was charged with tampering with physical evidence, a felony, as well as two counts of official misconduct and one count of obstructing governmental administration after a five-month joint investigation by state police and the state Attorney General’s Office. He pleaded guilty in June 2015 to misdemeanor counts of divulging evidence secured by eavesdropping to its intended target and official misconduct and was sentenced to probation and ordered to resign from the force.
Both union and city officials have said the shortterm deal paves the way for negotiations that would include current hot-button issues such as the desire by the city to outfit its officers with body cameras. In light of recent incidents involving Troy officers, including officer-involved shootings that left one man dead and another wounded and the en masse suspension of the city’s drug and weapons investigation unit because of the questionable search of an apartment, city officials have advocated for the issuance of body cameras to better document public interaction with officers.
Laviano agreed body cameras would likely be a part of negotiations, but he also defended his brother officers and the professionalism they show ever day.
“I stand before you here to tell you the Troy Police Department is the best police department in the area,” he said. “I would put them up against any department in the state, or the country.”