By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer
October 7, 2004
The town's police union will oppose a change in the formula for calculating the pay rate for municipal employees serving in the military, union President Sgt. Timothy Berry said yesterday.
Berry met yesterday morning with First Selectman Jim Lash and Labor Relations Director Al Cava to discuss the salary reduction of police Sgt. Kraig Gray, a U.S. Army reservist serving in the Middle East, and a recent change in the interpretation of town policy that could mean reduced pay for town employees on active duty in the military.
The union may file an unfair labor practice complaint with the state Department of Labor based on the sudden change in policy, Berry said.
"We will use every means at our disposal to fight that if that is what the town decides it wants to do," said Berry. "The town should continue to pay soldiers the way they have for the past 14 years."
Last Thursday afternoon, police Chief James Walters called Dawn Gray, the wife of Sgt. Kraig Gray, to tell her that his biweekly paycheck on Friday would be reduced by $500 and that the Grays might have to pay back as much as $15,000 in wages, according to Dawn Gray. Her husband, a 12-year veteran of the police force, has been on active duty since December with the 854th Engineer Battalion and is serving at Camp Doha in Kuwait.
Yesterday, Sgt. Berry said that two other officers who served in Iraq, Detective Terrence McCue, and Patrolman Sean O'Donnell, had been notified that finance officials are reviewing the pay they received while overseas.
Lash said officials will make a final decision on the town's military pay policy by tomorrow after reviewing military payment records from the police and public works departments dating as far back as the first Gulf War.
Lash said he didn't know if the Department of Public Works had used a formula similar to the police department's to calculate military pay. Two DPW employees have served overseas.
Lash said one solution would be to continue administering the policy as it has been in the past.
"When I have all those facts together, we can get all the various department heads together and find what we believe is the fair way for the town to be paying those on military leave," Lash said. "Nobody disagrees with the policy as written; it's a difference in how the words have been interpreted."
Gray, a Norwalk resident, said she is trying to find ways to trim living expenses, but it is hard to do with additional costs stemming from her husband's absence, such as paying someone to mow the lawn or babysit during school events.
The reduction totals about $1,000 a month, Gray said.
"Living in Fairfield County is so expensive that a thousand dollars a month is an enormous amount of money," Gray said. "I'm in a situation of really watching all the dollars."
Lash said he regretted that Dawn Gray was not given more notice in advance of the $500 pay cut.
"I thought 12 hours notice was less than she should have been given if we were going to change the amount that was being paid in her husband's pay check," Lash said yesterday.
Under a policy of the town's Human Resource Department, adopted in January 2003, municipal employees on active duty are to receive a total amount equal to their base pay, or regular wages, without overtime, while serving abroad. To do that, the town pays the difference between what the U.S. government pays a soldier and what the person's regular pay was as a town employee. Finance officials, however, didn't take into account that military personnel are paid on the basis of a seven-day work week, rather than five as the town does. As a result, they multiplied the per diem pay by five, underestimating the amount of military pay employees receive. That resulted in the town paying more to bring soldiers' pay up to their base salary.
The Silver Shield Association's attorney, Kevin Greco of Stamford, and Patrolman Robert Berry, Berry's brother, who is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq on Oct. 25, also attended the meeting yesterday.
"I'm optimistic that the town upon reasonable review of the issue will continue to comply with the past practices of paying of officers," Greco said yesterday. Sgt. Berry said he didn't know about Gray's pay cut until Thursday afternoon when Walters informed him.
Walters declined comment on the matter in a telephone message yesterday, but said he was working with town officials to solve the problem.
"I can tell you we are taking all appropriate steps and looking into all aspects of this to make sure the appropriate action is taken," Walters said. "We're working on it."
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