- Office of the Inspector General
Media Contact for Independent Arbitrator Corroborated IG’s Findings About Methuen’s Superior Officers’ Union Agreement, Ruled the Contract Not Binding on City, January 2022
Jack Meyers
Independent Arbitrator Corroborated IG’s Findings About Methuen’s Superior Officers’ Union Agreement, Ruled the Contract Not Binding on City
Following 10 days of hearings, testimony by 15 witnesses and a review of 150 exhibits, an arbitrator ruled on January 7 that a controversial contract raising the pay of Methuen’s top ranking police officers by as much as 183 percent was not binding on the city.
Negotiating teams for the city and the union held their final negotiating session on August 29, 2017, with a tentative agreement on all terms for a new contract. The arbitrator found that after that meeting, the union’s chief negotiator, Police Captain Gregory Gallant, inserted language that the parties never agreed to during negotiations into the final draft contract. The arbitrator found that Police Chief Joseph Solomon, who was on the city’s negotiating team, knew about Gallant’s changes but never informed city officials. The then-mayor, Stephen Zanni, signed the document without verifying that it reflected the terms he negotiated made modifications to the document.
The arbitrator’s findings paralleled those published in a December 2020 report by the Office of the Inspector General. The Office’s report found that the language Gallant inserted expanded the definition of base pay and added other financial benefits, such as holiday pay and educational incentives, into base pay, which had not been done in prior contracts. The result was that superior officers – sergeants, lieutenants and captains – would get raises of between 35 and 183 percent under the terms of the contract. Captains’ pay could have exceeded $400,000. Immediately following the Office’s report, Gallant and Solomon were relieved of their duties and put on administrative leave. Solomon retired a month later. Gallant remains on paid leave.
The arbitrator’s ruling upheld the city’s decision not to pay the excessive salaries set out in the contract.
For more information, see the Office’s report on the Methuen police contract: OIG Report 2020: Leadership Failures in Methuen Police Contracts