Regarding recent contract negotiations, the City of Topeka is disappointed by the divisive comments made by the Fraternal Order of Police this week. The comments are untrue and distract from the actual issues being negotiated by the parties. Throughout negotiations, the City has offered to make concessions with regard to wages, in exchange for changes to current discipline record retention policies. The Public Employer Employees Relations Act (PEERA) requires that negotiations between the City and the police union be kept confidential. The City respects the process outlined by PEERA and therefore will not refute individual comments.
However, the City takes seriously its obligations to be transparent and keep the conversation focused on the real issues. Here, the two major, remaining issues are compensation and employee accountability. Regarding compensation, the City has designated public safety as its first budgetary priority; it already makes up 77% of the City’s entire proposed budget for 2022, with the overwhelming majority of that being allocated to personnel.
Recent recruitment and retention challenges are valid concerns shared by the City and FOP. However these are part of a national, systemic issue that cannot be solved simply by increasing wages. The City has fully funded all authorized public safety positions while also remaining committed to holding the line on property taxes.
In prior statements, FOP has failed to address the other major issue in the ongoing negotiations—police accountability. Currently, disciplinary records are removed from officers’ files after two years and not considered for purposes of promotion, progressive discipline, or employment verification requests. This is simply out of touch with standard employment practices.
The next step is a fact-finding hearing under PEERA before a neutral fact-finder. If no agreement is reached after fact-finding, the governing body will decide the remaining issues.
PEERA provides that public employees cannot strike. Therefore, the parties will continue to operate under the existing contract until either an agreement is reached, or a unilateral contract is implemented by the governing body.
The City is still hopeful that an agreement can be reached.