Police pay rise put in perspective

The numbers attached to the new police union contract with Huntington Beach are fairly eye-popping: An 18% raise during the next four years, totaling about $6 million the city will be paying to its police officers.

Seen another way, however, the raise ? negotiated during the past several months and approved by the City Council as part of a new contract earlier this month ? looks much less dramatic. Right now, the police pay in Surf City ranks fairly low ? seventh out of 12 Orange County cities ? even though the city has the county’s third-highest population and one of its highest costs of housing. The new contract will raise that figure to behind Anaheim and Santa Ana, the two cities bigger than Huntington Beach. It seems a logical place for the police pay rate to be.

It still is a lot of money, though, and Police Chief Kenneth Small and members of the police union should realize that residents and business owners in Huntington Beach ? not to mention city officials ? will be expecting to get what they are paying for: the best possible protection and service.

Small, for instance, says that the new contract, which will provide raises for college degrees, will make recruiting easier. We hope that proves true.

Police officers association President Kreg Muller says the new contract will help the city lure more experienced officers because of the deal’s retirement benefits and fully covered Blue Cross health insurance. We hope that proves true as well.

The city has 17 vacancies and is holding a recruiting event next month. We hope that event will show both Muller and Small are correct.

Whenever the benefits of the new contract begin to appear, at the least this round of negotiations was smooth ? especially compared to the bitter battle over the 2001 contract, which was still a matter of dispute three years after it was arranged. Such discontent serves no one.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

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