The San Francisco Chronicle, in between writing about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s alleged cocaine use, has this piece about San Francisco’s supervisors rejecting city cops’ calls for a 25 percent pay raise over the next four years.
The Chronicle says the pay boost is being touted by Newsom and the police union, who say it’s necessary to stay competitive with other departments in the region.
Here’s a chunk of the story:
Supervisor Chris Daly questioned whether money should be “slated to go into the pockets of cops” while the board is being asked by the Newsom administration to accept $6 million in cuts to public health programs.
He also questioned the timing of negotiations by the Newsom administration that led to the proposed police contract, noting that this is a mayoral election year.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who also voted to delay the contract, noted the city needs to find a way to lower the crime and murder rate. “Police are definitely part of the equation, but there are other parts of the equation,” Ammiano said.
The Chronicle says the pay boost would have amounted to about a 6 percent raise each year for the next four years for the 2,600 positions in the department.
Earlier this year, the city of San Diego gave police officers their first new contract in three years. That contract included a blanket 8 percent raise for all officers, with many more officers receiving an additional 1 percent bonus. The San Diego Police Officers Association called that deal, which came out of months of negotiations, a first step.
The union says it expects to receive more pay boosts in future years.
According to the Chronicle:
Under the pact, an entry-level San Francisco police officer’s salary would go from $65,500 to $70,733, and a top-level officer’s salary would increase from $91,182 to $94,829 in the first year.
A December 2006 report commissioned by the city of San Diego concluded that a police recruit at the San Diego Police Department earns a minimum of $40,810. A senior officer below the rank of sergeant with a family earns a maximum of $56,152 a year in take-home pay. Those figures were before the pay raise was taken into account.