SALEM — City council approved a new collective bargaining agreement for the Salem Police Department in its meeting Tuesday.

Following an approximately 30-minute executive session council unanimously voted to approve a resolution authorizing Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey and City Service Safety Director Joe Cappuzzello to execute a new collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police, Ohio Labor Council with the emergency clause.

Cappuzzello said the new agreement has a term of three years and will see union employees receive a 3.5% pay increase retroactive to July 1, which he noted was “more of a cost-of-living adjustment,” with a subsequent 3.25% raise beginning Jan. 1, 2028. The third year of the agreement will see a minimum raise of 2% with a wage-reopener to potentially raise that increase based on the financial status of the city when that time comes.

“We’ll look at the financial conditions in the city at that time to evaluate what’s possible,” Cappuzzello said.

Cappuzzello said the agreement will also see a “substantial increase” in the healthcare premium paid by the city, but that in exchange all city employees will now pay 15% for their healthcare. He explained that previously there were two tiers, with senior employees only paying 11%.

City Auditor Sal Salvino said that in 2026 the city budgeted $1,958,650 for full-time police payroll, $60,000 for part-time, and $50,000 for overtime, for a total of $2,068,650 budgeted for all police officer salaries. Salvino said that figure had been budgeted with an eye towards the coming negotiations and accounted for an anticipated 3% pay rise and estimated that full-time officer payroll for 2027 would be budgeted at around $2,026,650 for 2027.

Council also approved a resolution accepting a $600,000 grant from the State Capital Budget to expand Lincoln Plaza, and another resolution authorizing Dickey to to enter into a partnership agreement with the cities of East Liverpool and Columbiana, and Columbiana County to administer and implement the fiscal year 2026 Community Housing Impact and Preservation Program (CHIP) Grant if funded by the Ohio Development Services Agency Office of Community Development.

Both grants were previously discussed in the council’s June 16 meeting. At that meeting Dickey told the council that working with Columbiana, East Liverpool, and the county as a joint application would ensure that all four received the most money possible if a CHIP grant was awarded. She also said that after accepting the award from the state capital budget, the next step for the project would be to form a citizen led committee, similar to the one that compiled the initial site development plan and design, to develop a design plan for the expansion, and that she would be asking for a member of the city council to sit on that committee.

Other financial matters included the approval of a routine resolution to adopt and approve an alternative method of apportionment of local government fund monies to be distributed in 2027 and declaring an emergency.

Council will meet next at 7 p.m. on July 21.