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Union contract supersedes city charter October 7, 2019
Good article in Sunday's Lansing State Journal: Why you won’t hear about most complaints made against Lansing police officers. It says a 3-member committee of the 8-member Board of Police Commissioners "meets behind closed doors to review complaints against police officers" and "almost never disagrees with decisions Lansing’s police chief makes."
The city charter says "The Board shall act as the final authority of the City in imposing or reviewing discipline of the department employees consistent with the terms of State law and applicable collective bargaining contracts." The key phrase in that statement is "consistent with. . .applicable collective bargaining contracts", because the Board is actually not the final authority. According to City Attorney Jim Smiertka, the current contract with the police union grants the police chief or his designee sole authority to punish officers.
We could check that out for ourselves, but although the city charter is on the City's website, union contracts are not. And they apparently are not readily available. On September 22, I emailed a FOIA request asking for the latest ratified collective bargaining agreements for all City of Lansing unions. On October 2, I received an extension letter saying a written response will be issued on or before October 14.
But there is no question that a union contract can supersede the city charter. Although only one way to amend is given in he charter - by majority vote of the electors - it has long been accepted that the final authority is the union contract. In other words, what the people of Lansing decide by majority vote in an election can be superseded by what is negotiated behind closed doors by unelected, unknown people in a collective bargaining session. What's more, the people of Lansing might never even be informed that what they voted into the charter had been superseded.
I wrote about this 7 years ago, in a story called Sadly, this is what democracy looks like. On August 27, 2012, Lansing City Council held a public hearing on a proposed new Police and Fire Retirement System ordinance. One of the new provisions was that there was no minimum age for retirement. If a public safety officer had 25 years of service, he could retire at any age. The other was the pension multiplier. In the old ordinance, it was 3.2% for police with the rank of sergeant or above, 2.95% for everybody else. In the new ordinance, they all got the 3.2% multiplier.
I did a little research and found that these provisions had actually been in effect for quite a few years:
So a public hearing was being held on provisions that were already in effect - some for as long as 28 years. Here is what it says about minimum age on page 38 of the 2005-2009 non-supervisory police contract:
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com, or call or text me at 517-505-2696. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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