Walla Walla City Council approves $15M police guild contract for 2022-2024

After about three years of negotiations, the city of Walla Walla and the Walla Walla Police Guild have agreed to a new contract that lays out almost $15 million in salary and benefits for 2022-2024.

The $14,955,374 contract was ratified by the police guild on Wednesday, March 6, and approved unanimously by the Walla Walla City Council on Wednesday, March 27. It’s funded by the general fund.

The agreement includes a 6% salary increase effective Jan. 1, 2022, a 5.5% salary adjustment effective Jan. 1, 2023, and a 4.5% salary adjustment effective Jan. 1, 2024.

It also includes an increase to the deferred compensation match that went into effect upon ratification.

So, the city will contribute up to 4.5%, the current match, for employees paying into the program through March 2024. With the approval of the contract, in April the city match will go up to 6.2% when the employee contributes the same percentage.

Another change in the contract is reducing the trial service period for employees coming out of any applicable academy from 18 months to 12 months.

Negotiations for the contract began in 2021, Human Resources Director Pam Taylor said.

“Normally, and hopefully, you get through negotiations before year-end so you can implement the year the contract expires,” she said. “If you don't, for police and fire especially, you then proceed to mediation.”

For this contract, the city and police guild used an outside mediator to help settle the contract.

“Unfortunately, it was difficult getting meetings set up, coordinating schedules with the guild attorney, and it was just a more difficult negotiation this time,” Taylor said.

Because the negotiations extended into the contract period, the salary changes are retroactive.

Taylor said the Finance Department is calculating salary changes, which the police employees will get to review before checks are sent out. Employees who have left or been promoted in that time also will receive a retroactive payment, she said.

The city negotiates with three unions representing city employees: Walla Walla Police Guild, Walla Walla Professional Firefighters, and, for noncommissioned employees, the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The city has good working relationships with the AFSCME union and fire union, Taylor said, and is working with the police guild.

“We will go back to negotiations with both police and fire this summer,” Taylor said. “We've already talked about how (we can) negotiate a little differently so it’s a little smoother negotiation.”