Police, union at odds over alleged 'sick out'Police, union at odds over alleged 'sick out'STAMFORD — City and police department officials are currently investigating what they believe to be a "sick out" organized by the police union.
Director of Human Resources Dennis Murphy said an unusual number of officers called out sick or injured on duty beginning Tuesday evening when 13 of 26 officers called out of work, and continuing Wednesday morning when nine of 26 officers stayed home.
Nineteen officers total did not work during the time period, Murphy said, as some offers cover multiple shifts.
Murphy said Police Chief Brent Larrabee had heard word that such action was going to be coordinated by the union.
"It's not totally out of the blue," Murphy said.
The city and union were scheduled for arbitration concerning the union contract Monday, that has been postponed to Dec.18, Murphy said, because the department is filing an unfair labor practice claim against the union.
The union, in turn, has filed a complaint against the city for canceling Monday's arbitration, Police Union President Mike Merenda said.
He said, "the union would never condone job action," and called allegations of a "sick out" unfounded.
"[The officers that called in sick], that's not even 10 percent of the whole department," Merenda said, adding that he had not been contacted by Murphy. "It's sickening to me, it's ridiculous. It's just another way to make the union suffer."
There have been times throughout the year when 30 officers have called in sick, Merenda said. Murphy said he did not have data to show how many officers are absent on an average day.
Under city contract, 11 officers can be out of work sick or injured at one time.
"It's that time of year, people get sick," Merenda said. "I haven't seen one scrap of evidence that the union was responsible for this."
The conflict comes on the heels of a Tuesday night meeting during which city police were brought to explain their injured on duty and overtime records before the Board of Finance Public Safety Committee, as the city searches to remedy a police force strapped for manpower.
Risk manager Ann Marie Mones said some injured on duty are remaining on leave when they could be on light duty.
An audit of the police department was conducted and revealed discrepancies between the injured on duty list and what was actually approved — nearly 70 percent of injured on duty pay was unauthorized, Mones said.
Director of Policy and Management Peter Privitera said it was not a case of fraud, but rather a case of poor documentation —reports of injuries had a "lack of continuity."
"The real purpose of this is to try to reduce some of the issues we have with worker compensation, this is not just the police department this is city wide," Mones said. "It's not to penalize anybody, it's to improve the system and see what we can do to keep these kinds of issues from occurring."
Police Captain Tom Wuennemann said changes will be made to the department's filing system beginning Jan. 1.
"I think there was some recognition of this problem long before the audit," Larrabee said. "We'd made some minor changes to it, and now I think we've made major changes to it."
Discrepancies between approved time and time off will be long gone under the new system, Larrabee said.
"Those types of gaps will be profoundly closed henceforth," he said.
The meeting grew increasing contentious when Larrabee was called to explain an "extraordinary amount of overtime," taken by police officers in the past year.
Larrabee cited spikes in crime, 14 city events, and mischief night as the reasons for some overtime pay. There are not enough officers to cover these incidents without the use of overtime, he said.
"We are at historic lows in manpower," Larrabee said.
Privitera said that a policy change may be in order.
"The mathematics of the situation are if we sustain half a million dollars in overtime, it would make more sense to hire officers full time and pay salary," he said.
Larrabee contended that it is not so simple.
The department, authorized for 313 officers, has 18 individuals currently in the academy, and 12 open slots, with five or six officers currently on long-term disability. By those numbers, around 280 officers are available for duty.
While Larrabee said some of the long-term disability officers will be retiring this year, opening up more positions, they are not the cause of the manpower problems.
"We are the same size as Hartford, the same as size as New Haven, and they have 300 to 400 officers," he said.
Larrabee also said he wants to focus on Internet crime, youth services, and homeland security, initiatives which are difficult to fund without a sizable allocation from the city.
Currently there are about 22 to 24 officers on duty at a given time, he said, at all times there are a minimum of 18 officers on duty as per the city minimum.
That minimum might be outdated, as it was established more than 20 years ago, and the city has grown 30 to 40 percent since then, Director of Public Safety Health & Welfare Bill Callion said.
Committee Chair Tim Abbazia said he'd like to see a detailed budget breakdown of where the money would be used, and that would make it easier to approve funding for the police department.
"We all want to be safe in the city, we all saw the incident in the Marriott Hotel and even people in other neighborhoods are concerned," Abbazia said. "This is an issue about being safe in the city. If it costs $3 million to be safe in the city so be it, I just need to see [justifications for how much we need.]"