Tumwater City Council approved a new bargaining agreement between the city and the Tumwater Police Guild as part of its consent agenda on Tuesday, January 16.
The guild represents the full- and part-time police officers, sergeants, and lieutenants of the city’s police department, with the agreement ensuring the guild has enough resources and support to maintain public safety effectively, according to documents for the meeting.
The previous agreement with the guild expired in 2023, so the new contract takes effect from 2024 to 2026.
With the new contract, the monthly pay of the police officers, sergeants, and lieutenants will increase by 4.6% in 2024 and another 3.5% in 2025.
The employee’s longevity premium will also increase yearly over the next three years. The increase will depend on how long an employee has been with the police department, but the increases will range from 3% to 4.5% this year, 4% to 5.5% next year, and 5% to 6.5% in 2026.
Starting in 2025, Tumwater will also have a deferred compensation program allowing employees to save up to 1% of their base wage while the city matches that amount. By 2026, employees may contribute up to 2% of their base wage.
The agreement also changes a section about schedule adjustments so that employees receive a 2% premium to their base rate if the city requires them to change their schedule. The previous contract only stated that schedules could be adjusted upon the mutual agreement of the city and the guild.
Employees who voluntarily request an adjustment in their schedule will not receive the premium.
For overtime work, the new agreement allows employees to convert up to 88 overtime hours to compensatory time instead of overtime pay. The previous agreement only allowed up to 55 hours of compensatory time.
The agreement expands how guild members receive compensation for unused sick leave upon retirement.
The previous agreement only indicated that retiring employees would be compensated for 25% of their accrued unused sick leave.
The new agreement expands this by increasing the percentage of the compensation depending on how many years the employee has worked for the police department.
Twenty-five percent would only apply to retiring employees with 10 years of service or less. Employees with more than ten years, but less than 15 years of service would receive 30% of the unused sick leave.
Those with more than 15 years but less than 20 years of service would receive 40%. Lastly, retiring employees with over 20 years of service would receive compensation for half of their unused sick leave upon retirement.
The new agreement also specifies a process for selecting an arbitrator to settle disputes between the city and the guild.
Either the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service or the Public Employees Relations Commission currently provides an arbitrator for dispute settlements.
Whereas the previous agreement only stated that arbitrators shall be selected per the state law, the new agreement sets out a process where the guild and the city could eliminate certain arbitrators chosen for a case.
The process starts with the guild selecting a list of 11 arbitrators from Washington or Oregon. The city and the guild would whittle down the list to a single arbitrator by removing an arbitrator one at a time in an alternate manner.
A coin toss would indicate who gets to remove an arbitrator first.
1 comment on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
DesertMedic
Good, maybe the officers can get out of their units and work now. The most useless PD I have ever seen. And some of the nastiest, rude, female officers ever.
Tuesday, January 23 Report this