Monroe’s police union plans to reopen its contract next year to seek a cost of living pay raise.

In the coming months, the police union will be able to reopen salary negotiations after taking 0 percent raises each of the first two years of the contract, said Andrew Grossenbaugh, president of the Monroe chapter of the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. The contract’s third year starts at the end of June.

“We’re making less money than we did two or three years ago because the city’s raising our insurance,” Grossenbaugh said.

Monroe officials were unable to provide the increase in insurance costs prior to The Journal’s deadline.

Grossenbaugh said the union is not looking for any exorbitant raises, just cost of living increases.

“We always come to the table willing to negotiate,” he said. “We understand the economic times. We don’t want to go to arbitration because it causes everyone more time and money.”

But Grossenbaugh said the union will go to arbitration if necessary.

Chief Greg Homer would talk details of the apparent looming wage negotiations, but said “everyone in the city is in the same position” in terms of pay raises and rising health insurance costs.

“I don’t think the city is in any better situation today then they were two years ago” when the contract was negotiated,” Homer said.

IAFF Local 3824, the Monroe firefighters’ union, do not have a reopener clause in its three-year contract, which expires in December 2013, said union president Kelly Shotwell. The union negotiated a 0 percent raise for each of the contract’s years. New contract negotiations are expected to start in October, he said.