A federal arbitrator’s decision to award postal police in Baltimore City millions of dollars in missed overtime pay due to a cost-cutting security reduction will have far-reaching national implications from Washington to San Francisco, U.S. postal inspectors and police said Thursday.

The Fraternal Order of Police union that represents postal police officers has filed grievances in 11 cities across the country, including San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles and New York.

After being ordered to pay out about $2.6 million to Baltimore’s postal police, the federal government may have to dole out close to $100 million across the nation, said Daniel Dunlap, eastern area national representative for the postal police officers’ union.

“They’re cutting back all over, and they’re doing things in violation of the contract that ends up costing millions of dollars,” Dunlap said. “It’s an exorbitant amount of money.”

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The arbitrator’s Sept. 18 decision in Baltimore awarded about 20 postal officers missed pay because they lost shifts to lesser-trained security guards who do not carry weapons and must call an officer to intervene if they observe suspicious behavior, according to records obtained by The Examiner.

“We have less than 700 officers left,” Dunlap said. “We were 1,500 prior to 9/11. We are the only federal uniform agency that has been diminished since 9/11. They want to get rid of us for the wrong reasons.”

Rich Sheehan, national spokesman for U.S Postal Inspection Service, declined comment on the 11 active union grievance cases across the country because they were pending arbitration.

Baltimore U.S. Postal Inspection Service spokesman Frank Schissler said his agency has stopped using lesser-trained security guards since the ruling, though other cities continue the practice.

Arbitrator Sue Olinger Shaw determined that Baltimore’s two-year-long security reduction was in violation of a union contract and ordered the federal government to pay the officers overtime with interest for their missed work. The union and U.S. Postal Service are haggling over the exact figure owed the officers, but the union puts the amount at $2.6 million.

Postal security came into sharp focus when mail containing anthrax killed five people in 2001, including two postal workers at Washington’s Brentwood mail processing facility.

In order to save money, the U.S. Postal Service has reduced its number of officers since 2001, a move that has drawn criticism from several congressional leaders.

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com