The County has negotiated in good faith with all members of the negotiating team of FOP 34 since the initial union contract proposal was received in late December of 1995. In addition to informal sessions with both negotiating team members and their legal representatives, there have been fifteen formal bargaining sessions since the beginning of 1996. As a result of such considerable time and effort, substantial progress was made with regard to many of the items on the table.
Items still open included salary, insurance and seniority issues.
Such proposals reflect the need for employees wages to keep pace with inflation and allow the County to continue to provide comprehensive medical coverage. In late 1996, the County suggested that a mutual request for arbitration would lead to a fair and efficient resolution of the balance of the issues. On April 4th, a new attorney appeared on behalf of FOP 34. Such attorney was hired by the union to replace the attorney with whom the County had been negotiating with over the prior sixteen months. The union's new attorney disregarded the prior agreement as to issues on the table and produced an entire new contract proposal.