Funding change for Quinn bill hits communities, police
Contracts are key to budget effects
In some communities, police officers will take the hit. In others, taxpayers are left holding the bag.
A new state budget that cuts education incentive pay for police has sent city and town officials racing to analyze their union contracts to see if they must make up the difference - or if the money should be docked from officers’ paychecks.
In Waltham, for example, the contract calls for police to retain their bonuses under the so-called Quinn bill, which boosts the pay of police who receive college degrees. Now, the city could be obligated to make up the state’s share, $570,328.
Police are also keeping their full bonuses in Marlborough at a cost to the city of $199,537, and in Milford, $199,721. The Brookline contract requires the town to pay part of the state’s share, leaving it with a shortfall of $302,517.
But without similar contract language, police officers could take a pay cut in Arlington, Concord, Framingham, and Newton, while Watertown police stand to see their paychecks plunge in two months if the new legislative mandate is not successfully challenged in court or altered on Beacon Hill.
The state budget that Governor Deval Patrick signed into law last week slashed Quinn bill funding from $58 million to $10 million. The extent of the state cut - and the disparity in how it affects communities - left police and municipal officials reeling.
“This should not be and must not be an unfunded mandate,’’ said Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “We do not believe cities and towns are under any obligation to fund the state’s share unless they have a contractual obligation. That would be unconscionable in this day and age, with so many cutbacks in local aid and a fiscal crisis in every town.’’
However, several local officials said their communities had agreed contractually to make up the lost state money and pay police the full bonus - a prospect that seemed only fair to some police chiefs.
“I know that there may be a core of the public that feels that these benefits may not be appropriate,’’ said Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan. “But these employees have given up other wage increases and benefits so they could get and maintain the Quinn benefit. To now legislate it away violates the most fundamental due process of our employees.’’
The Quinn bill, passed in 1970, was meant to encourage police to get an education by rewarding them with an additional 10 percent of their salary for an associate’s degree, 20 percent for a bachelor’s degree, and 25 percent for a master’s degree. The state shared the cost equally with communities that adopted the bill.
Under collective bargaining agreements with police, some communities agreed to pay the state’s share of the benefit if it was reduced, while others did not.
This spring, as the state grappled with reduced revenues and skyrocketing costs, state lawmakers’ initial attempts to cut the state’s portion or rescind the law altogether were met with fierce lobbying by police. In the end, however, state funding for Quinn bonuses was slashed.
That left some communities on the hook for much of the state’s share.
“Simply by cutting the funding, [the Legislature] made the fiscal situation of many cities and towns worse,’’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
In other communities, police officers absorbed the cuts. For an officer with a salary of $50,000 formerly making a Quinn bonus of $10,000, the loss could be about $4,000annually.
“I think they’re very upset,’’ said Jay Babcock, president of Newton’s police union. “You’ve negotiated a contract and all of a sudden you have to take a reduction. It affects your child’s education, paying your mortgage. I think people are upset because it’s altering their personal lives.’’
Babcock is also on the board of the Massachusetts Municipal Police Coalition, a professional association that includes officers from Arlington, Belmont, Framingham, Lexington, Marlborough, Natick, Newton, and Wayland. He said that during the next round of legislative budget talks, the police coalition “will be aggressively pursuing more funding for the Quinn bill.’’
Brookline Police Chief Daniel C. O’Leary, president of the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs, said his group and another statewide professional organization, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association Inc., also will lobby to restore the Quinn bill.
O’Leary said the Major City Chiefs will back Patrick’s call for a study of the Quinn bill, including whether to require higher education degrees for all police officers.
“We’re very concerned about the future of policing,’’ O’Leary said.
The study, required to be completed by March 31, also will compare the costs of police educational incentives in Massachusetts with those in other states; assess whether the incentives reduce the number of lawsuits filed against police; and compare how Quinn wage benefits measure up against salaries for other workers with higher educational degrees.
Many police chiefs in the western suburbs said the evisceration of the Quinn bill could make it difficult to recruit educated candidates to the job and ultimately dumb down police forces - a trend that Waltham Police Chief Thomas M. Lacroix said does not bode well for public safety.
“If you have well-educated officers, you get better service, and better understanding of society as a whole,’’ Lacroix said.
Or, as Babcock put it: “If you have an educated police force, you don’t have thugs.’’
Milford Police Chief Thomas O’Loughlin said the loss of bonuses also will cripple police morale.
“Some people would say other people are facing pay cuts, but if you’re going to cut my pay by 12.5 percent , how about everybody else?’’ he said.
Approaches to the Quinn bill vary from community to community. Some police contracts do not specify what happens if the state underfunds Quinn, whereas others spell out the municipality’s obligations.
In Brookline police officers, who formerly received an annual lump-sum payment, will get a smaller Quinn benefit on July 16, according to deputy town administrator Sean Cronin. Cronin said the contract requires the town to pay up to half the state’s share. O’Leary said last week the town was negotiating with police to pin down the exact reduction.
In Framingham, Chief Steven B. Carl said police there also get the bonus annually, but in December, so “it won’t impact anybody immediately.’’
Marlborough Chief Mark F. Leonard said members of his force would continue to receive the full benefit during this fiscal year, but having the city continue to pay the state’s share will be included in ongoing negotiations for a new contract to take effect July 1, 2010.
Newton’s pay cut went into effect July 1, with the money docked weekly, said Jeremy Solomon, city spokesman.
Arlington is obligated to make up the state’s share in increments over five years, Ryan said.
Ryan said he believes individual police officers who lose benefits could sue to try to force their community to restore them.
“I think the outcome will largely depend on what is in each municipality’s collective bargaining agreements,’’ he said.
Alan Shapiro, an attorney representing police unions in Marlborough, Newton, Milford and Waltham, said in the 1990s the state Supreme Judicial Court found that if the state underfunded the Quinn bill, municipalities would “be on the hook’’ for the state’s share, even if their police collective bargaining agreement freed them from the obligation. Still, Shapiro said, it would be difficult for police unions to challenge their contract in court, saying it was illegal. However, he said, an individual officer might sue.
Shapiro said it would be difficult to challenge another aspect of the law that rescinds any Quinn benefits for police officers hired after July 1. Shapiro also pointed out that lawmakers might sign a supplemental budget next spring restoring state payments.
Widmer, of the taxpayers foundation, said a lot of legal ambiguities remain.
“This is not the last word at all,’’ he said. “You make a seemingly simple change, and you open up a Pandora’s Box.’’
Connie Paige can be reached at connie_paige@yahoo.com. 