A 1947 topographic map of the Reading, Pennsylvania area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
City police, especially those hired this year and in the future, will take major pay and benefit cuts now and when they retire, according to a five-year contract handed down Friday by a panel of arbitrators.
The panel froze officers’ salaries and step increases for three years and cut starting salaries, vacation time and sick leave in the new contract, which is retroactive to January 2012.
In setting the terms, the panel followed the city’s Act 47 financial recovery plan to cut millions of dollars a year from police costs.
For employees hired before the old contract expired at the end of 2011, the panel kept that contract’s pension benefits – up to 70 percent of working salaries, the ability to buy years of service to raise that pension, and city-paid retiree health insurance.
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