Endorsements and editorials are made solely by the ownership of this newspaper. As is the case at most newspapers across the nation, The Spokesman-Review newsroom and its editors are not a part of this endorsement process. (Learn more.)

Editorial: Send Spokane Police Guild contract back for more work

Sun., June 14, 2020

Send Spokane Police Guild contract back for more work With protests and national attention shining fresh scrutiny on the role of police in community safety, this is either the best or worst time possible for the Spokane Police Guild to seek a new contract. It’s great if you’re a believer in reform, government oversight and prudent fiscal policy. It’s not so great if you’re a cop looking for a raise and minimal watchdogging.

This week, Spokane City Council is scheduled to consider the proposed contra ct negotiated by Mayor Nadine Woodward’s administration with the police union. There is much to dislike in it, and council should demand changes.

Let us be clear up front: Our local law enforcement does a great job on the whole. Its hard work and dedication were on display as it maintained peace and prevented violent protests during the past couple of weeks. Not everything went perfectly, which is inevitable in the chaotic environment of street protests, but the police made a lot of smart decisions to avoid escalating conflict.

That performance, however, doesn’t justify a rubber stamp on increased compensation and minimal oversight.

Under the proposed contract, the city would spend $6 million on pay raises for officers. In case Woodward hasn’t noticed, government is hardly flush with cash these days. The pandemic-induced economic shutdown will mean less money to pay for essential services, at least in the near term. Prudence demands spending restraint until the full revenue picture emerges.

Nor is it clear that officers should get a raise at this time even if the money were available. Spokane’s police are already very well compensated. As we documented last year before the city voted on a tax increase for public safety, median law enforcement salary here is more than one-third greater than the median salary of comparable cities. If local salaries were in line with peer cities, Spokane would not even have needed to pass last year’s tax increase to afford more cops and firefighters.

High pay rates for police are not new in Spokane. The Washington Policy Center has tracked a similar pattern in the city’s public safety spending going back more than a decade .

Money isn’t the only problem with the proposed contract. It also does little to strengthen the oversight role of the Spokane police ombudsman. When voters wrote the ombudsman into city law, they stated clearly that they wanted a civilian watchdog around to investigate accusations of police misconduct impartially. The union has been hostile to that oversight, and the expiring contract minimized the role. The proposed contract does the same.

The proposed contract goes backward by adding language to allow the union to use the grievance process to attempt to block candidates for ombudsman and ombudsman commission members. We cannot fathom what Woodward was thinking when she agreed to that. The entire point of independent civilian oversight is that it be independent.

If council does reopen negotiations on the contract, it must do so with all of the transparency and public engagement that Spokane residents deserve, especially at this time. People marching on the streets for racial justice have suggested wide-ranging police reforms . Some are reasonable, some are more challenging. Most important, many would need to be negotiated with the union, and now is the time to do that.

Spokane residents last year amended the city charter to require that all public union contract negotiations be done publicly. There would be no better way to begin to build stronger trust between police and the community – especially its Black, Hispanic, indigenous and other underrepresented communities – than by engaging in a public conversation and negotiating transparently. That would mean delay, but better to get the contract right a little later than saddle the city with a flawed contract that would set the policing framework for years to come.

The mayor and the police guild have negotiated in good faith for months to reach this point, but they are not the only party to the final contract. The council and public deserve a say, too, and right now they shouldn’t be satisfied with what’s been put before them.