Minneapolis, police union trade officer incentives for more city management authority; bargaining continues

More than two months into contract negotiations between the city of Minneapolis and the police union, discussions remain ongoing but the parties have struck an agreement on recruitment and retention bonuses.

Friday, the city announced a letter of agreement with the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis (POFM) that would pay current officers an extra $18,000 over three years and new hires an additional $15,000 over the same period.

As part of the agreement, in exchange for the incentives, the city would get to reform the shift bidding process and drop the shift vacancy requirement from 28 days to 10 days before open shifts can be filled by the chief. Currently, any vacancy in a shift has to remain open for at least 28 days before the chief can use reinforcements to cover the opening, leaving long stretches where shifts can be seriously shorthanded due to separations, retirements or leaves of absence.

The agreement is just one part of a contract between the city and police union but could become effective as soon as the Minneapolis City Council approves it, and the mayor’s office says it will be ready for the council’s consideration next week. However, it wasn’t immediately clear how many council members support the agreement.

“As an employer, we need to compete to recruit and retain police officers – that’s no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a prepared statement announcing the agreement. “Our officers are doing incredibly hard work every day, and we need to pay them accordingly. It’s also clear that stronger managerial authority for the Department and Chief is a key piece of our overarching reform and safety work. This letter of agreement is a step in the right direction to both pay our existing and new officers more and strengthen our ability to effectively staff critical shifts.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara added that the financial compensation and incentives are “a step in the right direction” toward improving the department’s staffing levels, which currently remain down more than 300 officers from 731 the city is budgeted for.

The mayor’s office said the incentives will help MPD be competitive with other departments that are offering large incentives to officers, especially given MPD’s “critically low level of staffing.”

O’Hara said the financial aspect is important but added that “money isn’t everything,” noting the department is trying to revamp its culture, improve staffing and rebuild morale.

“We need our police officers to help us recruit,” O’Hara said Friday. “We can’t have our officers feeling like many of them have over the past few years. Some of them have questioned whether or not they took the job in the first place, some of them have questioned whether or not they should stay here. Some of them have told others looking to come into the profession, ‘Don’t come here, people don’t support you, people don’t want us here, go somewhere else.’ So that is something internally that we’re fighting against, that we’re trying to rebuild our members internally, and that is something that is also very important for recruiting and retention, but obviously financial incentives are very important to that as well.”

According to the city, the incentives would be funded by the city’s public safety aid from the state’s surplus funding, if approved by the city. The mayor’s office also says the dollars are already planned for in Frey’s 2024 budget recommendation, estimating the incentives will cost $15.3 million.

POFM sent the following statement to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS in response to the agreement:

We are grateful to get this agreement signed. The retention and hiring incentive are a step in the right direction but will only go so far. The bigger issue at hand is that the City of Minneapolis does not have pay that is competitive with competing agencies.  We look forward to quickly working toward an amicable agreement with the city that recognizes the need for competitive wages, which will attract the best applicants and retain the officers we have.