The president of the Simi Valley Police Officers Association told the Acorn this week that despite the new contract recently brokered between the union and the city, bitterness still lingers within the department.

The two sides spent eight contentious months behind closed doors hammering out an agreement, and last week announced a new deal for 18 months, retroactive to July 1, that includes a 3 percent total compensation salary reduction.

Detective Bill Daniels, president of the association that represents all 110 of Simi’s sworn officers below the rank of lieutenant, said he understands the economics that necessitated the cutbacks, but he still believes the city used the poor economy as an excuse to strip away previously hard-won benefits and working conditions.

“Am I happy with the conclusion? No, I’m not overly thrilled with the conclusion,” he said. “I hope that in the future the city doesn’t take the same tactic to get to a resolution because I think it can be done a lot smoother.”

Daniels said he was upset to read Mayor Paul Miller’s comments about the contract in last week’s Acorn , in particular that the former chief of police hopes the union “learned a lesson.”

The 21-year veteran detective said the mayor’s “resentment” toward the union is due to a vote of no confidence that he says was taken in 1994 just before the mayor retired as police chief.

“To me, this has vendetta written all over it,” Daniels said.

Miller, who spent 12 years as Simi police chief, denied the accusation and said that as far as he knows, union members never voted on the “no confidence” position.

“It’s absolutely untrue that I have a vendetta. He’s dead wrong. This is just his continuing way of keeping the pot stirred up,” Miller said. “The City Council as a group was resolute in what we wanted to do, and no one person swayed the decision. It was a group decision; this was not my decision.”

Miller acknowledged that neither side is fully satisfied with the contract but that it’s the best compromise the two parties could mutually agree to.

Per the agreement, the city will reduce the base salary of all union employees by 6.86 percent between Dec. 21, 2009, and June 20, 2010, to make up for the last six months. Starting with the June 21 payroll period, those new base salaries will be increased so that they will be 3.43 percent less than they were on June 30, 2009, when the last contract ended.

“Because we did not start our reduction in July like the other groups; we’re playing makeup now for the next six months,” Daniels said.

The decrease in pay is a hard pill to swallow, the detective said, especially when the other groups only had to take a 2 percent cut in compensation. He said the POA had to take a 3 percent concession to keep some of its “noneconomic” working conditions.

In addition, the cutbacks are not equitable across the board because other employee groups’ reductions are temporary and the POA’s are permanent, Daniels said. And peace officers were not given furlough days as an alternative to pay cuts, he said.

The contract also includes changes in officers’ benefits, including establishing a two-tiered medical program for retirees.

Current officers who retire from the city are eligible to remain on the city’s group health plans and continue to receive benefits based on their years of service with the department.

But employees hired on or after Jan. 1 will instead receive a defined contribution in the amount of $300 per month, which will be placed into a retiree health reimbursement or savings account.

While Daniels is not pleased that new hires will receive a smaller benefit, he is heartened by the expansion of the Section 125 Health Care Reimbursement Program to include dependent care.

The expansion of that plan is the only item the POA specifically asked for and received in the contract, Daniels said. The plan allows employees to reduce their gross salary—or taxable income—by designating money to pay for health, dental and vision insurance premiums.

The new contract also modifies provisions regarding the use of annual leave time, shift scheduling and assignments. Chief of Police Mike Lewis said the biggest change in this area is the rotation of specialty assignments.

Under the last contract, an officer couldn’t be moved from one of the department’s 30 specialty assignments unless he wanted to or for disciplinary reasons.

But starting July 1, 2011, an officer who has occupied a specialty assignment for four or more years will be reassigned unless granted an extension by the chief. Lewis said this change will allow for more movement and give rookie officers a chance to grow professionally.

“We will be able to develop a more rounded officer in many different disciplines that we now can’t do,” he said.

Looking to the future, Daniels is unsure how the POA and the city will rebuild their once-positive working relationship or if wounds can be healed by the time negotiations start on the next contract—a process that is less than a year away.

He added that morale is the lowest it’s been in years and that not much has changed around the station since the union issued its vote of no confidence in Lewis. He said some are even looking for jobs elsewhere.

For his part, Lewis is optimistic that the city and the POA can repair the relationship, though he’s more concerned about repairing the divide within his own department.

“My concern is more from the standpoint of making the police department whole again, repairing any ill feeling that is there,” he said.

Though the chief said he’s working on improving communication with his officers, his main goal now that the contract is in place is putting the focus back on the department’s core mission: the everyday business of law enforcement.