Jeannette will pay $70,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by police dog handlers who claimed the city violated labor laws by not paying them an overtime rate for time spent caring for their canines.
The settlement agreement, obtained by the Trib, also outlines that Sgt. Jim Phillips will work a seven-hour shift, five days a week, but be paid for working eight hours to account for time spent taking care of Diesel, a Belgian malinois. That arrangement started Jan. 19, according to the agreement.
Council approved it this month.
Phillips and Matthew Painter filed a federal lawsuit over the summer. In it, they said they spend at least 30 to 60 minutes, often more, of uncompensated time daily taking care of the animals.
After the suit was filed, the city shuttered the department’s police dog program, calling it too costly.
That decision was reversed in August, and Phillips has been working with Diesel since after the canine spent three weeks in a kennel while the program was defunct.
Painter briefly worked in Jeannette with a Dutch shepherd named Kilo. Painter was hired in Jeannette in 2021 after leaving the Uniontown Police Department, where he was a police dog handler.
He is on unpaid administrative leave after being charged in October with falsifying reports related to traffic stops. That criminal case is pending.
The settlement agreement calls for Jeannette to pay:
• $28,543 to Phillips as back wages from June 1, 2021, to July 31, 2024, and $21,407 in damages.
• $2,605 to Painter as back wages from Dec. 1, 2023, to July 31, 2024, and $1,953 in damages.
• $15,500 in plaintiffs’ attorney fees.
City payroll records, obtained by TribLive through a request under the state’s Right-to-Know Law, revealed Phillips earned $65.31 for each hour of overtime worked in 2024. Painter’s overtime pay was $45.29 per hour.
The city purchased Diesel in 2022 with the help of an $11,000 donation from the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office. Diesel replaced Arees, who was retired that year after nine years on the job.