After more than three years and dozens of go arounds between Nassau correction officers and county lawmakers, it seems the Sheriff Officers Association (ShOA) is finally on its way to securing a new contract.

ShOA members voted in favor of the proposed contract March 14 and union leaders expect the Nassau Legislature and County Executive Thomas Suozzi to approve the binding agreement signed between ShOA and the county's Office of Labor Relations sometime in the next month. Once approved, the agreed-upon contract will be retroactive to January 2005, when ShOA's last contract expired, and remain in effect through December 2012.

ShOA was established in April 1999 and is the certified union for all Nassau County correction officers and supervisory ranks. The union has more than 1,100 members who work in the East Meadow-based maximum security Nassau County Correctional Center.

ShOA President Michael F. Adams said he is looking forward to working with county leaders to achieve final approval on a contract he describes as "a fair one strongly supported by a majority of union members." Speaking on behalf of the union, Adams said the contract was the result of "hard negotiation and a lot of give and take for both sides." The final result, he said, "Fits the guidelines of other [county] contracts [and] in the end, it is a fair contract for the county and for us."

Presiding Officer Diane Yatauro agreed, telling Anton Community Newspapers that the pending contract is a "win, win, win." It's a "win for Nassau County; a win for the Sheriff Officers Association; and a win for the taxpayers," Yatauro said.

Most importantly, Adams said that the new contract guarantees that union members will "be compensated appropriately for the difficult and dangerous job they perform each and every day."

"Correction officers perform one of the most difficult jobs in law enforcement. They work in the maximum security Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow, where they constantly face the threat of violence," he said. "For this reason and many others, union leadership has been working hard to ensure that each officer be compensated fairly. This contract ensures a fair wage for a very dangerous job."

The ShOA contract must make it through Nassau's committees and be voted on by the full legislature and the county executive before it can go into effect.