City of Spokane announces tentative agreement with Spokane Police Guild

The city of Spokane announced Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement on a four-year contract with the Spokane Police Guild, which represents officers and sergeants.

“We have a community that is very welcoming and supportive of the department and its officers,” Mayor Nadine Woodward stated in a news release. “This contract shows the City’s commitment to retain and recruit a strong, professional, and experienced force.”

Until the contract is ratified by the Guild, a process that is expected to take up to 10 days, the document is considered a work product and will not be released to the public.

However, the city highlighted some aspects of the tentative contract in a news release, noting police would receive raises in each of the four years covered by the contract, including a 5% raise this year.

“The contract is competitive with other regional agencies that recruit and hire in the same candidate pool,” the city wrote. “Other agencies in the state have recently settled on raises that previously put Spokane behind the market rates.”

The tentative agreement also provides additional compensation for “educational achievement,” and gives lateral hires credit for years of service in another department, which affects the pay scale of an officer.

“I’m really, really happy,” said Detective Dave Dunkin, president of the Spokane Police Guild. “It’s going to bring us some much-needed stability.”

The agreement also gives the ombudsman the ability to select a deputy ombudsman and to investigate serious misconduct for up to five years after the incident, up from one year under the current contract. Though a deputy ombudsman position already exists, the ombudsman has little control over the hiring process, Ombudsman Bart Logue said in a brief interview.