Newton Finance Committee Approves $5.2 Million in Police Retroactive Pay Settlement

NEWTON -- June 9, 2025, Newton's Finance Committee unanimously approved nearly $5.2 million in retroactive police pay and 12 additional spending items at its June 9 meeting. The largest action settled the Newton Patrolmen's Association collective bargaining agreement for fiscal years 2022 through 2024 following a failed state Joint Labor-Management Committee arbitration process; the panel awarded officers a 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment each year and a 1.5 percent POST certification stipend for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, while the city won awards on less-lethal weapons, a body camera pilot, and attendance software. Human Resources Director Maren Rosenfeld told the committee that officers will receive back pay at their fiscal year 2024 rates within days but remain two full years behind where their salaries should be, with further retroactive costs expected when the successor contract is negotiated. The committee also renewed a $200,000 annual subsidy for public-access station New TV, whose executive director Bob Kelly warned that cable subscribers in Newton have fallen from nearly 29,000 to just over 14,000, roughly a 50 percent drop, and that the organization "will be lucky if we could last another five years" without new streaming revenue at the state level.