Community shares views on proposed Minneapolis police contract and historic pay raises

Dozens of residents crowded the Minneapolis City Council chambers Monday to discuss a new police union contract that would give officers historic pay raises. Some said depleted police numbers had contributed to a sense of lawlessness and increasing fear in their neighborhoods, while others called the deal expensive and undeserved.

The proposed contract would guarantee experienced officers a nearly 22% raise by next summer and raise the starting salary for newcomers to more than $90,000 a year — putting Minneapolis among the state’s three highest-paying departments and outperforming comparable pay scales at some of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies. The contract would also expand administrative control over the police force, whose staffing levels are at their lowest in four decades.

As local officials spent weeks considering whether to approve the contract, Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara called the raises critical to attracting qualified recruits, retaining experienced officers and restoring public confidence amid court-ordered reforms designed to overhaul the department following the killing of George Floyd.

Several residents who attended Monday’s meeting, the second public hearing on the issue, said it was high time something was done.

“I don’t recognize this city,” said Elise Werger, a Seward neighborhood resident whose husband and daughter have been attacked in recent months. “Council members, your constituents are terrified — they’re afraid to go to work, to go for a walk, to go to the store without looking back.”

“I know the police are not perfect. No one would deny that reforms are necessary. But we need more police because these criminals know they can get away with it.”

Others are urging City Council members to reject the deal, condemning the union agreement as an attempt to raise wages without keeping long-standing promises to improve police accountability.

Noah Schumacher, who has lived in Minneapolis his entire life, doubted that pay raises would lead to a noticeable improvement in public safety if the underlying problems that create the breeding ground for violence and crime continue to go unaddressed.

“Many have shared personal experiences. I, too, have been robbed, assaulted and shot at – and that was before 2020, when the police force was still at full capacity,” Schumacher said, noting that he, too, has been a victim of police brutality. He noted that the MPD has cost the city more than $71 million in police brutality settlements since 2019.

Minneapolis has also paid more than $24 million in compensation payments to more than 150 Minneapolis police officers since June 1, 2020, according to a Star Tribune analysis. Many left the department after making PTSD claims, contributing to a stubborn staffing shortage that has shrunk the agency by 40% since May 2020 and driven up overtime costs.

The MPD has 516 sworn officers on active duty, compared to about 900 at its peak.

Extended city authority

Many of the city’s elected officials have long viewed the contract as an obstacle to implementing much-needed reforms, and police oversight agencies argued this vote offered a chance to fix the problem. In recent years, however, some top officials — including Frey — have changed their minds, saying disciplinary changes could be better implemented through internal policies that would not have to be negotiated with the union.

The tentative labor agreement, ratified by the union in June, significantly expands the chief’s authority, giving him more discretion in how and where he can move staff, eliminating the 70/30 clause that sets a minimum staffing level for certain positions, increasing the number of civilian investigators in the department, and raising the salaries of field training officers (FTOs) from $2,500 to $3,000 per year.

It also eliminates decades-old side agreements between the city and the union that effectively tied city leaders’ hands when it came to implementing changes, many of which had no expiration date.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the city’s chief operating officer, and City Attorney Kristyn Anderson explained the new contract to council members, highlighting changes that give the city broader disciplinary and personnel powers.

“We want to attract, retain and hire the best and most capable police officers we can have in Minneapolis who are reform-minded,” Kelliher told members of the council’s Administration and Corporate Oversight Committee on Monday.

Anderson emphasized that many of the reforms demanded by community members would be enforced through the Minnesota Department of Human Rights agreement and the pending federal settlement with the Department of Justice.

Communities United Against Police Brutality, a grassroots movement for police reform, criticized the collective bargaining agreement in a rebuttal as an unjustified “budget buster” that would lead to an increase in property taxes and thousands of back payments to current and former police officers – including those who cost the city millions in settlements over police violence.

“Historic raises have to be earned,” said Michelle Gross, president of the advocacy group. She was also skeptical that a base salary increase alone would be a successful recruiting tool to replenish the MPD’s dwindling ranks.

“Culture change is much more important to new hires than waving dollar bills around,” she said, encouraging council members to reject the contract. “It’s more important to do this right than to do it fast.”

The dispute over the contract comes against the backdrop of the ongoing fallout from the recent line-of-duty death of Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell and the city’s projected $21.6 million budget shortfall, which could result in a drastic increase in property taxes for residents.

Several speakers in support of the treaty pointed out that ordinary civil servants earned far less than serving council members and that they were not exposed to the same risks in their professional lives.

“They do one of the most intense and stressful jobs there is, with almost double the workload given the number of police officers we have on duty,” said Tisa Ford, daughter of a former Minneapolis police officer. “They risk their lives every day when they go out.”

The current collective bargaining agreement for the Minneapolis Police Department was adopted after state mediation in March 2022 and expired on December 31 of the same year.

The contract will result in an estimated $9.2 million in future expenses in addition to the original budgeted costs, as well as an estimated $5.5 million in back payments that can be covered by the city’s current budget.

The 166-page agreement must be signed by the entire City Council. The body cannot propose changes to the collective bargaining agreement, only approve or reject it. If members refuse to approve it, the city’s collective bargaining team, along with the police union, must go back to mediation.

In an interview last week, Council member Linea Palmisano said she feared If the contract goes to binding arbitration, the city could risk losing some hard-won provisions.

“They’re going to get most of the money, if not all of the money, through arbitration and we’re not going to get anything back in terms of management rights,” she said. “I think people who want a major transformation of the police force aren’t going to be happy with a collective bargaining agreement because it doesn’t really provide the means to do that.”

The council is expected to formally vote on the matter on July 18.