Police union holds off challenge

Keith Paul

Tuesday, May 15, 2001 | 10:54 a.m.

The Metro Police officers' union fought off a nearly yearlong power struggle with a competing union, winning a vote by rank-and-file officers last week to continue representing them.

The Police Protective Association, by a 661-518 vote, remained the collective bargaining group for Metro's police and corrections officers, holding off a challenge by the newly formed Las Vegas Law Enforcement Association.

The vote was held by the Local Government Employee Management Relations Board after the new union gathered enough signatures to force an election. About 1,930 officers were eligible to vote, Shari Thomas, the board's commissioner, said. The votes were tabulated Friday.

The battle over the union simmered for months after a group of PPA board members failed to oust then-President Andy Anderson in April 2000. Anderson dismissed several of them.

The ousted members formed the competing union and mounted the challenge. Anderson resigned as head of the union in March, saying it would put the PPA in a better position to fend off the challenge.

The rift began with Metro Police concerns over the union's health insurance fund in May 1999, when the cash reserves dwindled from $3 million to less than $100,000. Metro paid for an audit of the union's health plan, which showed that while there was no wrongdoing, the long-term well-being of the plan could be in jeopardy.

While Anderson continued to defend the union's $17 million-a-year self-funded health insurance plan, the PPA now says it has hired a health insurance consultant to review the current plan and alternatives, John Dean Harper, a PPA attorney, said.

"The message was sent and we have listened," Harper said. "I think the message was sent prior to the vote and (current PPA executive director) Dave Kallas is aware of the discontent."

Sgt. Toby Maldonado, who was dismissed from the PPA board by Anderson and helped form the LVLEA, said the new group was successful in getting the PPA to review the insurance issue.

"The tragedy is that none of this had to happen. It never needed to come to a vote," Maldonado said. "All we wanted was the board to look into the insurance issues."

Hundreds of officers left the union during the rift. The PPA membership is about 1,050 officers now, Harper said.

Las Vegas City jail corrections officers voted last week to leave the PPA and form their own union in a separate election.

A majority of deputy Las Vegas city marshals and municipal court marshals voted to stay with the PPA, but they are in the same bargaining group as the city corrections officers. The PPA is trying to determine a way to allow the marshals to stay with the union.