Columbus approves new police contract

COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) — Columbus City Council unanimously approved a new contract with the city’s police officers Monday.

The last contract approval between the city and FOP for the Columbus Division of Police was in 2021. That one focused a lot on reform; this time, police and city leadership said there was a lot of attention on wages, and officers will see a significant pay bump.

“There’s a fierce competition among divisions of police all over the nation, recruiting folks to go into law enforcement,” Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said before the vote.

Ginther and Columbus Division of Police First Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts said these investments are both for retention and recruiting.

It would raise the base salary for a first-year officer from $61,804 to around $70,692, with a 5% raise each year for the next three years. Officers with higher ranks and seniority will be able to make more than $200,000 annually.

“I think this represents a commitment from both sides,” Christopher Moses, Columbus director of human resources, said. “We want to keep officers here. We want to attract officers, too.”

“Nobody took this job for the wages and benefits,” Brian Steel, president of the FOP Capital City Lodge 9, said. However, it is incentivized to not only stay on this job and not transfer somewhere else, and it helps get officers in the door.”

According to a letter from the city, the raises plus shift differentials and establishment of a field training officer stipend program will cost around $80 million over the next three years.

“We’ve redoubled our efforts with respect to recruiting and seeing some promising signs because we know we need to add more officers,” Ginther said.

Potts said recruiting is going well for the division, averaging more than the national standard.

Potts said the division currently has around 1,800 officers. When asked how many more the division needs, she did not give an exact number.

“We’re looking at as many as we can,” Potts said. “The mayor has set a goal. We’re trying to get 50 a class, three classes a year, and we’re doing really well in that department.”

She said this contract opens doors for lateral transfers from other agencies.

There is also a new clause that takes into consideration qualities other than seniority when assigning officers to special units like gang enforcement, counter-terrorism unit, and criminal intelligence unit. The contract allows the police chief to select and assign officers to one out of every four job postings for the special units. Potts said these selections can be based on talent and training rather than how many years they have on the force.

“What it allows us to do is those senior officers, that five-year officer that has specialized training, maybe in technology or has been a sniper or things like that, we can bring them on to the division and they don’t have to wait multiple years before they can get into those specialized units,” Potts said. “So what it does is just create another way for us to become the safest big city in the country.”

“For at least 40 years, we were a seniority-based system,” Steel said. “One of the concessions we made on the union side was now there are a handful of jobs outside of patrol that the chief has some wiggle room where she can handpick someone.”

The contract also builds on police reforms set in 2020 including improving community policing and disciplinary actions.

The FOP passed this contract with an 85% vote.

“We sat down with the city,” Steel said. “It took a long time, but at the end of the day, neither the city or the union wants to go to a third party.”

The full contract, which will remain in effect until December 2026, can be read below.

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