Cops Get 2.5 Percent

The city's worst-kept secret was fully let out of the bag last night, when Mayor Dan Mylott said police officers will be getting a 2.5 percent raise through a one-year contract deal.

The deal is for fiscal year 2006, so it's all retroactive pay and will make a nice holiday bonus for the boys in blue if it gets done before the end of the year. It'll cost the city about $300,000, some from free cash, some from money already in the PD budget.

Interestingly, Mylott couldn't talk about the contract last week when he and the council were bickering over money, but just a week later he announces the deal. It's certainly within his right as mayor to control the flow of information, but by doing so he kind of caused a headache and some more bickering between himself and the council.

There's still some union deals coming up with fire and DPW, so Mylott can open up the info spigot a little bit (yes, yes, union negotiations are closed-door and all that, but there has to be some reality in the process. At least tell councilors something is coming soon) and smooth things out some, or things can continue the way they're going.

Oh, by the way, Mylott -- from his reports -- is feeling just fine, thanks. He had an incident on Friday, was looked over, and was back to work on Monday.