City approves agreement with police union

City officials Wednesday approved a letter of agreement with Shawano’s police union that extends the existing contract but allows a move to 12-hour work days. City Administrator Brian Knapp told the Common Council that the current work schedule was a problem for many of the officers. “It has been a source of frustration and concern by many of the department staff,” he said. “For many of our younger and newer employees, the current schedule interferes with family life considerably.” Under the existing schedule, officers work 7½-hour shifts for six days in a row before getting three days off. As a result, they end up getting a weekend off only once every five or six weeks, according to Chief Mark Kohl. With the new 12-hour shifts, officers would work two days in a row, followed by two days off, then three days on and two days off, followed by two days on and three days off. “They’ll never work more than three days in a row and have every other weekend off,” Knapp said. The existing contract was set to expire Dec. 31. The letter of agreement extends the contract until the end of this year. Aside from the change in shifts, all the other terms of the existing contract, including wages, remain the same. Knapp said the 12-hour shifts will also give the city the equivalent of an additional full-time officer, as the hours worked annually by each of the officers increases from 1,950 to 2,080. The change has been viewed as a positive one by other law enforcement agencies that have adopted it, Knapp said. “I think there will be significant morale improvements as a result of this,” he said. Either the city or the Shawano Professional Police Association can decide the schedule isn’t working out, however, and can give notice by early October. If that happens, negotiations would begin on a new agreement using the existing contract and old schedule as a starting point. Kohl said the schedule change won’t go into effect until a detective has been appointed from within the ranks. The 12-hour shifts won’t apply to the detective or the school resource officer. Kohl said there are also some vacations currently planned for some of the officers that need to be taken before the new schedule starts. He expected it would go into effect sometime around March 1.