The City of Monterey Park has approved a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with the Monterey Park Police Officers’ Association (MPPOA), the MPPOA -

Police Captains’ Unit and the Monterey Park Professional Chief Officers’ Association (MPPCOA). The MOUs were approved at the City Council meeting on July 18, 2012 and concludes a three-month negotiation process.

The MOUs replaced each group’s last contracts, which expired on June 30, 2012. The new MOUs are effective July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2014.

“The City Council, the City’s Police Associations and the Fire Department’s Professional Chief Officers’ Association are pleased to jointly announce the successful conclusion to negotiations,” said City Manager Paul Talbot and Mayor Mitchell Ing. “The City has achieved systemic change with how pension costs are financed with the employees picking up their full employee CalPERS contributions in this contract and this change will help reduce the City’s long-term financial liability.”

Historically, the City has paid full retirement costs for the Police Associations and the Fire Battalion Chiefs. With the new MOUs, these groups will pay their full 9% contribution. This will be a cost saving of approximately $1.1 million dollars over the two-year term of the contract. To-date, 6 of the 7 Monterey Park employee associations have agreed to pay their employee share of the PERS retirement costs.

In addition, these bargaining units agreed to cap their sick leave accrual and modify the retirement sick leave cash out provision, reduced their vacation and holiday cash-out provisions, reduced their administrative leave, capped tuition reimbursements and agreed to work with the city over the next fiscal year to formulate an alternative retirement medical plan in order to assist the city with the post-retirement medical costs which have increased significantly in the past decade and will not be sustainable.

These employees understood that the City needed help balancing the budget and they were willing to make concessions in order to help the City achieve their budget goals. City Manager Talbot indicated that these “employee groups truly partnered with the city during these negotiations to address some of the significant fiscal challenges the city is facing and their willingness to do so are appreciated”.