The City Council voted 4-0 last night to accept a new three-year contract with the Pleasanton Police Officers' Association, granting 3% pay increases in each of the three years starting this year and through June 2017, when the contract will expire.

Mayor Jerry Thorne who is out of town was absent from Tuesday's meeting.

Last week, the council gave a tentative approval to the contract at a meeting held to discuss the terms of the contract publicly and give anyone the opportunity to comment on it. No one did.

Debra Gill, the city's director of Human Resources/Labor Relations, said the new contract is effective from last May 3, when the last contract expired, but that the first 3% pay increases will be retroactive only to this past Jan 1. That will have a $260,000 unbudgeted impact on the city's current fiscal year budget.

Overall, the contract will cost of the city approximately $1.85 million through fiscal 2016/17.

Gill said that because of the recent recession and across-the-board belt tightening in City Hall, unionized police officers had no cost-of-living wage increases during the previous three-year contract.

The new contract includes modifications to police benefits. The passage of the Public Employees' Pension Reform Act by the state in 2013 resulted in significant changes to the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS).

That means that police union members new to the progra