MINOCQUA – The Minocqua Town Board has signed a three-year contract with its police union, giving the department’s sworn officers a 2% wage increase for the first year and 3% the next two years.
The differential for the night shift was bumped up by a dime, it was noted at Tuesday’s board meeting. The union members will pay more into their health insurance. A patrolman with one year experience would make $26.90/hr. starting Jan. 1, 2020. The pay goes to $27.71 effective Jan. 1, 2021. Officers work a 12-hour shift.
Minocqua Professional Police Union has also agreed to a provision that gives Police Chief Dave Jaeger the ability to require the entire force to be on duty when the downtown is extremely busy with large-scale events, such as Fourth of July and Beef-A-Rama. Jaeger can designate the Saturday of Beef-a-Rama and the Fourth of July “Community Needs Days,” or as town chairman Mark Hartzheim characterized them, “All hands on deck.”
The police chief can also designate the Friday before Beef-a-Rama, and July 3 and Dec. 31 as “partial” Community Needs Day, so as to have two officers on patrol during each shift instead of just one. The contract is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2019. The contract does not cover the police chief, his lieutenant, dispatchers or clerical staff.
