At today’s meeting with the FOP, the City and Arbitrator Roumell, the unions raised the point that members who previously submitted a religious exemption without a religious leader’s signature and were denied are now resubmitting the exemption with the religious leader’s signature.  Some of those re-submissions have been approved while others are still pending.  The Arbitrator stated he wanted everyone to be heard.  He suggested (and the city has taken under advisement) that members who submitted an exemption request by December 28, 2021 (the cut-off date in his award), were denied due to no religious leader’s signature and who are awaiting a response on their re-submission because they now obtained the religious leader’s signature be given an opportunity to have their re-submission reviewed.  The arbitrator has said that only re-submissions submitted as of today’s date would be included.  The members would not be subject to no-pay status until they hear whether the resubmitted exemption was approved/denied.