Posted by John Byrne at 2:35 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley today brushed off attempts by police union leaders to blame his administration for officers not getting better raises in a new five-year contract.
And the mayor also said the city can handle the $160 million in back pay now owed to police under terms of the deal.
"Better than 16 percent or twenty," Daley said of the 10 percent raise over five years that the city owes rank-and-file officers following an arbitrator’s decision Friday. The mayor insists police could have had a 16 percent raise, but Fraternal Order of Police officials didn’t accept the offer he made in 2008. An independent arbitrator awarded the lower amount.
"We’re going to bond it out, and we knew we had to do that, and that’s what we’ll do," Daley said, promising the cash-strapped city is ready to find the money to pay police officers.
FOP President Mark Donahue labeled Daley’s perspective "a lie." Donahue said at a Friday news conference that the city pulled the 16 percent proposal off the table before the two sides had a chance to discuss it during the protracted negotiations that began in 2007. The city yanked the offer in March 2009 after it had been on the table for more than a year.
It’s no surprise the union is trying to make him the scapegoat, Daley said.
"No kidding," Daley said while speaking to reporters at a neighborhood clean-up event in the East Chatham neighborhood. "They’re gonna say ‘Mayor Daley’s a bad guy,’ this and that."
Donahue also said he was "perplexed" by a contract provision for random alcohol testing of on-duty officers, saying the city had failed to prove there is a problem with officers drinking on the job. But the mayor said it’s important to hold officers accountable for their actions on duty.
"If a police officer’s driving a car and runs into that pillar there that says ‘Keep Right,’ don’t you think we should legally test for alcohol?" he asked.