The Haines Borough Assembly last week unanimously approved a three-year contract with its employees’ union, including an immediate 3 percent raise for all positions and smaller raises the next two years.

The contract also includes raises larger than 3 percent for 26 of about 75 borough jobs. They include 15.5 percent for pool custodian, 7 percent for police sergeant, 8.6 percent for tourism staff aide, 9.8 percent for dispatch supervisor and 7.2 percent for police patrolman.

Some of the increases are aimed at creating parity between similar borough positions; others make local pay comparable to compensation in other communities.

The contract will cost taxpayers an additional $58,284 the first year and about $40,000 more in the following two years when the starting positions on the wage scale will increase 2 percent annually.

Police chief Gary Lowe supported raises for the police jobs, previously saying that the borough’s scale made it difficult to fill positions. The new scale includes a shift differential of 30 cents and 50 cents an hour for dispatchers and police working swing and graveyard shifts, respectively.

The previous differential was 15 cents and 30 cents.

“I’m guessing we’re probably just where we need to be,” Lowe said last week. “The police department and dispatch got pretty significant raises. I think everybody there’s happy.”

Other communities are looking at pay cuts or freezes, he noted.

On the new scale, borough pay starts at $7.89 an hour for the pool cashier and tops off at $30.70 an hour for the harbormaster, library director and museum director. Police patrol officers will start at $20.85 an hour, pool lifeguards start at $11.04, and laborers and janitors start at $13.10.

The chart was extended three additional steps. “This will help retain highly experienced, long-term employees who had reached the limit under the old chart and were no longer eligible to receive step increases,” borough manager Mark Earnest wrote assembly members.

The contract provides 45-cent step increases on the pay chart annually for satisfactory employees, up a few pennies from the previous contract. It also allows the borough manager to authorize advanced step appointment of up to “step 3” on the chart for employees with exceptional qualifications or in cases when recruitment at “step 1” has failed.

New wording in the contract allows the borough manager, with the agreement of the employees’ union, to establish a salary for workers who meet the definition of salaried employee.

Also under the contract, the borough will increase its monthly contribution to employees’ health insurance plan to $927 monthly for each non-temporary employee working more than 30 hours per week. That’s up from $871. The employee’s contribution will remain the same at $172 for the first year of the contract. For the two subsequent years, increased premium costs will be split between employees and the borough.

Borough employees get 11 holidays per year, including Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Alaska Day, and the Friday after Thanksgiving.

The borough’s negotiating team included Earnest, Lowe, Mayor Jan Hill, deputy Mayor Jerry Lapp and chief financial officer Jila Stuart. Negotiating for employees were Tom Brice, spokesman for Public Employees Local 71 and borough workers Cathy Keller, Scott Bradford, Holly Jo Martin and Jason Joel.