After More Than Four Years, Southampton Village Board Ratifies Agreement With Dispatchers Union; Police Chief Hurteau Inks Five-Year Contract

After more than four years of working without a contract, the Police Radio Operators Benevolent Association — the union that represents Southampton Village’s police dispatchers — agreed to terms with the Southampton Village Board on a new agreement that will run through May 31, 2025.

The Village Board unanimously agreed to ratify the contract at its meeting on December 14. It was a night when several housekeeping items were taken care of before the end of the year.

The board also unanimously agreed on a five-year contract for Southampton Village Police Chief Suzanne Hurteau, with an effective date of November 1, 2023, which will run through October 31, 2028.

Hurteau will earn a base salary of $226,500, with 7.5 percent longevity pay on top of that. The contract also includes 5 percent added to her base salary for night differential, meaning with longevity pay and night differential, she has a total compensation of $254,812.50.

Hurteau also will have an annual stipend of $2,200 for clothing and cleaning, and will have health insurance for herself and her spouse for life without having to contribute to the premiums. The contract also includes a 2 percent minimum raise annually, although it can be greater if the board decides she deserves more.

Hurteau was sworn in as police chief on July 3 after serving as acting police chief for two years after the retirement of Chief Thomas Cummings. Hurteau has been a member of the Southampton Village Police force since 1997.

Manger said he was happy to get that contract done before the year was over. The contract includes a stipulation that the contract can be modified or extended up to six months before it expires.

The six months it took to ratify Hurteau’s contract looked short in comparison to how long it has taken for a new PROBA agreement, which was a long time coming, to say the least.

The previous PROBA contract expired in May 2019, when Mayor Michael Irving was in his last month in office. The dispatchers worked all four years under former Mayor Jesse Warren’s administration without a contract, and current Mayor Bill Manger said that finalizing a contract with the union was a priority for him from the moment he took office.

“I had actually started working on it at the previous mayor’s request in early 2023,” Manger said earlier this week, who was a trustee then. “We weren’t able to get it done right away; we had to go through a few more machinations. But I was really delighted that we were able to have an agreement.”

Under the terms of the new agreement, the dispatchers were given a retroactive 2 percent annual pay raise, dating back to 2019. The raise for 2019 and 2020 is on base salary only, not overtime, while the pay raise for 2021 onward is for both base salary and overtime compensation and increases to 2.5 percent by June 2024.

The agreement also includes an increase in the stipend for dispatchers who waive family health insurance, from $3,500 to $5,000, although employees who avail themselves of the family health insurance will have to contribute a higher percentage of their salary. Those hired prior to May 31, 1998, will contribute at a rate not to exceed 5 percent of their pay, while those hired after that date will contribute at a rate not to exceed 6 percent of their pay.

The agreement also includes caps on accrued vacation, comp and sick time, as well as a new procedure for sick time buyback.

Manger said the provision on sick time buy back will benefit the village because it will essentially provide more “predictability” when it comes to budgeting.

“It makes it much more predictable to the village what the village will have to pay out when somebody separates from the village,” he said. “It’s a more visible and transparent way to handle paying out sick time, rather than having someone accumulate a large amount that has to be paid out upon retirement. If you had three people retiring at once, that would lead to a sizable payout.”

Manger said he’s happy with the contract.

“We worked very hard to be very fair, and I think we did a great job,” he said. “I’m glad it’s now behind us.”

As for PROBA President Dan Farrell, he said the membership agrees with the second part of that sentiment — but not necessarily the first.

“The village should be very happy with this contract,” he said. “They sit on a surplus and were able to provide raises well under inflation rates, and well under what they gave themselves for the cost of living. We are only happy it’s over.

“Overall, we are very frustrated with the process,” he continued. “Negotiating through lawyers has been exhaustive and costly for us. In fact, it probably cost the village more in lawyer fees than it would have if they just agreed to go fully retroactive.”

Farrell said he and the union are happy that the years of negotiations are over, for now, but it’s clear they are unhappy that several requests were not granted, including the request to have grievances arbitrated by a third party, have Juneteenth added as a holiday, and include paternity leave. Much of the frustration stems from the fact that the department has been understaffed for many years, Farrell said, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longtime dispatcher and PROBA Vice President Ken Lockard tendered his resignation recently, which was accepted at the December 14 meeting. The board promoted dispatcher Brian LaMonica from within to fill his role, and also approved the hiring of two new dispatchers, Michael Saslofsky and Tracy Aguirre Palanco, at the meeting, meaning the department now has 12 employees. But it will take up to six months to train the new hires, and within that time frame, another dispatcher will go out on maternity leave, which will leave the department short-staffed again.

Farrell said that while having 12 full-time employees gets the department closer to normal operating procedures, there is still an argument to be made that even 12 is not enough.

“To put it in perspective, East Hampton Town dispatches one police agency and has 13 dispatchers,” he said. “Between police, fire departments and ambulances, we dispatch six agencies and have been staffed as low as eight dispatchers.”

Farrell said he hoped the village would hire one more dispatcher, which he said would be a “nice buffer,” since a fully staffed room has 10 employees working at a given time.

Other News and Notes

The board unanimously approved the hiring of Nancy Kane as a public communications consultant, at a cost of $4,000 per month, on a month-to-month basis, to “develop and implement transparency and consistent communication for the community.”

Manger explained the hiring.

“We had some comments from residents that they’d like more communication and more transparency, and said maybe if we have someone that helps get messages out about what’s going on, initiatives we’re working on, that would be good,” Manger said. “We will see how it goes. It’s a great way for us to further communicate to the public and educate the public, because some people feel they’re not getting enough timely information from us.”

The village also announced that it will begin work soon on the construction of new bioswales where the parking islands are in the West Main Street parking lot. The bioswales, which will be funded with $246,729 previously awarded from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund, will be installed at the same time as a repaving project of the lot, which Deputy Mayor Gina Arresta said will, hopefully, be done by Memorial Day weekend 2024.

Manger also announced that solar arrays that had been set to be installed in the West Main Street parking lot as part of the Johnson Controls sustainability upgrades to the village will now be installed in the Jobs Lane parking lot, because the construction of the solar arrays would have required the village to cut down several mature trees that are located in the West Main Street parking lot.