Denver City Council rejects police contract negotiated by Hancock administration

Den­ver offi­cials and the police union must return to the nego­ti­a­tion table after City Coun­cil reject­ed a pro­posed con­tract agree­ment Mon­day night that would have giv­en offi­cers rais­es as the city faces mas­sive tax short­falls and furloughs.

The coun­cil has not reject­ed a union con­tract pro­pos­al in recent mem­o­ry, if it’s ever hap­pened at all. If city and union offi­cials can’t reach a new agree­ment, the mat­ter will head to arbi­tra­tion, where it will be set­tled by an inde­pen­dent third party.

The vote was 8–5 against the con­tract, with coun­cil mem­bers Kevin Fly­nn, Kendra Black, Jolon Clark, Chris Hern­don and Deb­bie Orte­ga in support.

The coun­cil mem­bers in oppo­si­tion com­plained about a lack of equi­ty giv­en the finan­cial hit oth­er city employ­ees are tak­ing and blamed the Han­cock admin­is­tra­tion for large­ly exclud­ing them from the nego­ti­a­tions. Some also not­ed that they were uncom­fort­able vot­ing on such a sub­stan­tial con­tract before see­ing May­or Michael Hancock’s pro­posed 2021 bud­get, which will be released Tuesday.

“We are being asked to vote on some­thing with­out all of the infor­ma­tion in front of us,” Coun­cil­woman Aman­da Sawyer said. “We are not deal­ing with a full deck of cards here … and that is not OK.”

In a state­ment, Han­cock called the deci­sion short­sight­ed and irre­spon­si­ble and said it places city employ­ees and ser­vices at fur­ther risk of lay­offs and cuts while show­ing a “total dis­re­gard” for offi­cers will­ing to share the city­wide sacrifice.

“The agree­ment pre­sent­ed to City Coun­cil was the best deal pos­si­ble on behalf of our tax­pay­ers and the offi­cers who pro­tect them, bal­anc­ing the sac­ri­fice pub­lic ser­vants must make dur­ing an eco­nom­ic down­turn with our char­tered respon­si­bil­i­ty to pub­lic safe­ty,” Han­cock said.

The pro­pos­al drew crit­i­cism even before Han­cock passed the final ver­sion to coun­cil for review, and ear­ly this month sev­er­al mem­bers of the coun­cil voiced their dis­ap­proval of the document.

While the rest of the city’s depart­ments face pos­si­ble fur­loughs next year, police are exempt from tak­ing the unpaid days.

City depart­ments across the board have been asked to pro­pose cuts of up to 11% of their bud­gets and the police union con­tract would have includ­ed $5 mil­lion in cuts — out of an esti­mat­ed $250 mil­lion bud­get — for 2021. But those cuts would have end­ed with the year, and in 2022 all offi­cers in the union would have received a 2.7% raise at a tax­pay­er cost of $4.4 million.

Fly­nn, how­ev­er, said the pro­posed con­tract would have cut offi­cers’ pay in 2021 by about 3% before it’s raised again in 2022. That swap would be the finan­cial equiv­a­lent of eight fur­lough days for offi­cers, he said.

Aside from the finan­cials, there is also some pub­lic sen­ti­ment against police because of sit­u­a­tions in which offi­cers have killed peo­ple of col­or. Dur­ing a pub­lic com­ment ses­sion ear­li­er in the evening, res­i­dent Lani Rush asked coun­cil to con­sid­er the department’s vio­lent his­to­ry and recent calls from the com­mu­ni­ty to defund police.

Han­cock and Pub­lic Safe­ty Offi­cer Mur­phy Robin­son — who over­sees the police depart­ment — have said they’re open to changes with­in the depart­ment, but they will not defund the agency.

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