Salinas Police Officers Association urges city council to approve new contract

The Salinas Police Officers Association is currently negotiating a contract with the city–a process that’s taken almost a year.

While the details of the new contract are not being released, officers with the police union raised several concerns at a city council meeting Tuesday night, including short staffing and difficulty keeping employees.

Salinas Police officers at the meeting said there’s not enough officers to meet minimum staffing on a daily basis. They’re part of the union working on a new contract with the city. They said Salinas needs to have more competitive pay and benefits to recruit more officers.

“If you don’t have the police service on the street, response times go up, you end up only going to level one–priority one type of calls and then the other calls don’t get answered for hours and hours on end, so we need adequate staff.” Salinas Police Officer’s Association President Jim Knowlton told KION.

Another issue Knowlton raised is employee retention. He said Salinas PD is losing officers to other cities that have more competitive pay and benefits. And he’s concerned this will continue if a contract isn’t approved soon.

He and other officers urged the city council to approve a mediated contract produced by an independent arbitrator.

Some officers told the council it’s not what they wanted, but they’re ready to move forward with a compromise after about 10 months of negotiations.

One member of the public at the meeting said he appreciates the work the police department has done, but said the city needs to keep budget deficit in balance. He said, “we cannot afford to pay all these high salaries and high costs and be able to keep the city of Salinas going.”

This is happening as Salinas is looking at ways to halt a projected $60 million dollars in the coming years.

Knowlton said if there isn’t resolution soon, the city could impose a contract.

The city council took up the item during a closed session, but a council member tells KION the city and police are still in negotiations.