In a rare move, the city of Portland and Portland Police Association have formally reopened their existing collective bargaining contract—and, at least as things stood last week, there was plenty to discuss.
When the contract was taken up for potential changes on Monday, May 9, Mayor Charlie Hales was pushing higher officer pay, and incentives for officers who helped get recruits to come aboard. That tantalizing new money could have meant some pretty substantive trade-offs. Portland Human Resources Director Anna Kanwit confirms to the Mercury her bureau in recent weeks has talked with the rank-and-file police union about scrapping the controversial 48-hour rule, along with new rules about interviews for cops who've shot somebody. Other items up for discussion: Several outstanding grievances filed by the union around police scheduling and assignments, a body camera policy the city wants to enact, and a provision that would allow the understaffed police bureau to bring back recent retirees on a short-term basis.
"I started having conversations with the PPA in mid-to-late January," Kanwit tells the Mercury. And those discussions were heartening enough, she says, to justify an atypical occurrence: potentially rejiggering the existing contract between the city and PPA, ahead of bargaining that is scheduled to begin next year for a new contract. Kanwit cited the "urgency" of the issues at hand for opening the contract, which she acknowleged is rare, but not unheard of.
PPA President Daryl Turner, asked last week about all this, refused to characterize the contract as "open." When told that Hales' office described it as such, he said "they don't work at the PPA." But Turner did confirm that conversations were occurring that could result in new things being inserted to the contract. According to Kanwit, any new agreement could effectively stand in for bargaining slated to occur for a new contract in January. The current police contract would simply be changed, then extended.
But the fate of those conversations are now an open question—largely because much of the money the city was ponying up is off the table.
See, commissioners rejected a business tax hike, proposed by Hales, that would have funded $3 million for better police pay. In the latest budget draft, which went before Portland City Council this morning, the money's long gone. So's money for body cameras (though some of that might return when council votes on the budget Wednesday).
All of which leaves the fate of any bargaining up in the air. Kanwit says there are still changes the city might be able to pursue, but without money to put on the table, it's likely they'll have to wait for January.
"If there isn’t funding for the full package that we’ve been looking at, those would all get postponed until January," she says.
