Atlantic City prepares to pay raises                                                Published ACpress: Saturday, October 28, 2006

ATLANTIC CITY - The day after City Council approved the police and fire contracts, the city began work to get the raises paid.                                                                                                                                                                           “The revenue and finance team is working day and night to get this done,” city spokesman Nick Morici said Thursday. “The first step is to bring everybody up to the new base salary.”

The contracts, which give police and firefighters 4 percent annual increases for five years beginning in 2003, were approved at Wednesday's council meeting. They were signed by Business Administrator Domenic Cappella because Mayor Bob Levy is out of town.

“The trip (the mayor is) on was booked well in advance,” Morici said. “He's called us and he's very pleased with the contract. He has stated it's well overdue.

” While the timeline is tentative, Morici said the city hopes to have the raises in employees' checks for the Nov. 3-17 pay period.

The retroactive pay for 2006 should be calculated and paid before the end of November, he said. Then, the city hopes to have the retro checks for 2003 through 2005 paid by the end of the year.                                                    “Barring any unforeseen delays, they should meet that time line,” Morici said.

He said estimates of how much the raises could cost the city were not available Thursday.                                        “They're working on the figures now,” Morici said.

But a look at the payroll gives a good idea. The contract covers 372 officers, including sergeants and lieutenants. Of those, 232 make a base annual salary of $59,527, which is the top pay scale below sergeant.

An officer at that level would be owed $14,671 in retroactive pay from 2003 through 2005. That means the city would pay out about $3.4 million for those workers. That does not include the remaining 40 officers or the 244 union firefighters.

But that will not be a problem for the city, Morici said. “Every year, the city anticipates those raises and, since they weren't paid, the money was put aside,” he said. “The city has built up a reserve so when the raises came through it would be ready and available for the police and firefighters.