Reform, accountability become tug toy in proposed Minneapolis Police contract
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is urging the City Council to approve a tentative union agreement that gives Minneapolis officers a historic boost in pay, but the council is planning to push the final vote back until mid-July so the public has time to understand the contract and offer input.
Public hearings, including presentations by community groups, are scheduled for Tuesday evening and July 8. The final vote will take place on July 18.
Council President Elliott Payne said the council wants as open and transparent a process as possible.
“We’ve heard from many, many administrations in our city that the biggest barrier to police reform is the police union,” Payne said. “Our community wants answers, our community wants to understand what’s in this contract, our community wants to understand how do we build a police department that’s accountable to the public and part of a comprehensive public safety system.”
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Frey said Monday that he’s optimistic the contract will pass, but that he’s working to make sure they have the votes on the council.
“It is a good contract,” Frey said. “It is filled with some really important changes that give the chief the managerial oversight to actually make the change that we all have talked about.”
Council member Jeremiah Ellison has been around for multiple police contract negotiations and said this is the most encouraged he’s been. He believes it’s important the public have the opportunity to evaluate provisions in the contract the same way council members have in closed-door briefings.
“Whenever you have a contract before you, you’ve got to ask yourself, what are we getting for the money we’re paying?” Ellison said. “We want to make sure that we’re not ceding any ground and that we’re not failing the public by not having the strongest possible contract we could have.”
How to pay for the contract
Some members of the council are pushing back on the mayor’s plan to fund the contract by reallocating one-time public safety aid from the state. The mayor’s administration has proposed cutting funding for the city’s truth and reconciliation efforts and cultural ambassadors, as well as reallocating funding from Minneapolis’ gun violence collaborative, transit safety and pilot programs.
Budget committee chair Aisha Chughtai said the city’s estimated additional costs for the new contract are projected to be $9.2 million next year and $10.6 million in 2026, which doesn’t include the costs for retroactive pay for officers who have left the department.
Chughtai called the mayor’s proposed use of one-time money for the contract “irresponsible at best.” She’s formulating a proposal to redirect money from departments with unspent money in their budgets.
“Mayor Frey and his administration brought forward a proposal that defunds comprehensive public safety in order to pay for this federation contract,” Chughtai said.
Frey disputes that the programs would be defunded to pay for the police contract; instead, his administration said the previously allocated money would not be spent due to a lack of staffing and resources.
"It wasn't based on any sort of political decision. It was based on staff capacity, time and resources," Frey said at a press conference Tuesday. "We need to be operating in reality here. We told council members that this would happen. It shouldn't be a surprise that it is. This is following through on exactly what we said would take place.”
Officer wages could go up as much as 21 percent over three years if the proposed contract passes. Payne said it’s debatable whether the raises — which would make Minneapolis officers among the best paid in the state — are justified.
“What has this department done from a performance perspective to earn that high salary?” Payne asked. “One thing I’m prioritizing is reform, and there’s a price for that. I want to see a future that’s a comprehensive safety system that has police officers working side by side with mental health professionals, side-by-side with mental health response teams, and we need to be honest that that’s going to cost money.”
Frey said the high salaries are justified by the “tireless” work of the city’s officers and the need to both retain and recruit more officers into the shorthanded department.
“We’re asking them to do a very hard job, we need police officers in our city, we appreciate the work they do,” Frey said. “We know all too well the dangerous situations that they are walking and running into.”
Negotiating reform
Some community activists believe a disciplinary matrix, similar to sentencing guidelines for officers who’ve committed misconduct, should be included in the contract.
Labor attorney Jim Michels, who represents the Minneapolis Police Federation and more than 40 other unions, said he believes that trying to squeeze police reform and accountability into a labor agreement is, in essence, impossible.
“Once it’s in the labor agreement, it cannot be changed without negotiations,” Michels said. “If it stays out of the labor agreement, it remains management’s inherent right to have, or not have, or to change the disciplinary matrix.”
That’s because matters of reform and accountability fall under inherent management rights, he said.
Michels told MPR News a culture change in the department could simply come from top-down accountability, where the chief clearly outlines expectations and consequences. He said he hasn’t seen that yet from Chief Brian O’Hara.
Also in play is the consent decree and settlement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, after it found a history of racial discrimination within the department. Michels notes that the Department of Human Rights investigation report doesn’t include the words “union,” “federation” or “contract,” which he believes further underlines the need to keep reform policies out of the labor agreement.
Michels said since negotiations began in September, he’s suggested to both sides that getting and keeping staffing numbers up should be the city’s priority.
“Any policy or compensation item should be put through the lens of whether that will improve our ability to attract and retain officers, or whether it will hurt,” he said. “It’s a twofold equation … you obviously have to have competitive wages to be able to attract and retain people.”
The second piece, Michels says, is working conditions. Right now, he said, the environment Minneapolis officers operate in can be hostile from community members, city and state leaders, and elected officials, citing Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s blasting of police last month. Further, there are unprecedented proposals on the table like the police chief having complete deference on officer discipline.
“That would be unique to any public employee in the state of Minnesota,” Michels said. “So that was something that we believe from the union perspective would make it less likely for somebody to be interested in a career in law enforcement to want to come to MPD.”
The council doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally adjust the contract. If the city council votes it down, the contract would go back to negotiations. If there’s an impasse, it could be brought again to arbitration.
