SJC: Pay Lynn cops union grant

LYNN – The Lynn Police Association has won a significant court battle that decided a $277,000 state grant for community policing was wrongfully used by the city’s former mayor to offset the department’s budget rather than supplement it.The state Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) found in favor of an earlier arbitrator’s award, which ordered the city to pay back wages to Lynn police union members who made financial concessions in 2004 in order to avoid department layoffs.The high court also ruled on Jan. 6 that the arbitrator did not exceed his authority in requiring the city to reinstate wages voluntarily relinquished by the union police officers.The controversy stemmed from December 2003, when the Police Department received a $277,815 community policing grant from the state Executive Office of Public Safety for use in fiscal 2004. According to the SJC ruling, under the state program, the funds were to supplement, and not supplant, local police department budgets.While the grant funds could only be used for community policing, the funds could be used, at the discretion of then-Police Chief John Suslak, to defray personnel costs and pay law enforcement training expenses for civilian employees and uniformed officers.With the police chief’s authorization, the same grant monies could be used to pay overtime, for supplies, operating expenses, equipment “and to defray other reasonable costs intended to facilitate or enhance community policing.”The SJC found that the city’s fiscal 2004 municipal budget was already in place when the grant was received and that there was no change in that budget as a result of the grant. The city spent the money but did not repay the police officers for the concessions they made.Concessions were made in the form of wages, vacation or holiday forfeitures. The police association and the city signed a memorandum of understanding that included a repayment obligation for the concessions made.”At the time the concessions were made, there was an agreement that if the city received any additional state or federal funding, that it would be used to repay the concessions. That was what the arbitrator’s argument was based upon,” said attorney John M. Becker of the Boston law firm Sandulli Grace, which represented the police union.When the police union learned that the grant funds had been exhausted without giving its members relief, a grievance was filed. The city brought the matter to Superior Court where a judge supported the arbitrator’s decision. The city argued that repaying the police officers would violate the Bailout Act that had been enacted in 1985 when Lynn faced bankruptcy and state revenue officials were called in to draft regulations aimed at stabilizing the city’s finances.”The Bailout Bill says once you expend your budget appropriation, you can’t incur any more personal expenses for your department,” said Becker. “The city argued that it had already spent its appropriation, so there was no way they could pay the arbitrator’s award. But the SJC ruled that the Bailout Bill doesn’t apply because it is beyond the typical budget appropriation.”Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said that while the SJC ruling seemingly favors police departments that receive such grants, the Lynn Police Department remains underfunded. “My biggest concern is that we don’t have that kind of money in the police budget today,” he said, noting the department’s $16.6 million budget for fiscal 2010. “We took a $1.4 million cut in fiscal 2009, plus we lost a community policing grant, and our Shannon Grant was cut as well.”Becker said the police union and city officials will meet to discuss how the concessions can be repaid to everyone’s benefit. “My expectation is that the city will pay this money to the union, because that is what has been ordered, but there is no timetable at present,” he said. “They’ll have to sit down and figure out how to do this.”Although the Police Department’s three non-union members – the chief and two deputy chief