Star Tribune
City Council considers proposed Minneapolis police union contract, pay raises, with public hearings
Minneapolis leaders are weighing whether to sign off on a new police contract that grants its officers historic wage increases, bumping starting salaries past that of some of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies, in a desperate effort to rebuild its dwindling ranks.
The proposed contract would guarantee a nearly 22% pay raise for veteran officers by next summer and boost starting salaries for rookies fresh out of the academy to over $90,000 a year — a sum surpassing the comparable wage schedules of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Mayor Jacob Frey and Chief Brian O’Hara cast the raises as critical to attracting quality recruits, retaining experienced officers and restoring public trust amid court-mandated reforms seeking to overhaul the embattled department in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
“At a minimum, you deserve to be among the highest-paid police officers in this state. Period,” O’Hara told rank-and-file officers in April. He emphasized that officers deserve a labor agreement that “clearly recognizes the demands, the dangers and the unparalleled level of scrutiny” they are under.
Frey and O’Hara have said the contract would make Minneapolis police among the top three highest-paid officers in the state, depending on which years you’re comparing. Frey said Tuesday he’s not aware of how the pay stacks up nationally, and he cautioned against comparing the Minneapolis contract to those of other major American cities, noting that there are other ways to boost officer compensation outside of the basic wage schedule.
But local activists are calling on City Council members to reject the deal, denouncing the collective bargaining agreement as an attempt to inflate wages without upholding promises of improving police accountability.
In a letter to elected officials, Communities United Against Police Brutality called it “unconscionable” to dole out double-digit raises to a department that has cost the city over $71 million in police brutality settlements since 2019.
“That level of pay increase should be reserved for a police force that shows an appropriate level of service and accountability to the community,” wrote Michelle Gross, president of the watchdog group.
Since June 1, 2020, Minneapolis has also shelled out more than $24 million in workers’ compensation settlements to more than 150 Minneapolis police officers, according to a Star Tribune review of City Council minutes. Many left the department after filing PTSD claims, contributing to a nagging staffing shortage that has shrunken the agency by more than 40% since May 2020. MPD currently has 516 sworn staff on active duty, compared to roughly 900 at its peak.
A showdown over the contract comes amid continued fallout from the recent line-of-duty death of Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell and a projected $21.6 million budget hole, which may result in steep property tax hikes for residents.
Minneapolis’ current police labor agreement was adopted in March 2022 after state mediation and expired Dec. 31 of that year.
The 166-page contract requires sign-off by the full City Council, which could vote as soon as Thursday or as late as mid-July. The body doesn’t have the ability to propose changes to the labor agreement, only to approve or reject it. If they refuse to endorse it, the city must return to mediation alongside the police union, according to the city.
What provisions does it include?
- Broadens the Chief’s managerial powers in a variety of ways: Several provisions grant O’Hara more discretion in how and where he can move personnel, including temporarily reassigning supervisors to officer duties; requiring all officers work at least one critical staffing overtime shift — where they receive double their hourly pay — every 28 days. Another extends the time period in which an officer accused of misconduct can be placed on leave while being investigated, from 30 days to 180 days.
- Expands the number of civilian investigator positions in the department.
- Raises Field Training Officer (FTO) pay from $2,500 to $3,000
- Codifies Coaching: Language cements the city’s longstanding position that coaching, a form of one-on-one mentoring to correct low-level policy violations, does not constitute as discipline and therefore isn’t public. (Despite years of denial, police have at times used this corrective measure to address instances of serious officer misconduct, a Star Tribune story last month revealed.)
- Rolls back language requiring that an officer be automatically told the identity of an individual who requests their public personnel records. (A provision criticized in the previous contract for its potential to infringe access to public data.) Officers will still be notified when someone pulls their file.
How to pay for it
The contract will cost an estimated $9 million in future spending — but the exact price tag is not yet clear, as a large portion includes pro-rated backpay. Some officers who have since left the department are still eligible for those raises.
Frey said he intends to spread the cost over three years — from 2025 through 2027 — in hopes of reducing the immediate property tax impact. He wants to fund those incentives through state public safety aid approved by the Legislature for Minneapolis last year, although much of that money has already been appropriated by the council to programs that focus on nontraditional policing, crime prevention and racial justice-informed public safety.
Members of the council’s progressive wing lambasted that plan during a committee hearing Monday and at Tuesday’s news conference, saying that it amounted to “defunding” community-based alternatives.
“Mayor Frey and his administration put forward a proposal that defunds comprehensive public safety in order to pay for this Federation contract,” Council Vice President and Budget Committee Chair Aisha Chughtai said. “Pitting comprehensive public safety solutions that are urgently needed across our communities in return for paying for a Federation contract is a false choice. It’s irresponsible.”
Scheduling bickering
On Tuesday, disagreement surfaced in City Hall over when the council will vote. In a morning news conference, City Council President Elliott Payne said the council would delay its vote until July 18 to give the public time to digest the contract and allow for two public hearings.
But Frey called a news conference soon after and criticized that delay, calling for the council to approve the contract Thursday— and noting that the council could have voted on the contract as early as June 13.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to delay this vote even further so that a bunch of people can come in to be for police or against police,” Frey said. “There’s nuance to this contract.”
The public will have their first chance to weigh in on the police contract tonight at 5 p.m. A second hearing is envisioned for July 8 — assuming the council doesn’t vote the contract up or down Thursday. During the public hearing, committee members could vote to delay the final vote until July 18.
The Edina Historical Society is seeking $100,000 in city funding as it aims to revamp its programming to become more relevant to the community.
“When we went to the city, we knew that we kind of have to go big,” said Sarah Solsvig, president of the society’s board. “We want to better serve the needs of the community and want to grow some of the areas that we think need a little bit more attention.”
To land the funding — five times the amount the organization now receives — society leaders will need to convince council members who also are weighing requests from various city departments and trying to settle on a budget for next year. Some of them want the society to make stronger commitments to telling a more diverse set of stories before they will guarantee funding, promises society leaders say they’re willing to make.
Council Member Julie Risser said she respects the society’s work “but I feel like, at the moment, the way things are being messaged, it really doesn’t meet the standards that should be in place for 2024.”
Among other things, she wants to see a greater commitment to telling the stories of Black pioneers who also had a significant presence in the area. And she asked whether it might be time to add a council member to the group’s board.
The Edina Historical Society was founded in 1969 and runs a museum, the Cahill School, which was built in 1864 and was a fixture in the local Irish community, and the Minnehaha Grange Hall, which was built by farmers years later and served as a community meeting place.
Interim executive director Mary Agnes Ratelle walks through The Grange at the Edina Historical Society. (Renée Jones Schneider)
The society hosts field trips, trick-or-treating and events focusing on topics like the fashions of World War II. Like other historical societies, it has been challenged in recent years by dwindling school budgets and cultural changes that have made it tougher to find volunteers or part-time workers.
Risser noted Edina leaders will have to weigh the historical society’s request against those from city departments. She noted that the police asked for $80,000 to obtain night vision goggles, an amount that would be equivalent to the increase the society is seeking.
But most concerns about crime are more local.
Moe, the Blaine Republican, said he hears from residents worried about feeling safe at Northtown Mall, especially in the days and weeks after gunfire led to a lockdown. People want to make sure local police departments have adequate staffing, he said, even if there is not much crime in Blaine.
Lucia Wrobleski, a DFLer running against Republican Wayne Johnson for House District 41A, which includes Lake Elmo and Afton and stretches to the St. Croix River, said she also hears worries about crime — something she’s particularly attuned to, she said, as a former St. Paul police officer.
“Our district is generally safe, but I do hear it at the doors,” she said. People worry about property crime in the fast-growing district, and they think about gun violence too, she said, with the February killing of two police officers and a firefighter-paramedic in Burnsville still on residents’ minds.
Jungling said he hears concerns from north metro residents about their safety when they visit Minneapolis and, in their own neighborhoods, property crimes such as catalytic converter thefts or thefts of purebred dogs, as was the case when a valuable French Bulldog puppy was stolen from the porch of a Maplewood home.
But overall, Jungling said, local and state-level issues are of much greater concern than the national political discourse.
PERRY, Fla. — Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and knocked out power to millions of people.
”I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.
Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).
From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it ”looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.
Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because the Buccaneers’ drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.
There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.
”To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.
Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it was ”heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors have been going house to house to check on each other and offer support.
