WW Obtains Draft Police Contract: What Cops Might Trade for a 2-Percent Raise

WW has obtained a working draft of the contract the Portland police union is negotiating with the city.

The draft, received from a source inside the union, may come as a shock to many of the Portland Police Association's 900 members. In return for making major concessions in a new contract on controversial items such as comp time, police oversight and drug testing for officers, the union appears ready in this draft to accept a 2-percent pay raise.

Some other unions that negotiated with the city this year got no raise at all. But those unions also gave up fewer concessions. And a 2-percent raise would be considerably less than what many Portland cops aspired to after Seattle police negotiated a 25.6-percent pay increase over a four-year period starting in 2008.

Officer Daryl Turner, who heads the police union, declined to be interviewed at length but did say tonight that he has never seen a draft of the contract. The document obtained by WW is titled "TA, Possible"—with TA referring to "tentative agreement."

"We haven't agreed to anything," Turner said. "We haven't really gone into details on any part of the contract."

Notes in the margins of the draft document indicate the red writing contains additions to the current contract written earlier this month by union attorney Will Aitchison. Here is the language on the 2-percent raise.



Here's the passage agreeing to drug testing for officers—a point that was pushed by Dan Saltzman when he was Police Commissioner, and now by Mayor Sam Adams, who took over managing the police bureau in May.



The union won a hard-fought arbitration this year after former Chief Rosie Sizer tried to restrict officers' right to comp time. Currently, cops forced to work overtime can choose to take either extra pay or extra time off. Sizer tried to restrict officers' choices on when they can take comp time if it costs the city overtime to cover their shift. The union fought that change and won. This draft contract appears to give the city back what Sizer wanted.



The draft contract also appears to roll over on the issue of increased police oversight. The union would accept the existence of a new Police Review Board pushed by Commissioner Randy Leonard and City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade earlier this year.



But the draft contract hints the union may resist if officers are subpoenaed to appear for discipline cases.



Saltzman took away the badge and gun of Officer Chris Humphreys last year for shooting a 12-year-old girl with a beanbag gun during a violent altercation on duty. After the union marched on City Hall and held a no-confidence vote on Sizer and Saltzman, Saltzman backed down and reinstated Humphreys to desk duty.

The draft contract appears to include an amendment that would give the city a new option for handling such high-profile incidents.



And finally, the contract contains what appear to be some new goodies for union members.