A resolution approving a proposed Collective Bargaining Agreement between the City and County of Denver and the Denver Police Protective Association, for the years 2021-2022. Approves a collective bargaining agreement with the Denver Police Protective Association for 2021 and 2022 including: a 0% salary increase in 2021; suspending the holiday pay provisions for 10 holidays in 2021; reducing the City’s contribution to the Denver Police Retiree Health Fund by $360,000 in 2021; creation of a one-time 100-hour time bank in 2022 to be used in the future like vacation leave; a 2.77% salary increase for 2022; and expressing hazard/specialty pay in terms of a percentage of salary effective January 1, 2022. The agreement results in $4.9 million in city budget savings in 2021. The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 10-5-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 9-2-20.
Thank you. Has been moved. Thank you for the second comments by members of Council on Bill 895. Council Member CdeBaca. Thank you, Madam President. This is one we've had extensive conversation about in committee last week and wanted to make sure that we get a separate vote on this one, because I personally do not think that the targeting happens in the States and I do not support advancing this contract. Neither the portion length of time nor the salary increase. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman and I, we're having quite a bit of feedback from the from the chamber, so I'm not sure if we can fix that on on your end or our end. Up next, we have Council Member Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. There's been a lot of talk about this contract with the Police Protective Association, and I wanted to make sure that our folks in the public understood some things that aren't really being talked about that have to be dealt with. Number one, the contract is not just no raise for police officers next year with a raise in the year 2022. The fact is that this contract is a pay cut for police officers next year. It is a 3% pay cut for next year because of the elimination of the premium pay for holidays that officers must work. We have to have 24 seven police officer coverage in the city. So it is a 3% pay cut. It was designed to save us next year, $5 million. That was the target set by the administration for the negotiations. And we met that target with this pay cut for police officers. So it's not just no raise. It is a pay cut. It's the financial the financial equivalent of an eight day furlough without pay, equivalent to what the career service employees are taking here in the city. Eight days without pay. And what and frankly, what members of council are just with one exception, are taking as a as a furlough this year to help with the budget. So that's the driving reason, among other reasons, for the people wanting a two year contract. Because if we're asking officers to take a pay cut next year, they wanted something at the back end of the contract. And so, yeah, we wanted a one year contract, but we weren't able to get that at the table. So nobody gets everything they want in any negotiation. But even so, the pay is put in writing. It's willingness to open up the contract next year. Depending on what our budget outlook is for 2022. We are in similar negotiations with the firefighters union right now and we've set a similar target for them that may result in a pay reduction for firefighters next year as well. I just want people to understand that this is a pay cut for police officers. It's also important to realize that city council must accept our own responsibility for what we've heard a lot of complain about the lack of transparency, the lack of our involvement. The PPA fulfilled its obligation. Contrary to some of the emails we've been getting, they fulfilled their charter obligation to notify us of their intent to open these negotiations. They sent us a letter on March 9th and we failed to respond to it. So City Council has to accept our own responsibility for the fact that we missed the first couple of bargaining sessions. Yes, the administration should have reached out and said, Hey, do you have someone you want to send here? But we did receive the notification. We failed to follow through. So this lack of transparency and the lack of us being at the table for the first session lays partly at our door as well as the administration. So considering all these things, I'm persuaded that that this contract gives us the certainty we need going into budget talks tomorrow, starting tomorrow, we need to nail down these savings, going to arbitration. We'll put this up in the air and will and will make those budget talks a little more difficult. So I intend to vote in favor of this to secure the certainty for the budget for next year. And with the eye toward if we are in the situation a year from now that PPA will come to the table as the other unions have done and that the PPA has done on four other occasions back when the city was in a in a budget crisis. So having having thought of all those considerations and on balance, I think approving this contract is the best way to go. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Madam President, I. So three things I want to say. First, I want to thank Director Hanlon for reminding council last week that sometimes we could believe what council thinks is an agreement with the executive branch. But unless we have a seat at the table, those understandings may or may not actually make it into a binding proposal. So I would say to my colleague, Council member Flynn, thank you. I totally agree that we have a shared responsibility. I know that when we have meetings that include elected officials, if that elected official or body continues to not show, I think I would maybe reach out again. So I just want to make sure that when we're having important discussions like things that materially affect the budget that that we do, certainly we share some of the responsibility. But but if we keep taking attendance and city council keeps not being there, I think that if I were in that bargaining process, I would reach out and say, hey, where are you? Second, we've received mail from, you know, outreach from constituents who appear to be pro-police, who also want us to vote against this agreement. A quote, It doesn't look like to me the police get anything out of it. Remember, they do protect us, unquote. Point three about unions. So I'm very interested in collective bargaining agreements for more people. I think working families need more protections. And so I'm conflicted about considering a vote against CVA for DPA. A union representing workers in Denver just happened to wear a badge and a gun. To help get more context, I reached out to multiple people in Denver's organized labor community. I received no organized response that affirmed DPA as a part of the collective fighting for increased worker rights for all. I did receive response from some expressing concern, including DPS, previous endorsements of anti-labor candidates and related political parties. So certainly I want our Labor communities to know that I did think and concern are consider the idea of increased worker protections. And. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Hines. Councilman CdeBaca, since we had you already up, is it okay if I go to. Okay. All right, great. Councilmember Sawyer. Thank you, Madam President. I looked into this a lot and even pulled the 28 contract because I think that's, you know, the most historically equivalent in terms of time frame rate and financial kind of stresses that are very similar to what we looked at, what we're looking at right now. I really wanted to see kind of what what the agreement look like that and what the agreement looks like now and whether those two things were sort of our sort of equivalent. And they are. So I think that that's a really good and interesting thing to know. Right. That that in in a previous financial time like 2008, you know, these these agreements are very similar. And it should be noted that in in that 2008 agreement in 2009, there was an MOU you that was signed that changed the agreement around when it became clear that that the city was in a financial continued to be in a financial crisis. So I think that that's just important to note. That said, you know, what we're looking at here is a situation where that the 2021 police changes would essentially be the equivalent of what our career service employees took in 2020 with the eight day furlough, like Councilman Flynn said, and that 12 of us took in 2020. Right. So what we're looking at in 2021 would be what? So that the police would take what the rest of our employees took in 2020. What we don't know, because we haven't seen the budget yet for 2021. Is whether our career service employees. Are going to be required to take anything else in 2021. Are there going to be more furloughed? Is is there going to be a cost of living accrual next year for our employees? We don't know. We haven't seen the budget. It comes out tomorrow. We're being asked today to vote on something without all of the information in front of us, because if. We. Are asked to do this and in our employees are asked to take furlough days or are not going to receive a cost of living adjustments, then it's not fair. That we're going to approve something tonight for those officers in 2022 that the rest of our employees aren't getting. We are not dealing with a full deck of cards. Here we are. We don't have all of the information in front of us, and that's not okay. So frankly, I think that we should delay this week until we have the budget in front of us so that we have all of the information in front of us. I don't know why it is that we are being asked to do this tonight when we haven't seen the budget yet. It's my opinion that we should push this back a week. I'll wait to hear what my other council members think of that plan. But if, you know, if we don't if we aren't going to do that, then I think I'm going to have to be a no vote because I can't make a decision without all of the information in front of me. So. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Torres. Thank you, Madam President. I've just. I've heard the practical arguments in voting in favor of the agreement and understand the rationales. I can't vote for this particular agreement. Tonight, whether Councilman Sawyer intends to delay it or not. I'll still be a no on. It later on. I don't see. The sea of being very realistic or equitable for us to have a proposal in front of us to save 5 million in one year and then be on the hook for 9 million the following year. This is this would be too difficult an issue to to also explain even to my own staff who are taking furloughs that officers aren't this year. And I don't. Think it looks so rosy next year. So I'm going to be a no. If we had up voting on it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. As I've said before, there are many fine men and women in the Denver Police Department. They work hard every day to keep our communities safe. They deserve to be paid well. Just as there are many fine women and men working for Parks and Rec. Our Department of Transportation, Infrastructure, Department of Finance, Community Planning and Development, etc. who also work hard every day to deliver a great city for people to enjoy. And they also deserve to be paid well. This is a once in a century, we hope. Point in time as we look into the future. It's a pipe dream to think that revenue will miraculously, miraculously jump back to pre-pandemic proportions where money is flowing. And we can be assured we can properly honor our workforce with the salary increases they need and deserve to assure DPD erased without the same assurance being given. All city and city employees is simply not fair. I would be far more inclined to look at a contract that says DPD salaries are increased as soon as our career service employees get the same benefit. Instead of relying on a letter from the PPA, which I do appreciate that they will come back to the table if budget tightness requires. I believe more appropriate would be a letter from the city assuring the PPA that we will come back to the table when budget allows. So I'm asking both sides to return to the table and work towards an agreement that is more equitable across the board. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Sandoval. Thank you, Madam President. So I'll be brief to my colleagues. Point to Councilman Cashman website. Thank you for saying that. I agree that everybody in this city plays a very important role. And to my colleague, Councilman Torres, it I do not see a future. That's right. And given that we are going into the winter and we do not know what the impact of this pandemic will look like in our future. It's hard for me to sit here and say, approve a contract that would make whole $9 million in year 2020. And also, I just do not feel comfortable with the fact that although to my colleague Kevin Flynn, I agree that we have to take this responsibility. I also think that given that our chief negotiator has been doing this for the city and county of Denver for a long time, and city council has never been left out from the process. And this is the year that they chose to be this out. I just don't feel good, and I feel that we have to approve this contract in good faith. And I cannot approve this contract in good faith, although I do very appreciate all the men and women in uniform, especially in the police department, who have been really helping the communities who have been impacted along south, central and north federal with the multiple shootings that have happened in our communities this summer. I wish we were not put in this position, but we are. And so therefore, I will not be supporting this contract either. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Madam President. I'll just say that I really respect the issues and the points that my colleagues have brought up on both sides of this issue. All echo what Councilwoman Sandoval just said, and I wish that we were not in this position right here. I you know, I think that. Everybody has brought up. The complexity of this. And on top of that, we're in the middle of a. Community conversation about. What policing should look like in our city and across our nation, and that complicates things. On top of that, we, as Councilwoman Sawyer mentioned, haven't. Seen the budget for 2021 yet, and things are not good. And so I will I won't get too deep into it, other than to say. That it is based on the information. That I have. I believe that if we turn this back financially, this will likely get worse for the city. Those cuts will have to come from somewhere else. Our career service employees do not have the right to bargain and sit at a table like this, and there is a high likelihood that extra money that we will have to come up with. If this goes to. Arbitration and comes back worse and doesn't save that $5 million will be on the backs of extra. Furlough days for our. Those very employees who don't have the right to bargain. It is not a perfect situation or one that I think any of us want to. Be in, where we're weighing unknowns. Of the future and knowns of really hard budget times. But it is my belief, based on what I have seen, that turning this back will lead to further cuts, which will further impact furlough days for the rest of the employees in the city. And for that reason. I will be. Supporting this and I sincerely hope that. If it does not go through. As it looks like it may not, that everyone worked really hard to make sure that that is not. That I was wrong and that in fact, we don't end up in a worse financial position for our career service employees by turning this back. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you to all my fellow council members for your very, very thoughtful remarks. And I'd also like to thank all. Of the hundreds of community members that I have heard from people who have a lot of different opinions, ranging from Abolish the Police to please give us more police. And I've really. Tried to listen to. Everyone's feedback and I agree. With. Really everything that my fellow council members. Have said here tonight. It's unfortunate the. Way this played out this year. I share your same concerns about other city employees and furlough days. But for practical reasons that Councilman Clark just brought up and that Councilman Flynn mentioned earlier, I'm concerned that we could be in a. Worse budgetary. Situation if we don't approve this, and it does go to arbitration. So I will be supporting it. But I do want to reiterate that the officers will receive. As Councilman Flynn pointed out, what is essentially a pay cut for 2021 and that they have agreed, and I trust them, that they will renegotiate for 2022 if necessary. And I believe them when they made that commitment in writing. And I do want to point out a couple of other things that I think there's been some misinformation about. The police. Did. As requested, cut over $10 million from their 2020 budget. And I believe their 2021 budget request is also going to be less. And the final. Point I want to make is that I've heard from people who are concerned that this agreement doesn't address. Discipline. And investigations of police officers. And the reason it doesn't is because those are prohibited top topics in the bargaining. And so by delaying it, it's not as if those would come back. In to the. Discussions. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman, can each. Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the comments of particularly Councilwoman Torres and Councilman Cashman. I previewed at committee some of my concerns with the financial risk taking. I think that I described this less about a philosophical position about police and more about your budgeting approach. One thing that I've heard both from folks testifying and public comment tonight and from some colleagues who are planning to vote for it. So folks on both sides of the issue that I do just want to disagree with this contract doesn't guarantee or require any particular level of overall funding for an overall department. The only single line item it actually freezes in is retiree health that's paid in lump sum. Everything else is about this is what an individual officer is owed for their, you know, uniform upkeep or not for their pay or not their vacation or not. And so, you know, obviously, personnel is a significant portion of the department's budget, but it is nothing in this guarantees how many officers will be in patrol division or in traffic division or in any division. And so I will just say that I don't think it serves as well to describe this as a false choice between taking funding from police and then having if it if it were to be required per officer in a bargaining session, in an arbitration decision, that then those dollars would have to get made up by career service employees. That's simply not the case. We as a city could take that from administrative overhead in the Safety Department. We as a city could reduce personnel. We could, you know, as retirements happen, we could not replace those folks. There are numerous ways that we could make up any cost risk to us if arbitration didn't go well within the Department of Safety budget. And in fact, I would suggest it would be our obligation morally to do so. So I just, you know, so for those who think if we don't approve, you know, there are those who might want us never to approve a pay contract. You might think, oh, if you don't approve the contract, somehow that's defunding police. That's not how it works. This is simply what individuals are owed. We I you know, if this were a better contract, I would be advancing it. And then we would have a separate conversation about how many officers and how much administration and how much budget goes to the department. Right. This does not determine those numbers. And I know it's kind of complicated. So I you know, I have a lot of empathy for constituents trying to understand the difference between this contract. But this contract doesn't give any dollar amount to DPD. So so I want to be clear that I'm not going to vote no tonight because I think somehow by voting no, I'm going to keep dollars out of the department. That's not what this is. This is about saying, I believe we need to try again for a better deal that has less risk in the later year. So I am you know, the administration made its prioritization on cuts in 2021. I believe we need to prioritize higher the risk in 2022. Right. Maybe we still have some priority in 2021, but they put no prioritization in 2022. Right. So we just disagreed about which budget year to prioritize the most. And so that is the reason I'll be voting no tonight. And I believe that I believe that we can mitigate our risks by going back to the table and trying again to find some common ground that balances the risk of 2021 better with the risks of 2022. And number two, should we fail at that and we have an arbitration decision that's concerning, we can mitigate the risk to other departments by ensuring these cuts occur within DPD. So we have two paths, in my opinion, to mitigate the risks. There are risks and I acknowledge them. And for that reason, you know, again, I share my respect with those who analyzed the same situation and came out slightly differently. You know, for me, I can't support this tonight and I'll be a no vote. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Ortega, did you want to get up into the queue? Thank you. It's very clear the votes are not here for this to move forward. So I won't belabor my comments, but I just think that it is important that if we are talking about significantly impacting this budget, that we need to have a plan and we don't have a plan. Many of us are involved in this conversation with Dr. Robert Davis and many other players from our community that are working to ensure that we do have a plan that looks at how we do policing differently. And Councilman Cashman and I and Councilman CdeBaca are on the Crime Prevention Control, CPIC, Crime Prevention and Control Commission. Hate acronyms, anyway, where, you know, we're involved in looking at how we do things differently with our judicial system, you know, with our jail system, with with discipline issues, lots of different things. And. In terms of the plan that that will guide how we move forward. And I think that it's critical to just, you know, ensure that we've got that in place. Secondly, I want to say that we city council members had three different occasions that I participated in. I believe there was a fourth where we talked about this particular contract at Mayor Council in Executive Session, and we had a chance to move it forward sooner if we felt like we didn't like it. And the, you know, decision was you send it to the floor and let it go down there as opposed to fail in committee. They were looking for clear direction from us to say, you know, yes or no. And we were sort of all over the map. And so that's why we're here tonight dealing with this. We're going to go down on the floor further delaying the time frame in which we'll have the details of what then gets folded into the 2021 budget. I believe they're good for their word and they put it in writing. They would come back and negotiate, just like the firefighters are doing now, even though their contract wouldn't expire till the end of next year. They're going to negotiate sooner and I believe that the PPA will do the same thing. So I believe we should move forward. You know, there are no guarantees of of what that outcome is going to be. We we were the ones asking them to, you know, put everything on the table that that was asked of them. We didn't put anything new on the table from the city side. And they they agreed to all those things that we asked them to give up. Yes. This is part of the collective bargaining process. And I said in committee, if we want collective bargaining for city employees, then we should put this issue on the ballot and try to get collective bargaining for our city employees so they have the same fair process for how their wages are set rather than it being done through the mechanism that we currently use. So I'll I'll be supporting this forward moving forward tonight, although it looks like the votes are here for it to be sent back to the bargaining table, which will more than likely end up in arbitration. And the arbitrator decides on one side or the other. The last, best deal and it may or may not be in the city's favor. So we'll just have to wait and see where the chips fall on this one. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you to all of my colleagues for clarifying and asking and making the right statements tonight. I do want to just add to that last comment about arbitration that our charter clearly outlines a process for us to come to a better agreement if nobody feels like they've gotten the agreement they wanted within the 15 days after the arbitrator provides a decision. And so that is very clear in our charter. And I think something that if we trust DPD to come back to the table in a year, we should probably also trust that if nobody feels like they're winning after an arbitrator's decision, that we will come up with an even better agreement within those 15 days. And that's it for my comments. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Madam President. I will I will be brief. I appreciate everyone's comments and this in mind. So I will be supporting this. The right decision may not always be the most pleasant, particularly when you are in a Soviet state where we are going to have to make the most difficult decisions of any time. Because even when I came in in 2011, as we were ending the recession, that one even compared to what we're having to do. So we're in a position now where we know we have a guaranteed $5 million in savings coming from the coming from the PPA for 2021, which is a fair, fair comment to say what is the right you to prioritize. But by sending this back to the table, I don't see a way where we as a city can be coming to be a stronger financial position. So where will those dollars have to come? And we can have the debate about where is should become. I'm not sure if we should. Necessarily go directly. To safety if we have the opportunity to take it right now. But we'll see how the budget lines up in the council. And so here we control the purse strings. So if we felt as if there wasn't equity, we can adjust the budget anyway we see fit. So I believe going with the decision of the strongest financial position that we're in right now and then moving forward that budget conversation. So if this does seem to go down, I hope that we as a body are specific to the negotiating team to say what we want as a legislative body, that they can try to move forward with that. And if not, then I hope we're ready to bear the responsibility. Should we be in a worse financial position? Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilman Herndon, seen no other hands raised. I'll go ahead and add my comments as well. We had a very dynamic, deep conversation at committee last, the week before last. And it I want to clarify and have on the record that the postal mail letter that was sent by the union on March 9th was never received . I never saw a copy of it. Our former legislative director never saw a copy of it there. And we delved into what is your intake mechanism for city council? Who opens the mail? Who logs the mail? Who lets people know when there's something pertinent coming up? And so as far as we know, we never received it. I've seen a copy of it, but we've never received it. And so that does then beg the question why wasn't a copy of that sent over? If there was no response by city council, that would be a quick email to send on March 10th or any time in March, any time in April, any time in May to let us know what was happening and to be there at the table. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. And going back and looking at committee, something that really struck me was that we're talking about 5 million worth of cuts in 2021, but then making the police totally whole in 2022, plus a 2.7% raise possibly. I mean, that that is unheard of in these sort of economic times. And I have to also look at it that we have no assurances for the rest of the city's workforce, and we weren't represented in good faith at the table. If I felt like there was anything that city council could have done differently, I would be the first one to step forward and say, I own that mistake. Leadership owns that mistake. But that didn't happen. There were no opportunities to pretty much stop this train once it had left the station. And when I was briefed personally as the president of council, the two year duration had already been sent over to the union. We tried to pull it back and to ask them to stop the process and not ratify it and not move forward. And we were told that their bylaws outline that that's what they have to do. And so there were plenty of points, I believe, that we could have pulled back and had a deeper conversation. But unfortunately, that didn't happen. And to the final point, whenever we were briefed in executive session in May or council, it was only a briefing. There were never decision points for us beyond. If this isn't going to make it through council, what are the steps? But then I felt like we belabored it as far as we could at committee and that we were told we couldn't keep it in committee. We couldn't continue doing this work. It had to go to the floor of council for a vote. And so with that being said, I am not in. Support of this because I don't feel like council was represented in good faith at the table. There were plenty of folks that we work with day in and day out that nobody thought it was important enough in 2020. With everything that's happening in the world and in our community to ping city council and say, Hey, you're going to have to vote on this, ultimately you probably better be at the table. So you feel like you were part of this process that that unfortunately never happened. And so I am not supportive of this tonight. And with me having the final comments, I want to just go back to you, Councilwoman Sawyer. You had mentioned to to hold this over in, delay it one week. We do have budget hearings. Are you wanting to delay it one week, or would you be amenable to us going ahead and doing the roll call vote that you do? Any member has the ability to delay it by one week with no vote. Thank you. I appreciate you talking, President Gilmore. I wanted to hear the thoughts of the rest of my council members to see kind of where everyone else was at. But it doesn't seem like any holding it over a week until we see the budget would really change anyone else's opinion. So I'm happy to go ahead and vote tonight. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. Just wanted to check check in with you on that. Madam Secretary, roll call on Bill 895, please. No backup? No, Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. And I think you. Cashman No. Can each. No. Ortega. I. Sandoval No. Sawyer. No. For us? No. Black. I. Madam President. No. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. Eight names, five eyes. Eight NES Council Bill 895 has failed. The next items up are multiple resolutions. Council member Hines has called out for a vote. We will put these items in a block and take one vote. Councilmember Flynn, will you please put these items on the floor for adoption? Madam President, I move that council resolutions all series of 2020 be adopted in a block. 728 729 seven 3731 732 733 734 735 741 742 743 838 839 853 864 865 866 860 7868 869 eight, 78, 71, eight, 72 and 873. Thank you. Council member. It has been moved. Can I get a second?