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player ready...Almost all of the city’s 620 full-time workers will get fatter paychecks after the City Council approved raises of 4 to 5 1/4 percent at its Tuesday night meeting.
Those hikes will increase the city’s payroll about $1.5 million, according to City Manager John Mezera.
Included in the salary boosts is a yearly 5 1/4 percent increase for 190 members of the Police Department under the rank of sergeant and pay raises of 4, 4 1/2 and 5 percent over the next three years to city firefighters.
Clerical workers and street workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 440 will get raises of 4 to 5 percent over the next three years.
Building engineers will get a 5 percent increase over three years as will all non-union employees.
Because police officers and firefighters have been without a contract since the first of the year, the increases are retroactive. The AFSCME contract will not expire until June.
During negotiations earlier this year, police demanded that they be allowed to live within 15 miles of Joliet and not be forced to follow the city’s residency rule for municipal workers.
Although that demand was later dropped, Greg Glomb, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Joliet, said his group will try to continue to fight for the right to live outside the city.
The only contracts still unsettled are those between the city and Local 2369 of the International Association of Firefighters, which represents 33 Fire Department officers and the 36 members of the Police Officers Association.