Wilton police will receive pay raises but health insurance will cost them more, and they’ll no longer get Patriots’ Day as a holiday under a new three-year contract with the town.

After seven months of negotiations, the police union and town settled on 2.5 percent raises for the first and second year of the contract and 1 percent raises for the third year.

The contract for the department, which has six full-time employees, went into effect Nov. 1.

“It was a pretty good compromise,” said Sgt. Chad Abbott of the Wilton Police Department. “With the rising cost of health care, a lot of the towns are leaning toward more employee contribution.”

Abbott said the police had asked for a slightly higher raise than they ended up getting, noting that Wilton police found they were on the lower end of the pay range compared to similarly sized departments. He said higher pay could have helped with recruitment and retention.

Irish said the contract also adds incentives onto the base hourly wages for different levels of education, with associate degrees earning 20 cents more per hour, bachelor’s degrees earning 30 cents more per hour and masters degrees earning 30 cents more per hour. Previously, the incentives were only available to officers with criminal justice degrees, but now are available to degrees in any major.

Irish said police will now also contribute more to their health insurance plans. For single insurance, they will pay 5 percent, compared to the old contract where employees didn’t have any contribution. For spouse included insurance, they will pay 10 percent but used to have no contribution, and for family insurance, they will also pay 10 percent when they used to pay 7 percent.

The new contract also no longer includes Patriots’ Day as a paid holiday, leaving 12 paid holidays left in the contract, said Irish.

Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252

kschroeder@centralmaine.com