LEOMINSTER, MA – Police supervisors and dispatchers will be allowed to track the whereabouts of cruisers as part of the new three-year contract agreement between the patrolmen’s union and the mayor, according to the Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper. Devices installed in the cruisers would allow the officer in charge, or dispatchers, to look on a screen and quickly see where the officers are, which would tell them which officers can respond to an emergency the fastest.

Officials’ desire to get the tracking devices was not the result of any wrongdoing by officers. The agreement says the information gathered by the devices “may be used to inform or counsel an employee, but there shall be no disciplinary record kept of that informing or counseling.”

The agreement, which also includes a 12 percent pay increase for the officers and the chief over the next three years, will be effective from Jul. 1, 2006, through Jun. 30, 2009.

According to Police Chief Peter Roddy, police will use the new technology along with data about where and when crimes usually occur in order to “strategically align ourselves.”

Officials are still looking into the different GPS devices that could be put in cruisers, and it is too soon to tell how much they will cost, according to the mayor.

The city will increase the officers’ “cleaning allowance” from $575 effective July 1, 2006, to $600 on July 1, 2007, and then to $650 on July 1, 2008, according to the agreement.