On KUOW: What's In the New Police Contract?

On "Seattle Now," We Discuss What the Public Can Expect In Exchange for Huge Raises for Cops

By Erica C. Barnett

I went on KUOW's "Seattle Now" this week to discuss what's in the tentative Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, which PubliCola obtained last week. As Andrew Engelson and I reported, the tentative contract would increase police officers’ wages by 23 percent retroactively, meaning that officers will receive lump-sum payments for the past three years’ raises and have a minimum starting salary of $103,000 going forward. Although a 2017 ordinance was supposed to set a baseline for accountability standards going forward, that law was undermined by a 2018 contract that superseded it, and the new contract does little to redress that problem. The proposed contract includes almost none of the accountability measures included in the 2017 ordinance, prompting police reform advocates to argue the contract may stall the department’s efforts to get out of a 12-year-old federal consent decree.

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