MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis on Friday rejected a one-year contract offer from the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, which sought to boost pay by 13.25 percent at a time of historic staffing shortages.
Since September, the city and the union have been working to reach an agreement on an updated contract. The current three-year deal expired on Dec. 31, 2022.
With the Minneapolis Police Department still hundreds of officers short, the police federation has portrayed wage increases as a vital part of any new contract for the purposes of hiring and retaining new officers. However, city officials said Friday that the union's 13.25-percent wage hike would cost too much and lacks needed accountability measures.
"The Federation's one-year package deal, which would require the City to agree to each and every term as proposed by the Federation, is not fiscally responsible," city negotiators wrote, "and does not acknowledge how policing has changed and must change within Minneapolis."
According to the city, the union's proposed wage increase would have cost Minneapolis more than $11 million, an "excessive amount that the Federation knows the City cannot afford to pay in one year." The city has already put a $15,000 hiring bonus and a $18,000 hiring bonus on the table for the union to consider.
The city offered a counterproposal Friday, which marked the third public negotiation session so far this autumn. These talks are playing out in full public view for the very first time after the city settled a lawsuit with the coalition "Minneapolis For a Better Police Contract" that sought to increase access to the negotiations.
Stacey Gurian-Sherman, a member of the steering committee for Minneapolis For a Better Police Contract, attended Friday's negotiation session. Her group is pushing for a long list of recommendations in the new contract, including changes to disciplinary standards and limits on work and off-duty hours, among many other items.
"If we believe that democracy dies in darkness, that's how the police federation contract has been negotiated over the last decades," Gurian-Sherman said. "I think the public being allowed to be in the negotiations is the equivalent of turning on the lights and opening up the windows."
Gurian-Sherman said the city's rejection of the union's offer on Friday shows that "there's a new sheriff in town" under Minneapolis Director of Labor Relations Rasheda Deloney.
Neither city officials nor union representatives were available for interviews on Friday to talk about the status of the union negotiations, which will continue throughout the fall. However, the two sides did sign an agreement extending a more generous vacation accrual policy for officers.
Gurian-Sherman said that the smaller agreement was "great to see."
"We have officers who have not been able to take vacation like city employees, because of the short staffing," Gurian-Sherman said. "I think this shows a genuine part on both of the parties to get past this obstacle and this distraction of the one-year contract, and really roll up their sleeves and get to the priorities that we need to talk about."
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