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Palo Alto police officers could see significant salary bumps later this month, when the City Council considers contracts that include both across-the-board pay increases and bonuses for specialized positions.
The two contracts, which the council is set to approve on April 17, apply to the 76 members of Palo Alto Peace Officers’ Association (PAPOA) and the six captains and lieutenants represented by the Police Managers’ Association. In some ways, they mirror the city’s recent deals with other labor groups, including the Service Employees International Union, Local 521; the city’s two firefighters unions; and the nonunionized “management and professionals” group.
Much like members of the other groups, all officers will get a pair of 4% salary increases, one in July of this year and another one next year. In addition, everyone in the two police unions will get a 5% salary increase immediately upon contract adoption.
Like other employees, officers will also be eligible for “flexible compensation,” a provision that allows them to claim an additional $100 in monthly salary by foregoing increased contributions by the city toward their medical premiums. The first of these pay bumps would occur immediately after contract adoption while the second would happen in July 2024, according to the contract.
And like in other recently adopted labor agreements, some members of the police union will get additional salary increases based on specific positions. The new PAPOA contract would grant field training officers an additional 5% salary bump. The same bonus would go to dog handlers in the Police Department’s K-9 program, a recognition of “the time spent by the K-9 Officer/Agent outside regularly scheduled work hours to feed, groom, house, exercise, attend to the medical and dental needs of and otherwise maintain the dog,” according to the contract.
Members of the Police Managers’ Association would similarly receive a 4% bonus if they quality for Peace Officer Standards and Training Management Education Certification, according to the proposed contract.
The deal makes no changes to the binding arbitration provision in the police contract, a clause that allows employees to take grievances against department leadership to a three-member arbitrator panel. Once a provision of the City Charter, the binding-arbitration requirement was repealed by the voters in 2011 after council members argued that it strips them of their rights to make budget and policy decisions related to public safety. But while no longer part of local law, it remains embedded in both the current union contracts and the proposed ones.
Under the proposed contract, salaries in PAPOA after the initial 5% pay bump would range from $109.595 for a police trainee to $202,384 for a sergeant with advanced bilingual skills. In the Police Managers’ Association, lieutenants and captains would see their salaries rise to $245,606 and $274,726 after the 5% increase. Both contracts stretch from Jan. 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025.
The new contracts, which the council is set to review on April 17, come at a time when the city is ramping up staffing levels in the Police Department after a period of cuts prompted by plummeting revenues during the early days of the pandemic. Even before COVID-19, the department faced vacancies and significant turnover, according to a report from City Manager Ed Shikada. He estimated that each officer that leaves costs the city $200,000 in turnover costs and a requirement to spend 12 to 18 months training a new officer.
The report notes that the prior union contract, which expired in December 2022, “helped stabilize the vacancies; however, with the continued industry-wide sparseness of applicants it remains critical for the City to continue to provide competitive wages and benefits to support workforce retention.”