PWU Member Contest!!!!

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Click ^ to go to the group and submit your photo!!!!
 
 
Submit your best July Photo by July 31st 2009 to be entered in our summer contest. Winner will receive a prize from Kelly and be featured in next month’s newsletter along with being featured on the website. So please submit your photos to the designated Forum Topic. And remember you can only submit ONE photo.
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About Kelly

Just a little blog let you all know a little about myself:

My name is Kelly, I'm a 31 year old PROUD Police Wife to my husband of six years Patrick. I have a 4 yr old son Hayden and a 12 yr old step-daughter Kaitlyn. I was born and raised in Ohio; a true Buckeye! We moved to Vermont in 1993, it's no secret that I HATE living in Vermont! I can't stand the LONG winters, the lack of cell service due to being surrounded by mountains....I could rant and rave all night (I'll spare you ;) I am working on trying to convince my husband to move anywhere WARM (hopefully he'll come around soon)

My husband wears two uniforms that mean so much! Not only is he a Police Officer (SGT), but he is also in the National Guard (SSG). I couldn't be more proud of him! For those of you that don't know, his National Guard Unit is being immobilized to Afghanistan in December of this year. Although this will be tough for our family to be apart for so long, we support him and couldn't be more proud of him for serving our country!

I created Police Wives Unite on NING for a few reasons. I have always wanted a place for Police Wives to connect to share stories, compare notes and support one another. I am a member on a few other Police Wife support forums and I found them a little difficult to navigate. I love the fact that we have groups within our group, there's a place for everyone. My PW girls are the greatest, I could not make it through some days without the support of my PW's :) I am so thankful so have found such a great group of women! I am looking forward to seeing our group grow and form special bonds with all the women!

xoxo~ Kelly
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Recession hitting LE hard and fast...

This article hits really close to home for our department. Not only do we fall under the "No Overtime Pay For Police" category now but we also now fall under "No-Raise" as well...at least we know we're not alone...

Recession Hitting LE Hard and Fast
written by APB staff (American Police Beat www.apbweb.com)

A recent posting by POLICEPAY.NET, one of the nation’s leading contract negotiations and arbitration teams, and which is headquartered in Norman, Oklahoma, included the following stories. There’s no longer any doubt that the recession is having a severe impact on local law enforcement. Police sound staffing alarm. By Christian Burkin (The Stockton Record) “Not long ago the Stockton Police Department in California couldn’t hire fast enough to satisfy the city’s appetite for police, but last week it was forced by a shrinking budget to lay off four academy trainees who were about a month from graduating and joining the ranks.

Assistant Chief Blair Ulring, who has been in charge of the department since November, said their dismissal is without precedent. Several retired Stockton chiefs with whom he had spoken recently could not remember ever laying off police.”

Las Vegas police union doesn’t believe revenues are down. By Sam Skolnik (Las Vegas Sun) “As Las Vegas struggles with its worst budget crisis in years, the city has reached an important agreement with the union representing about 1,500 municipal workers. The unions had hired Beth Kohn-Cole of Reno to get an independent estimation of the city’s finances before agreeing to reduced raises. “According to the two-page Dec. 26 report, there are ‘pockets of funds’ the city has failed to take into account when claiming its need to cut employee pay hikes. Chris Collins, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said he hadn’t seen the Kohn-Cole report but that he’s seen other reports that have concluded the city’s revenues are up and not down, as the city contends. He quickly added that his union is ready to sacrifice its fair share if necessary.”

Police chief warily offers potential budget cuts. By Tony Plohetski (The Austin American-Statesman) “Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said he has reluctantly found ways to slash the department’s budget by $5 million, but he warns that the cuts could affect ‘basic police services’ in some instances. “The cuts also would shift costs to other city agencies or require City Council members to depart from earlier decisions or curtail long-standing practices. They include delaying a cadet training academy in March and putting off a council-mandated merger with the park police and airport police that is scheduled to begin Monday.”

Police guild will not forgo ’09 raise. By Jeffrey Mize (The Columbian) “In Washington State, Vancouver’s police officers won’t follow the lead of city firefighters and give up their raises for 2009. Members of the Vancouver Police Officers Guild, the largest of the city’s ten unions, will receive a 5.1 percent pay increase during the final year of a four-year contract. ‘Our position is we are due to start negotiations in June,’ Sgt. Scott Creager, secretary of the 183-member guild representing officers, corporals and sergeants, said. ‘We aren’t interested in opening the contract for six months.’”

“No-raise” police pact nears approval. By Aaron Lee (Connecticut Post) “In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a contract giving police officers no raises through June 2010 is almost official after it passed the City Council’s Contract Committee in late December. The proposed four-year pact, which Bridgeport Police Union Local 1159 members had approved by 15 votes, may save the city $800,000 in the current fiscal year. In the third year of the contract, officers would get a 6 percent raise, followed by a 5 percent boost in the fourth and final year. “The contract now goes to the full council for review. ‘I think this is the best we can do given the national financial crisis,’ said Officer Frank Cuccaro, union president, who attended the meeting in City Hall. The pact would also prevent the layoffs of nine rookies. Widespread layoffs are one cost-saving measure Mayor Bill Finch implemented since learning of a looming $20 million city budget deficit.”

No Overtime Pay For Police. By Bryan Latham Wowt “The city of Omaha, already strapped for cash, is under an order from the state to reduce the amount of overtime police officers have banked. The police union says its members want the money and they want it now. When officers work overtime, they have the choice to be paid for the OT right away, bank it and save it for later, or take it as comp time. A recent decision from the Court of Industrial Relations lowered the number of hours officers can save, raising a lot of questions on all sides.”

Police and Fire Agree To 3% Pay Cut To Avoid Layoffs. By Leigh Jones (The Galveston County Daily News) “Police officers and firefighters overwhelmingly agreed to take a 3 percent pay cut to avoid layoffs, a measure City Manager Steve LeBlanc said would be necessary if the city didn’t cut $3.6 million from its budget. “LeBlanc announced the proposed pay cuts a week before Christmas, saying either the payroll or the number of city staffers would have to be reduced by Jan. 1.”
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Kudos to the Santa Cruz Police Officers Association...

Cops Try To Rescue School Sports
written by APB staff writers (American Police Beat http://www.apbweb.com/)

Saving people who find themselves in trouble is a pretty good job description of what it is that cops do. And in Santa Cruz, California, the local police association is trying to save something that many of us took for granted during brighter economic times – school sports. The Santa Cruz Police Officers Association is using the money it raises from a basketball game to try and save sports at two local schools. The SCPOA is teaming up with Santa Cruz High School and Harbor High School to put money back into school sports programs that need a boost after recent cutbacks due to budget issues basically put the programs on life support.
“We figured if we could start something and make it efficient we can give money each year and know we’re putting money into schools,” Steve Kopald, Harbor High School assistant athletic director, told local reporters in an interview.
The basketball game will feature the Harlem Ambassadors, which is kind of a cost-affordable version of the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Ambassadors will compete against a team composed of community members, students, and city council members.
Both high schools will sell about 200 tickets and will also try and get local businesses to kick in for advertisements.
The school that does the most fundraising will be the biggest winner and take 40 percent of the event earnings back to its athletic department.
The second place school will get 30 percent of the funds.
The Santa Cruz Police Officers Association understands that if kids are playing sports in school, they’re less likely to get into trouble in the street.
With that in mind, the police officers association is putting up $4,000 to keep the local sports programs afloat.
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All about Erin

Hi everyone!

I'm Erin, aka The Fierce Beagle. I'm a professional writer and editor, but I started blogging almost a year ago after having our first baby, Ethan. I needed a creative and community outlet, since being a police wife really began to show its toughest challenges after having a kid.

I met my husband, Noah, in college in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a religion major. So when we moved back to his hometown, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, it came as quite a twist of fate when he decided to join the police department. Noah graduated at the top of his Academy class two years ago, and has been on the streets ever since. For the first year and a half he worked rotating shifts, but this past January our department went to permanent shifts. Noah was lucky enough to be assigned the day shift. And we've been lucky enough to have some good friends—another police officer and his wife, a SAHM to a beautiful boy just a month older than Ethan—provide childcare while Noah and I are both at work.

Living in Winston-Salem has been great—I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and have also lived in Chicago and Northern Ireland—but it didn't really start to feel like home until we became part of the police community.

I'm the "sergeant" of the bereavement committee for Behind the Blue Line, the WSPD spouses' non-profit support group, and I'm really excited about being part of Police Wives Unite!
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