As the Simi Valley Acorn first reported a month ago, the Police Officers Association has begun a public relations campaign to aid in the union’s contract negotiations with the city.

The POA represents all 110 of Simi’s sworn officers below the rank of lieutenant.

According to Detective Bill Daniels, president of the POA, the union decided to hire the Torrancebased firm Freeman Public Affairs to set the record straight regarding negotiations that have been under way since the union’s contract expired on June 30.

Daniels said “bad press” propagated by the city necessitated the decision.

“I felt it was necessary to be able to put out to the public our side of what’s going on,” he said. “We just want to be on fair playing ground.”

For several months, the city and the union have discussed the union’s next contract behind closed doors. It’s been reported that the POA is resisting the 2 percent cutback taken by all other city employees in June as part of the budget process.

Daniels, however, said the union has made several suggestions to meet this concession—including furlough time, temporarily not filling vacant positions and temporarily suspending the ability to cash out unused vacation time—but that each has been rejected by the city.

“It’s not negotiating, what we’re doing right now,” Daniels said. “To us, they’re not negotiating in good faith.”

Daniels added that the issue goes beyond the 2 percent concession. He said he believes the city is using the current economic climate as an excuse to take away benefits and working conditions that the city agreed to in previous negotiations over the past 30 years.

If the city begins to strip away these benefits, Daniels fears the police department will become a transient, less competitive organization, which would ultimately hurt local public safety.

“It’s hard enough to get qualified people into this job to begin with; if we do too much, I can only imagine . . .” Daniels said.

City Manager Mike Sedell said the pay and benefits package of Simi’s sworn officers has long been the envy of other law enforcement agencies in the county, in part because of the City Council’s high priority on public safety.

“We think that the benefits and salaries of our police officers are very competitive in the marketplace and they receive a very good level of benefits and salaries, and we’ve seen that increase dramatically in the last few years,” Sedell said.

A significant portion of city budgets goes toward paying salaries and benefits, Sedell said. Of this fiscal year’s $57.6-million general fund budget, about 48 percent, or $27.4 million, is used to operate the police department.

This is up from four years ago, when 40.4 percent of the fiscal year 2006-07 budget went toward police services.

Not including benefits, stipends or allowances, the current annual salary for a police officer is $60,424 to $83,345. A sergeant makes $79,019 to $108,888 a year.

Sedell added that the problem, which is no fault of the POA, is that the officers have defined benefits and that the city needs to shift to a defined contribution plan.

“This is about the taxpayer’s ability to pay in these fiscal times,” the city manager said.

But Daniels, a 21-year-veteran of SVPD, disagrees.

“Everything that we have achieved in the form of a working condition or benefit, the city has attached a monetary value to,” he said. “There isn’t a benefit that we’ve ever received that hasn’t cost us something or we haven’t given up something to get.”

Daniels added that the cutbacks taken by the city’s management group—not being able to claim reimbursement for computer purchases and limiting the number of hours of unused leave time they can cash out on—are “minimal,” when compared to what’s being asked of officers.

He said city administrators enjoy a much better benefits package than the police.

Sedell said certain facts presented in the PR firm’s first press release—sent out to media outlets last Thursday—were “significantly erroneous” but declined to comment further, preferring, he said, to keep the specifics of the negotiations at the table.

The tensions between the city and the POA during the negotiation process are “disappointing,” Daniels said, given how positive the working relationship has been in the past.

“I hope that however this concludes it will not have a negative impact on our relationship in the future,” he said.

Despite the current tensions, both sides have said they are hopeful that an agreeable resolution can be reached.

“We’re going to continue to try and resolve these negotiations in the most effective way possible for all concerned,” Sedell said. “The City Council continues to believe the police officers in this city do an excellent job.”