The unit represented by the POA includes the non-sworn positions of Community Services Officer and Police Services Officer and the sworn positions of Police Officer and Police Sergeant.
With the 2019-2022 MOU between the City and POA set to expire in June 30, 2022, the negotiations teams for both parties met numerous times over the past several months in an effort to reach agreement on a successor MOU. At the Council’s request, the City and POA agreed to adopt an interest based-type approach to the meetings, through which the negotiations teams started from a big picture approach and then working methodically, translated the broader concepts into shared interests and conceptual ideas, which the parties ultimately drew from to develop proposals. Key shared interests identified are Long Term Fiscal Stability/ Prudent Fiscal Management, Maintaining service levels/service quality, Employee retention/recruitment, and Stability in Labor Relations.
The City and the POA have reached a tentative agreement on a three-year successor MOU for 2022-2025, featuring a Reduced Staffing Program (Program) and a significant increase to base salaries in the first year of the agreement for sworn employees and more modest base increases for non-sworn employees for each of the three years.
Sworn Employees
The parameters for the Program for sworn employees align with the interests shared by the City and POA by continuing to place top priority on maintaining high levels of service and community safety and ensuring fiscally sustainable operations. Specifically:
- The Program will be adopted on a trial, pilot basis during the term of the MOU and will end automatically upon expiration of the MOU on June 30, 2025, unless the City decides to continue the reduced staffing levels beyond then.
- The Program calls for a comprehensive review of the City’s public safety performance under the first two years of the Program, commencing in July 2024 and concluding no later than December 31, 2024. The results of this review will be taken into account in, but will not be solely determinative of, the City’s decision whether to continue the Program beyond June 30, 2025.
Should the City decide to discontinue the Program and increase the number of budgeted Association positions beyond July 1, 2025, the City and POA agree that the need for fiscal sustainability will be a factor in determining the scope of meet and confer associated with that decision, including, but not limited to potential modification to one or more elements of total compensation for POA employees effective on or after July 1, 2025.The City and Association agree to meet and confer regarding the effects, if any,
During the term of this MOU, the Program will consist of the following:
- Reduction of budgeted sworn positions to 13 total, including 11 positions represented by the Association. The resulting rank structure will be 1 Chief, 1 Commander, 2 Sergeants, 8 Officers plus 1 Officer assigned as Detective. At no time during the Program will the number of Officer positions exceed 9.
- Compared to present, this restructuring will remove 3 unfilled sworn positions and eliminate the Corporal classification.
- Direct City contributions to 457 deferred compensation plans for eligible employees (defined as those who performed essential sworn duties or were on specified types of authorized leaves of absence for more than half of scheduled hours in the prior year.
o $10,000 in the first year; $15,000 in the second year; $20,000 in the third year, paid out incrementally per pay period.
- Assignment of officers to 24-hour standby shifts with standby pay of $150 per standby shift.
In addition, in furtherance of shared interests in promoting retention of and improving recruitment of highly qualified and motivated officers, the City and POA carefully examined and restructured both the approach to total compensation received by sworn unit members and the associated duties expected of Police Officers. As reflected in the revised job descriptions included as Appendix A to the draft MOU, the heightened expectations encompass policing elements and specialized training in areas such as added mental health response skills, community policing/problem solving, field leadership responsibilities, detective-level capacity by patrol officers, special event coordination duties, and crime scene leadership.
In furtherance of shared interests in Long Term Fiscal Stability/ Prudent Fiscal Management and recognizing the above performance expectations, the POA has agreed to eliminate additional special pays such as shift differential pay, motor officer pay, wellness reimbursement, CA POST education incentive, SWAT/Hostage Negotiation pay, and Field Training Officer pay. (The City and POA agree that motivating pursuit of higher education through the existing education incentive program and encouraging bilingual skills in sworn employees continue to add value in maintaining high service levels to the community and warrant continued special pays.) POA members also continue to pay a portion of their salary toward the employer share and pay the full employee share of retirement benefit costs.
To address the urgent conditions brought about by high vacancy rates and difficulty filling existing sworn vacancies, to compensate for the redefined scope of duties (as discussed above) reflected in the job descriptions for Police Officer contained in Appendix A) and associated heightened standards of performance, and in recognition of the higher salaries offered by comparable police agencies, the City and Association agree to restructure the salary ranges in place as of June 30, 2022 to reduce the number of steps from 6 to 3, define each new step based on years of City service, and apply an increase to base rate of pay for the new steps. The resulting salaries for sworn unit members employed as of July 1, 2022 will be governed by the following rules:
- Members with fewer than 12 months of continuous City service (including new hires after July 1, 2022) will be placed on Step 1, with a resulting annual salary of $129,230.40 for Police Officers and $148,635.10 for Police Sergeants.
- Members with fewer than 120 months but more than 12 months of continuous City service will be placed on Step 2, with a resulting annual salary of $136,032.00 for Police Officers and $156,458.00 for Police Sergeants.
- Members with more than 120 months of continuous City service will be placed on Step 3, with a resulting annual salary of $140,112.96 for Police Officers and $161,151.74 for Police Sergeants.
There will be no increases to the salaries for Step 1, Step 2, or Step 3 during the three-year term of the agreement. Employees on Steps 1 and 2 will remain eligible to advance to the next step on their anniversary date upon their completion of minimum required years of City service and satisfactory or better performance evaluation.
Non-Sworn
Effective July 1, 2022, non-sworn employees will receive a 5% increase to base salary.
Effective July 1, 2023, non-sworn employees will receive a 3% increase to base salary.
Effective July 1, 2024, non-sworn employees will receive a 3% increase to base salary.
In addition, due to an existing parity clause, should the Council approve the increased deferred compensation match tentatively agreed to by the City and General Employees Unit, the non-sworn employees in the POA would also receive that increased match (of up to $50).