AUBURN – A contingent of police officers will attend next week’s gathering of city councilors to protest a lack of progress in negotiations intended to lead to a new union contract.

The cops are working now under terms of a contract that expired July 1.

Detective Chad Syphers, president of the local that’s affiliated with the Maine Association of Police Officers, said negotiators for the city are stonewalling the union.

“They’re telling us that,’We’re prepared to let you guys get your step increases,'” he said, but the city wants police in turn to pay an added 5 percent of the cost of health and other insurances they receive as a benefit.

In effect, he said, the city wants its cops to take a pay decrease.

That’s got union members bristling.

“We’re already the lowest paid force around,” Syphers said.

Lewiston police typically earn about $180 a week more than their counterparts across the river, he said. “Even little Lisbon pays its officers more than Auburn does.”

Syphers said that under the existing labor contract with the city, police pay 10 percent of their insurance costs. That would go to 15 percent if the city gets its way.

Police wouldn’t get any cost-of-living increase in return under the city’s offer, Syphers said, but officers who reach three, five, eight and 12 years of service would continue to receive step increases. Slightly more than a dozen officers hit those mileposts in a typical year, so not every officer sees a pay raise under the contact.

Syphers said the union isn’t asking for significant concessions on the city’s part.

“We want more training,” he said, “and more staff.”

Apart from that, police want to keep the 90-10 insurance payment as it is and the step increases.

Essentially, Syphers said, “We all stay where we are.”

The city’s refusal to bring any new offers to the table, or to accept the union’s terms, have led local cops, including supervisors, to grow out their beards as a visible sign of protest.

Auburn’s personnel policies strongly discourage facial hair among its first responders, although several officials in City Hall, including an assistant city manager and the development director, sport beards.

Syphers said cops intend to bring their case for a new, reasonable contract directly to councilors. It’s the council that sets policy and instructs city negotiators on how to proceed with such talks.

The council is set to hold a workshop meeting Monday evening. During their regular meeting this past Monday, councilors went behind closed doors to discuss in secret the status of negotiations with unions representing police as well as firefighters and public works employees.

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