New contract grants Yorkville police sergeants 3% salary hikes

YORKVILLE – The Yorkville City Council on Jan. 24 approved a new four-year contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council.

The deal includes a yearly 3% salary increase, police Chief Jim Jensen said. The Yorkville Police Department has five sergeants among its force of 33-sworn officers. Four of them supervise the shifts of front-line patrol officers and the fifth performs vital investigative work.

The four shift sergeants include John Hunter, Sam Stroup, Chris Hayes and Behr Pfizenmaier. The detective sergeant is Matt Nelson.

The sergeants are in a class of their own and that is reflected in their labor contract, which is negotiated with the city separately from the patrol officers.

“All of the sergeants are absolutely critical, but the detective sergeant is particularly critical for the investigative function of our organization,” Jensen said. Which is why the contract also includes a $50-a-week stipend for the detective sergeant, who is on call 24-hours-a-day to investigate crime and incident scenes.