Seattle has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with its police force that meets many of the goals on salary increases that advocates have said are necessary to help grow the Seattle Police Department’s ranks, adds increased oversight and accountability, and opens the door for City Hall to move more of its work around public safety like automated traffic tickets and property damage to teams outside the department.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the tentative agreement with the Seattle Police Officer Guild and the move of legislation covering the contract to the Seattle City Council.

“This agreement focuses on three key areas: improving police staffing and fair wages at a time when officer numbers are at a historic low; enhancing accountability measures to ensure allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated and discipline is appropriate; and expanding civilian response options to build a diversified safety system and create new efficiencies,” Harrell said in statement.

The deal retroactively covers 2021, 2022, and 2023 with a series of raises that will give officers an immediate 23% boost in pay. The Harrell administration said negotiations for 2024 “are ongoing with the assistance of a mediator appointed by the Public Employment Relations Commission” and suggested more reform measures “proposed by the City based on input from community partners and the federal judge overseeing the City’s Consent Decree with the Department of Justice” will be included in the final agreement.

The tentative agreement includes new and increased accountability measures including requiring an arbitrator in discipline appeals, improving timelines for officer misconduct investigations, eliminating the 5-day notice currently required in some serious misconduct investigation, and adding two additional civilian investigators in the Office of Police Accountability.

The new agreement will also further open the city’s ability to move work and public safety assistance currently restricted to the police force to “use civilian resources,” Harrell’s office said, including:

responding to lost or missing property and found property events; requests for transportation; emergency food and shelter requests; property damage; noise complaints; delivering messages and performing mail runs; addressing landlord/tenant problems; support missing juveniles, runaways, and missing adult persons; wellness checks; and acting as hospital guards for low-level offenders

In September, CHS reported on the launch of Seattle’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement department hoped to provide better, more direct response to issues around homelessness, addiction, and mental illness while allowing police to focus on more serious crimes. The small, $1.5 million pilot program is hoped to help be the start of bigger changes to how the city responds to mental health and drug crisis 911 calls.

The new agreement will open the door to other city departments and civilian teams taking on work that would typically be restricted to police including “civilian review of automated traffic safety camera violations” at “traffic signals, rail crossings, speeding, traffic obstructions, blocking intersections or crosswalks, transit only lanes, and stopping or traveling in restricted lanes.”

Non-police resources could also be brought to bear assisting SPD detective units with administrative tasks, case file preparation, and crime analysis, Harrell’s office says.

The agreement will now go to the City Council for hearings and approval.

“Approving this contract is an important step in remediating the permissive public safety environment our city has endured for years,” the council’s public safety committee chair Bob Kettle said in a statement.

The deal comes as the city is moving out from under years of federal oversight. Last year, SPD ended 12 years of federal controls and oversight after a civil rights investigation found evidence of excessive force and biased policing at the department. A 2023 report showed SPD’s use of force has dropped and that officers were reporting fewer total incidents — but not for “Black people, Hispanic / Latino people, and other racial minorities.”

Harrell’s office, meanwhile, is also this week rolling out a larger “One Seattle Safety Framework” with his latest public safety forum scheduled for Tuesday night at Garfield High School. Harrell’s plan is focused on increasing the number of police, cracking down on street disorder and drug use, and increased spending on police alternatives including the CARE department despite a looming budget deficit in the city.

Neighborhood business groups are also asking for more public safety help including the Pike/Pine and Broadway Safety Coalition which is asking the city to do more to address drug dealing and street disorder in the areas around Cal Anderson and the Broadway/Pike QFC.

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