The city and its two police unions have agreed on budget-neutral, three-year contracts that include a one-time signing bonus for police officers.

With these latest contracts, all of the city’s largest unions — police, fire and public works — have collective bargaining agreements.

“I think our unions understand the economics that are in play today, and they’re working hard to work with us to make things work,” said City Law Director Les Landen.

The two police collective bargaining units agreed to no raises in the first two years of the contract, but the unions and city will agree to reopen pay raise negotiations in the third year, which starts Nov. 1, 2014.

Chris Kelly, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 36 president, said it was important to keep the contracts budget neutral, especially because the city’s fire and public works unions both agreed to 0 percent raises in the first two years of their contracts.

“It was a difficult negotiation due to the economic times that the city is in,” he said.

Voters approved renewal of a public safety 0.25 percent income tax levy in August.

The biggest change in the contracts are the retirement benefits and sick and vacation day payouts, Kelly said.

Officers can annually cash in as many as five vacation days, when before they couldn’t cash in any.

Landen said this “almost always will have the impact of saving the city money.” A vacationing officer’s shift is usually covered by another officer picking up the shift on overtime, he said.

The contract will also allow more holidays to be cashed in, and earlier. Officers with less than 15 years can cash in 15 banked holidays, and officers with more than 15 years can cash in 20 banked holidays. The previous agreement allowed officers to cash in 12 days per year.

Officers bank holidays as they work them and would often cash them in at the end of their career, Landen said.

“By allowing them to cash them in earlier, they can cash them in at the present hourly rate rather than at the hourly rate when they retire,” he said.

The $600 signing bonus is a one-time payment for each union member and equates to $43,800. It is equal to less than a 1 percent raise.

“It was something we could do in order to get the deal done,” Landen said. “The simple math of the matter is if you go through fact-finding or conciliation, counting staff time, counting the cost of the arbitrator, etc., you’re looking at spending close to that type of money.”

The city has eight bargaining units, and the AFSCME transit union was the only other bargaining unit to receive a signing bonus for its contract, Landen said.

The dispatch, police civilian and correction officer unions will negotiate a new collective bargaining contract next year, he said.