IRVINE : 3% Raises for City Workers on Agenda

The City Council today will consider giving 3% cost-of-living raises to all city employees except police officers, whose union has been unable to reach an agreement with city negotiators.

The city will also pay for increases in employee health benefits, City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said. This will amount to an additional 2% increase in total employee compensation. The cost for the pay raises for 1993 will be about $1.5 million.

Employees went without a cost-of-living raise in 1992 because of the city’s financial difficulties.

Two of the three city labor unions, the Irvine City Employees Assn. and the Irvine Professional Employees Assn., have agreed to terms of the proposed contract, Brady said. The City Council will consider the pact at its 5 p.m. meeting today.

Members of the Irvine Police Assn., which represents all sworn police officers except the chief, have been working without a contract since January, 1992. City and police union officials had been meeting to negotiate a contract for last year and this year, but those talks have broken off, Brady said. The police union so far has not agreed to pay-raise terms similar to the other city workers, he said.

“They want much more than that, and we don’t have the money to do it,” Brady said. “It’s at a stalemate at this point.”

The city and police union have agreed to meet with a mediator, Brady said.

Police association officials could not be reached Monday for comment.