The police contract expired in December 2006 and the new contract will be retroactive to that point. Police in North Arlington work under a three-year contract. In 2004, police contract negotiations also led to binding arbitration. The arbitration resulted in four-percent salary increases for the police force and five senior members retired from the force, including former chief Frank Italiano.

The borough appropriated $3,649,566 toward police department salaries and wages in 2007.

"Nobody is critical of the police for what they do. This is dollars and cents," said D’Elia. "The mayor and council would not agree to the union’s demands without significant savings to the taxpayer."

The borough and the Police Benevolent Association went to binding arbitration in early December after the police rejected the borough’s initial contract offer. Both parties will submit their final evidence and an arbitrator will give a written decision this summer.

The police contracts are the only borough contracts that go to binding arbitration. Binding arbitration means an arbitrator may side with one side or another or come up with his or her own decision based on the facts presented by each side. Once a decision is made, both parties must accept and live by the decision in most cases.

However, in some cases, a party may file an appeal of the decision, though D’Elia said this happens rarely.

At the Jan. 10 meeting of the mayor and council, Mayor Peter Massa reiterated the borough’s financial woes and said tough choices such as laying off public employees, including public safety personnel, would be on the table. Last year, Massa, a former North Arlington police officer, said the police department staff was already "at a minimum."

New Republican councilmen Joseph Bianchi and Richard Hughes agreed with the Democrats’ approach to the police contracts, said D’Elia.

In 2004, the police department had a one-to-one ratio of supervisors to officers. The retirements, which were voluntary, coupled with a borough ordinance restructuring the table of organization at the police department, brought the department back into balance.

Based on 2005 salary records, the average full-time police officer made $112,952 per year, including overtime. In 2005, only three out of 29 police officers earned less than $100,000, with overtime factored in.

Nonetheless, North Arlington police officers have their work cut out for them. After a leap in reported crimes in 2005, 2006 records showed a slight decrease in crimes in the borough. During that time, the borough added three new officers. Meanwhile, the ratio of police officers to residents in North Arlington, at one police officer per 474 residents, is much lower than surrounding towns. Lyndhurst has one officer per 397 residents, Kearny has one per 329 residents and Belleville has one per 314 residents.

The arbitrator will also make a decision on a grievance filed by the police department regarding when police officers are paid. Since former Mayor Russell Pitman’s administration and until recently, the police were paid on a bi-weekly basis. This was done to save the taxpayers money. According to D’Elia, paying employees on a bi-weekly basis as opposed to weekly allows the borough to accrue additional interest. However, D’Elia said this savings could amount to less than $10,000 a year. "You’re going to see some savings there, but not a lot," he added.

Pitman and former borough attorney Joseph Mariniello claimed to have an agreement with the police to pay them bi-weekly, said D’Elia. But the agreement was never in writing. Until the matter is settled, the police will be paid weekly.

Rather than spending additional money on legal fees to fight the matter, the borough has decided to lump the grievance in with the December arbitration.