MINNEAPOLIS — It took more than a year, but Thursday morning the Minneapolis City Council approved a new contract for the Minneapolis Police Department.
The contract guarantees more power for the chief, including staffing flexibility and adding civilian investigators. The contract also increases officer wages by nearly 22% over a three-year period.
Under this contract officers would receive backpay for all of 2023 and the first half of 2024. The city says this backpay will cost around $5.5 million.
The increased wages in 2025 would also cost $9.2 million, according to city estimates.
Altogether the city says the contract will cost an additional $14.7 million. That's a lot of new money the city will have to pay out, and there are differing ideas on how to cover that extra cost.
City Council Vice President Aisha Chugtai presented her own idea to cover the costs.
"We found a creative solution that uses different money,” Chugtai said during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
The plan is rather complex, taking money out of the downtown asset fund, the general fund, and using money from the American Rescue Plan. Chugtai says the plan should cover the cost of the police contract and not put a burden on taxpayers.
Some of her colleagues were concerned about this new plan.
"Moving downtown assets fund for other items here is not appropriate,” council member Linea Palmisan said.
Some city council members also questioned if the plan would actually work.
"This feels like a shell game to me," LaTrisha Vetaw said.
Mayor Jacob Frey used those same exact words.
"The proposal that was put forward is a shell game,” Frey said. "It's moving money around from one place, to another, to another again."
Mayor Frey said he would rather use public safety funding from the state, which he says can be used to pay for police wages.
"I believe that some of the money from that public safety aid should go to help alleviate the burden on taxpayers,” Frey said.
Many of the council members disagree, arguing that money is earmarked for public safety initiatives outside of the police department, such as violence interrupters and various community-based groups.
"It is pitting two important components of our public safety ecosystem against one another,” Chugtai said.
In a 7-5 vote the council approved Chugtai's plan, which they say should cover the cost of the police contract.
Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board is currently hashing out their labor contract.
The board is at odds with parks employees over wage increases. A park board spokesperson says their proposal would raise Minneapolis property taxes by 1.32% next year. Parks officials say the union version would raise taxes by 1.87% next year.
City officials say there are several other labor contracts that will be negotiated in the coming months.
"There's 20 other contracts here at the city,” Minneapolis Director of Labor Relations Rashida Deloney said. "So, understand that the seats at the bargaining table are still warm."
Looking ahead, Mayor Frey says some difficult decisions are ahead that will impact city employees and residents.
"We know we are trying to fill a very significant gap in funding,” Frey said. “We can't continue to spend more and simultaneously not hit homeowners and renters with a significant property tax hike."