Seattle Police contract includes 23 percent retroactive raise

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here with Erica C Barnett of Publicola and political consultant Sandeep Kaushik with a kind of special mini breaking news edition of Seattle Nice. Erica has got a story up on Publicola. Tentative

[00:00:28] police contract includes 23 percent retroactive raise raising cops base salary to six figures. This is a story in an area that Seattleites have been waiting for some news about for some time, some sense of negotiations between the city and the Seattle Police Union. What is

[00:00:48] this all about? But also if you could say a little bit just about the significance of this breaking news. Yeah, so the Seattle Police Department officers have been operating without a contract since 2020. And this is kind of par for the course with their contracts. They always seem to

[00:01:07] let them lapse. It's a long and involved process. But today, my scoop on Publicola was that the contract includes what will as you said work out to 23 percent wage increase, which

[00:01:21] is going to be a big hit on the budget. And it's all retroactive for the years that they were not in contract. So, you know, we're talking tens of millions of dollars at least and it's going to bring the starting salary for a Seattle police officer to $103,000.

[00:01:37] That would put Seattle in the front regionally with the highest starting pay of any police department in the Puget Sound region. So that is what we're talking about. And this is just a retroactive contract. We're not talking about going forward. That's

[00:01:49] a whole other issue that has to be negotiated separately. And that contract is in mediation. So there's a couple of different things going on here. Sandy, any initial thoughts about this contract and the fact that it's a pretty significant pay increase?

[00:02:03] Yeah, it is a pretty significant pay increase. I guess I'm particularly interested though in finding out what if any provisions exist in this new contract related to sort of police accountability, right? I mean, these negotiations in recent history in Seattle

[00:02:23] over the police contracts have been, you know, lengthy and contentious. And at the center of them is how police reform efforts are implicated by sort of, you know, collective bargaining and contractual issues. And so we saw the last contract

[00:02:44] in 2018, right? That got, you know, negotiated and then ratified by the city council, end up getting eviscerated by the judge overseeing the consent decree that SPD is operating under. And, you know, there was a lot of talk at that point

[00:03:02] too about, you know, whether that contract was going far enough to actually implement the kinds of reforms that were needed with Seattle police. And so I think that's going to be a big question about this one.

[00:03:15] Yeah, and I would say, you know, I think that we will see the contract very soon, probably as soon as Friday of this week. So I have not seen the contract yet. I just confirmed this pay increase through reporting. But I think it is likely

[00:03:29] that it will not include a lot if any big accountability improvements. Simply because I think that everybody is really focused right now, everybody meaning the city council, the mayor and the police department is really focused on

[00:03:43] getting pay increases to officers as a way of trying to recruit more officers. Something we've talked about a bunch on this podcast. And, you know, if it doesn't include significant accountability measures, I think, you know, it will become an issue with the consent decree, which, you know,

[00:04:00] the city is still partly under because the judge that's overseeing that did say, you know, accountability is a really big issue. And, you know, I mean, we have the head of the police union and the vice president of the police

[00:04:12] union, a conversation partly caught on tape where the vice president, Daniel Otterer was mocking the death of a young woman who was run down by another police officer who was speeding last year. So, you know, I think that accountability is a real question. And, you know, I

[00:04:32] think Spock may argue that, you know, that doesn't really matter to this contract as much because they just need to get these pay increases. But I think it's going to matter to the monitor and it's definitely going to

[00:04:42] matter to the accountability partners that, you know, are already sort of saying like, look, accountability, I mean, a accountability needs to be incorporated into this contract in a meaningful way because it wasn't last time. And then B, accountability shouldn't be something that we

[00:04:58] bargain over in police contracts period. And they're pushing for state, the state law to change. But yeah, I mean, I don't anticipate there'll be any major accountability improvements in this contract. So Spock's position you think or Spock's position is, okay, that'll

[00:05:14] wait for the next contract, which you reported will be bargained in 2024. Yeah, it's currently in mediation. So it's being bargained. But I am speculating on Spock's position based on their previous position and their consistent position that, you know, that accountability is not a

[00:05:33] huge priority for them. But I have not seen as I said, I haven't seen the contract so I don't know what's in it. I am just basing this on my reporting, talking to folks who have some knowledge of the contract and based on Spock's previous position on accountability

[00:05:47] and that 2017 ordinance. Right. And this contract is basically this new tentative contract is made because it's so late. It's essentially covering a period, a contract period that's going to end pretty soon. Right. So they're finally finalizing a contract that's largely retroactive.

[00:06:05] It goes forward another year and then there's a new contract coming. Right. Am I understanding that correctly? My understanding is it only applies through 2023. So it's all retroactive. It's all retroactive. Gotcha. Yep. Okay. If that's the case, it feels like the motivation for

[00:06:20] getting this done when the real contract is going to get negotiated over the next year is that they wanted to get these raises in place now because of the urgency around police recruiting. Right. And as I've said before, I mean, I don't know that raises

[00:06:34] are going to be enough to recruit tons and tons of new police officers because I think that Seattle is seen as a bad place to work for other reasons. I mean, people don't you don't just pick a job entirely based on the pay. You pick it based on

[00:06:49] culture. You pick it based on do I want to work with these people? Do I feel like I would have opportunities for advancement in this structure? And, you know, I mean, as I've said, you know, it feels like ad nauseam now. I mean, women do

[00:07:02] not want to work at SPD. Women are leaving SPD and, you know, if there's no sort of change in the culture, I think that $103,000 starting pay is not going to be enough on its own to make, you know, women and, you know, basically people who aren't

[00:07:17] white men want to take jobs at SPD. So so I don't think this actually solves the problem. Okay, let's leave it there. That's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. She's Erica C Barnett. He's Sandeep Koushik. I'm David Hyde. Our editor is Quinn Waller and you are listeners

[00:07:36] on Patreon or who are responsible for the fact that we're bringing you this mini breaking news episode. Thanks so much for everybody who's supporting it and thanks to everyone for listening.