The Sacramento Police Officers Association delivered its “last, best and final” offer to city in ongoing labor contract negotiations.
The union says the Sacramento Police Department is under-staffed and officers are under-paid.
State law prohibits police officers from going on strike, but as a final measure – if the city doesn’t accept the union’s final offer – they can enter into something called binding arbitration, an expensive and drawn-out process.
Dustin Smith, president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association (SPOA), told ABC10 he’s frustrated negotiations have had to come this far.
“Morale is probably at one of the lowest points I’ve seen it, and I’ve been with the department since 1999 in one capacity or another,” Smith said.
Among comparable law enforcement agencies, per the city charter – including the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Roseville, Stockton, Oakland, Bakersfield, Fresno, San Jose and Long Beach – Sacramento police officers are some of the lowest-paid, according to the SPOA.
“We’re asking just to be paid the average of our comparables. We’re not saying we’re the best, so we deserve the most. We’re saying that we believe we deserve an honest wage, which would be at least the average of what the people around us in similar-sized cities make.” Smith said. “So, I have no idea why we’re pushing the doors of arbitration right now. This is really on the city and their inability to budget properly and to use the right projects and programs to advance the city instead of overspending in areas they shouldn’t.”
Officers with the Sacramento Police Department have been working without a new contract since mid-April, according to Smith. He said the lower pay makes it hard to recruit and retain good officers.
“We’re down to the low 600s now for our staffing. At our peak, we were at 804 officers. And if you really look at it, a city our size should have no fewer than 1,050 police officers. In a capital city this size, closer to 1,200. So, we’re basically half-staffed. We are in a staffing crisis,” Smith said.
On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council and City Manager Maraskeshia Smith met with police union labor negotiators in closed session. The very next day, the union issued a public statement, saying their final offer comes after months of negotiations and a failed round of mediation.
ABC10 reached out to the city manager’s office for a response to the union’s statement.
“The City remains engaged in good-faith negotiations with SPOA and continues to work toward an agreement that meets the needs of all parties,” Maraskeshia said in an email to ABC10. “As we move through this process, we are balancing the needs of our employees with our responsibility to be good stewards of public resources and our continued commitment to providing essential services to the community.”
A new study from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found officer staffing reached a peak in 2008, then declined during the Great Recession and the pandemic.
The report pointed out law enforcement staffing can be sensitive to economic swings. It also says theories to explain this trend include officer burnout from the pandemic and loss of morale following changing perceptions of the police and protests in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
As for pay, the report found, “After adjusting for inflation, average officer salaries have declined slightly since 2011, which may be due to more experienced officers leaving. Meanwhile, overtime pay has increased considerably, especially at non-rural agencies. Most likely, this finding reflects agencies relying on overtime to fill staffing gaps. Although overtime pay increases officers’ overall salary, department policies demanding overtime for officers could lead to low morale and eventual exits.”
The report also found agency competition poses an obstacle to hiring and retention, which is one reason why Smith says he thinks Sacramento police officers should be paid more.
“We’ve cut so many services out of the city of Sacramento, it’s unbelievable,” Smith said. “You just start to go unit by unit and you’ll see that we don’t have the ability to serve our city the way we should. And to expect economic development to flourish in an area that doesn’t have strong public safety? It’s just, I mean, I guess the best word I can come up with is ‘silly.'”
ABC10 reached out to the Sacramento Mayor and city councilmembers, to get their take on the police union’s concerns and ongoing contract negotiations. Some said they were unavailable and others did not respond by deadline.
More from ABC10: Sacramento City Unified approves $965 million budget amid concerns over future finances