No word, yet, on how the new deal will change the Seattle Police Officers Guild’s “Seattle Public Safety Index”

With reporting by Hannah Saunders

The Seattle City Council voted 8-1 Tuesday to approve a new contract agreement with the city’s police officer union that leaders including Mayor Bruce Harrell and Chief Adrian Diaz says will boost salaries and morale as the department struggles to hire more officers. Council members voting for the contract also said Tuesday the deal will adding limited new oversight resources and move more public safety work like handling automated traffic tickets and property damage to civilian teams outside the department to help focus officers on the city’s most serious crime needs.

Public Safety Committee chair Bob Kettle said prior to Tuesday’s vote the key to the contract is improving SPD staffing levels, and that the agreement shows a commitment to both SPD and improving public safety. Acknowledged that the contract is expensive and a challenge with the budget deficit, Kettle said Seattle cannot compete in the law enforcement labor market, then it cannot accomplish the goal of achieving public safety.

“This is not done. This will continue. This is an interim or partial agreement,” Kettle said. “I have high standards and high expectations for our police department.”

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 deal will mean nearly $60 million more spending than planned in retroactive payouts this year, the city says. That will add to the city’s ballooning budget which is already facing a growing $230 million-plus budget hole.

District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth who focused her campaign around crime and who has said public safety is her office’s number one priority did not speak during Tuesday’s session prior to her “yes” vote on the approval. Her office also declined to provide a statement to CHS on her vote.

Hollingsworth has called for more to be done to increase pay and improve the working environment for Seattle cops while also increasing civilian oversight of the department.

Critics have called on Hollingsworth and others on the council to do more to strengthen accountability and provide more civilian oversight as the city’s cops are also being offered massive raises.

The 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 deal falls short of stronger measures including making it possible to put an officer on leave without pay during an OPA investigation or making it easier for the city to terminate problem officers.

Tuesday’s vote came despite calls from District 2 rep Tammy Morales to delay the decision and provide more time for public input. “This contract with SPOG is an incredibly important vote about the future of police accountability and civilian public safety alternatives in Seattle,” Morales said in a statement. “The community deserves a chance to make their voice heard before we vote on it. We shouldn’t be rushing this.”

Council president and citywide representative Sara Nelson declined to delay the decision and said that it is urgent the city puts a new deal in place that she hopes will begin to address the city’s dwindling ranks of sworn officers.

Following the vote, the Seattle Police Officers Guild celebrated the decision. “This vote illustrates the positive sea change in the governance of our great city,” guild president Mike Solan said in a statement. “SPOG admires Mayor Harrell’s and President Nelson’s leadership and commitment to public safety.”

SPOG, which has been in recent years maintaining a “Seattle Public Safety Index” with factors including “deployable officers,” “critical incidents,” and “time since contract expiration” has not yet updated the calculation.

Public comment before the vote was limited and dominated by speakers against the deal.

“If you don’t fight this contract—if you approve this contract—you’re guilty of the next police killing and you will regret it,” Robert, a Seattle resident said.

People Power Washington’s Shannon Cheng also spoke in opposition to the contract. Cheng noted how December of 2019 was the last opportunity provided to speak on an SPD contract, and found it “ridiculous” that the public was granted one minute each to speak.

“This permissive SPOG contract permits a toxic work culture,” Cheng said. “It is SPD defunding everything else. Reject the SPOG contract and do better.”

Others who provided public comment questioned raises as the city considers a closure of schools across the district and the cutting of public library hours. Many emphasized the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who was fatally hit by SPD officer and the subsequent SPD body camera footage of SPOG vice president Dan Auderer laughing about the fatality. Community members said this new contract provides the department with raises without increasing officer accountability.

“We want meaningful, robust, civilian-led police accountability and oversight, and this contract fails to deliver,” one Capitol Hill resident said.

The new agreement is interim and covers SPD back-pay from 2021 to 2023. Since December of last year, a mediator has been assisting with negotiations related to officer wages, hours, and working conditions, including the disciplinary review system.

Ben Noble, director of the Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, said Tuesday the salary base for SPOG membership in 2020 was about $170 million, and that the agreement provides a 24% increase on a compounded basis. Going forward, the annual impact will be $39 million a year. To address potential expenditures, he said the city has been building reserves but that City Hall’s projected deficit will grow.

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.”

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍