On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council’s Public Safety Committee held what amounted to an opening ceremony for upcoming negotiations with the Seattle Police Management Association (SPMA), which represents the department’s lieutenants and captains. The union covers just under 100 cops and is much smaller than the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), which covers the majority of sworn officers. 

SPMA’s current contract expires at the end of the year, and it acts as a good barometer for the SPOG contract–if advocates can’t get something into the SPMA contract, then it won’t make it into SPOG’s, said Amy Sundberg, co-chair of the Seattle Committee for People Power Washington, which monitors police union negotiations.

In the past, SPMA has accepted more oversight and accountability provisions than SPOG. For instance, oversight agencies need less evidence to discipline cops under the SPMA contract compared to the SPOG contract.

The Tuesday evening hearing gave council members a chance to hear from the public and from Seattle’s existing police accountability organizations about where the union contract needs to improve. Reverend Dr. Patricia Hunter, who represents the Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC), spoke first about changes the CPC wanted to see in the new contract. Overall, Hunter said the CPC wanted to see the SPMA fully implement the City’s 2017 police accountability ordinance. 

First, she argued, the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) should not need union approval to extend the 180-day investigation timeline for OPA investigations when investigators did not cause the delay. Second, the contract should remove the statute of limitations on disciplinary action in cases of serious excessive use of force, dishonesty, or where anyone hid the allegations. The CPC also wanted all personnel files preserved for six years after a cop leaves the department. Finally, the commission asked for reforms to “secondary employment” for officers, times when SPD allows off-duty cops to work for other employers while wearing SPD uniforms, carrying weapons, and maintaining police powers.

Neither representative from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) nor the OPA made specific requests for the new contract, though Council Member Lisa Herbold, chair of the Public Safety Committee, said she expected to get full requests from the three accountability organizations before entering negotiations with SPMA, and she expected the council to pass a resolution memorializing those requests, as well as the requests made by members of the public.

During public comment, Amy Sommers, a member of Proactive Persistent People for Progress, echoed the call for the SPMA to reflect more parts of the 2017 police accountability ordinance and said the contract should clearly state that the ordinance supersedes any police department policy. Another commenter, Seattle police accountability activist Howard Gale, demanded the City to go further than the 2017 ordinance and stop allowing police to investigate police. He also wanted to remove the chief of police’s power to overturn disciplinary findings by the City’s accountability organizations.

The City can’t begin negotiations for the SPMA contract until November. Sundberg doesn’t expect many significant improvements for police accountability under the new contract, but she said she also doesn’t anticipate a significant backslide.

Meanwhile, the City continues to negotiate with SPOG over its contract, which expired in 2020. Cops can work indefinitely under expired contracts and any raises negotiated at the end must be paid retroactively by the City, Sundberg said. SPOG ratified its most recent contract in 2018 after four years of negotiations. At the end of those negotiations, non-management police officers secured a 17% raise and other pay enhancements, such as an annual bonus for cops who wear body cameras while on duty.

Editor's note: This story was updated to the correct spelling of Amy Sommers's name.