It appears that the City is addressing the matters raised by SPOA and John Cooke, one of its members, in
connection with the City's underreporting of creditable compensation to the VRS for quite some time. As you know, we filed
a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment and we were told in response by an Assistant City Attorney that the city was "fixing"
the problem. Attached hereto is Ordinance Number 05-O-069, which was enacted on June 15 after our lawsuit was filed.
The ordinance ratifies salaries paid to all affected members back to 2001 as including amounts paid which
were over the maximum amount for the employee's grade, which payments had come from the "pay for performance" program. In
effect, this raises the creditable compensation of the affected members to that which we had urged would apply to Officer
Cooke and others. Yvonne Manning initially resisted our position, referring us to some brochure that VRS issued instead of
substantively addressing the issue. When we pressed, the City apparently received an opinion from VRS which largely supported
SPOA's position. The result is an ordinance that provides the relief requested and acknowledges that "creditable compensation"
includes the full compensation paid, not just the maximum compensation for the employee's grade.
This is another issue that SPOA has resolved through litigation and negotiation for the benefit of its members.
Please note the attached ordinance and contact us with any questions. Congratulations to Officer Cooke for being inquisitive
and pushing the issue with the help of SPOA's General Counsel, Mike Imprevento.
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FLSA
August 24, 2005
You all know Jeff Chamberlain who has been SPOA's go-to guy for FLSA advice since our lawsuit a few years
back. Jeff and I have been very successful in obtaining recoveries on overtime issues for law enforcement officers in various
job categories and ranks throughout Hampton Roads. His firm, Chamberlain, Kaufman and Jones, litigates FLSA cases nationwide
for police officers and other emergency service provders. They just won a significant decision in the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals on behalf of Los Angeles City paramedics who were found not to be covered by the 207(k) exemption and thus eligible
for significant overtime and back pay. The decision in the case of Cleveland v. City of Los Angeles is attached hereto and
you can review it.
We are linked with Jeff's firm's site, www.flsa.com, which contains a wealth of good information about the FLSA. He is always available through me to answer FLSA questions and
has offered to come down from his Albany base to speak to groups of us on FLSA overtime issues. Please avail yourselves of
his firm's expertise by contacting me.
