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February 2010
Massachusetts State Legislature State House Boston, MA 02133 RE: PROTECTING PUBLIC SAFETY Dear Legislator: We the undersigned write to you regarding several critical issues before you that impact the recruitment and retention of qualified, well-trained front-line police officers in Massachusetts. Together we represent more than 18,000 front-line police officers in communities throughout Massachusetts. Our mission is to protect and advance the ability of public safety personnel to protect our citizenry. Communities today are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain law enforcement personnel. We support a comprehensive positive environment that enables communities to recruit and retain law enforcement personnel. Our concerns below are grounded in the foundation that we cannot continue to erode and eliminate the wage, benefit and program structure of public safety personnel and think it will not have an impact. Police officers in today’s society work in a high-stress, high-demand environment. We must ensure that we can recruit and retain well-trained, highly qualified personnel to protect our communities and our citizens. To that end we urge your consideration of the following:
Support a multi-year program to restore funding for the Quinn Bill
The Quinn Bill is an important component to having a well-trained, educated and responsive police force. Well educated and trained officers are more advanced in meeting today’s law enforcement challenges; more prepared to handle complex situations and better suited to use today’s crime fighting technology. We cannot continue to further eliminate Quinn Bill funding and expect to properly and safely address the public safety needs of our communities. Further erosion of this program will add to the already difficult task of recruiting qualified personnel; replace a largely educated police force with an under-educated, less qualified and disciplined one and continue to demoralize police officers who are more frequently putting themselves in harm’s way in the increasingly violent defense of the public. Supporting funding of the Quinn Bill ensures a better educated law enforcement system which enhances service to the public and improves public safety. We propose a multi-fiscal year funding restoration which carefully balances the fiscal constraints of the Commonwealth with the importance of a well-trained and educated police force. We urge that we work together to identify a consistent and predictable funding source that will ensure an educated and well trained public safety workforce. Oppose eliminating a municipality’s responsibility for the state portion of the Quinn Bill Governor Patrick has recently proposed an amendment to eliminate a municipality’s responsibility for the state portion of the Quinn Bill. We strongly oppose this proposal. It circumvents the collective bargaining process and attempts to unilaterally sever a pre-negotiated contractual agreement. The proposal is also short-sighted as further erosion and elimination of the Quinn Bill will only add to the difficulty already found by communities in recruiting and retaining qualified law enforcement personnel.
Oppose eliminating collective bargaining for health insurance plan design. We urge you to oppose efforts to eliminate collective bargaining of health insurance for plan design which the municipalities have urged. In addition, Governor Patrick and other state leaders propose amending state law to make it easier for municipal managers to abandon town run health insurance programs and move to the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC) or mandate such a move. This could result in coverage issues or increased costs through out of pocket expenses and co-pays. We believe that this is an issue of collective bargaining and is part of the comprehensive negotiation process between a community and its workforce. Preserve Pension Benefits A Special Commission recently provided the Legislature with a set of proposals to reform our pension system. The work of a front-line police officer in today’s society is hard, challenging and life threatening. While we do not support cases of abuse of the system, we want to ensure that those that work hard and earn a fair pension are not impacted by legislation to correct flaws in the system. We urge you to protect earned pension rights and benefits of public safety personnel. We thank you for your consideration. We believe it is imperative to foster a positive environment in order to recruit and retain well-trained and qualified law enforcement personnel. Sincerely, James Machado Massachusetts Police Association 617-720-3477
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Frank W. Armstrong Jr. Boston Police Superior Officers Federation
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Harold MacGilvray Massachusetts Municipal Police Coalition 781-706-0849
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George DiBlasi Massachusetts Fraternal Order of Police 617-571-3245
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Russ Taylor NE Police Benevolent Association 978-697-1080
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