Cop union contracts expire; budget battle ahead
Tuesday marked the expiration date for nearly every Boston police union contract — and city councilors are planning to increase the pressure as the negotiations play out.
Ways & Means Chair Kenzie Bok said she plans to introduce four hearing orders in next week’s council hearing regarding police and the budget. The orders focusing on the BPD are a call for a hearing about how to rein in overtime spending and the other will be about “the police union contract as a public policy document.”
“These hearings and this very public conversation is designed to move us toward a reduced police budget for next year,” Bok said.
Ways & Means handles hearings on the city’s collective bargaining agreements, and the full council must approve them in order for them to take effect — though it would be highly unusual for the council to vote one down.
Though the council is barred from taking part in collective bargaining, “the reason that the council needs to approve and fund these contract agreements is to bring the considerations of the broader public interest into the conversation,” Bok said.
The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union, which is by far the largest of the city’s cop unions, declined to comment as its three-year contract ended on Tuesday. That union has 1,511 members, and is joined by the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation with 247, the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society with 279, the Superior Detective Benevolent Society with 140 in all seeing their contracts expire July 1.
The expiration of the contracts has little practical effect in the dayto-day operations in the near term; the terms of the contracts will continue until the unions ink new ones with the city.
But it does come amid continued protests following several highprofile police killings of black people. One of the demands of activists is to “defund the police” — a rallying cry that different protesters mean in different levels, but generally calls for some police funding to be reallocated to social programs.
Walsh’s budget will take $12 million from the $60 million police overtime budget and reallocate that money to other programs — but five councilors voted against the budget, saying they needed more comprehensive reforms.