Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

While New Haven Police Department officers cheered the passing of their new hard-fought union contract Monday night, the Yale Police Department’s union remains locked in negotiations with the University for its own bargaining agreement.

Yale Police Department Officer Mike Hall, the Yale Police Benevolent Association’s president, wrote in a Friday newsletter addressed to union members that “only a few issues” separate the parties in the union’s contract negotiations, which have been ongoing since February 2023. Since the beginning of the academic year, the union and University tentatively agreed on compensation benefits for the families of officers killed in the line of duty. Among the issues yet to be resolved are wages, due process, procedural requirements and benefits for officers on a long-term disability plan, according to Hall.

“The Yale University Police Department has never offered benefits to survivors of officers who make the ultimate sacrifice,” Hall wrote in the newsletter. “Through the collaborative efforts of the YPBA and Yale University, this profound loophole has been closed. Unfortunately, there remains a significant loophole which still must be addressed.”

Hall’s newsletter focused on a union proposal to update the long-term disability insurance plan for officers injured in the line of duty to not be subject to income taxes. Hall estimates the cost of the union’s plan for tax-free benefits to be around $10,000 annually. He claimed that the University is resisting the proposal because the administrative work required to implement it would be “too burdensome.”

Joe Sarno, director of labor relations, did not respond to questions about the union’s characterization of the University’s stance on the proposal. Sarno did share that the University presented its “Last, Best and Final Offer” — or LBFO — to the YPBA last week.

“The offer includes many economic and contractual enhancements,” Sarno wrote to the News. “Of note, the economic terms will enable YPBA members to remain among the highest paid police officers in the State of Connecticut.  We sincerely hope that the YPBA gives the University’s LBFO serious consideration, and that the membership votes to ratify it.”

Describing a need for enhanced benefits for officers injured in the line of duty, Hall wrote in his newsletter that YPD officers are not immune to the possibility of responding to an active shooter. In the event that an officer sustains an injury while confronting or neutralizing such a threat, “the consequences of such heroic actions should not result in life-long financial hardship for the surviving officer and his or her family,” Hall wrote.

The University’s short-term and long-term disability insurance plans are offered at no cost to “regular employees” scheduled to work at least 20 hours per week on base salaries up to $150,000. When an employee is injured, their first week absent from work uses up their regular paid-time-off days. If they are still unable to return to work, the employee will receive 100 percent salary coverage in short-term disability benefits for the next seven weeks. On the ninth week of disability leave, the employee will begin to receive 60 percent of their salary, minus deductible income. 

After 26 weeks, the long-term disability plan kicks into effect. Under the plan, employees absent from work for over 180 calendar days are entitled to receive 60 percent of their base monthly earnings. This cut and any worker’s compensation or social security disability benefits received by the employee will together not exceed $7,500 each month, as per the long-term disability plan.

The YPBA’s contracts allow “enhancements” to these benefits for officers injured in the line of duty — healthcare benefits on par with active employees’ benefits and opportunities for more recent hires to continue to accrue pension service credit.

The YPBA proposed that the long-term disability benefits be tax-free, as they are for municipal police officers in Connecticut under Section 104(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.

“Our tax-free Long-Term Disability proposal ensures that YPBA members can go to work each day and give 110 percent, without having to worry about whether or not their families will be provided for adequately in the event they sustain a career-ending injury,” Hall wrote.

Under the YPBA’s last contract, families of officers who had served less than five years did not qualify for any survivor death benefits and families of officers who had served less than 20 years would receive a pension between 12.5 and 50 percent of their salary, according to a YPBA proposal earlier obtained by the News. Per a YPBA announcement in September, new language in the upcoming contract will financially support the surviving spouse of a deceased officer by allowing them to receive the base salary that the deceased officer earned at the time of death and annual benefit increases, as well as further benefits for surviving children.

Anthony Campbell, the University’s current chief of police, formerly served as the New Haven Police Department’s chief.

Correction, 10/20: This article has been updated with comment from Joe Sarno