City Floats $6.5M Bond for Police Contract

The City Council will vote later this month on a proposed $6.5 million bond to finance retroactive payments to Long Beach police, who have worked without a contract since 2008.

A legislative memo announcing the proposal in the council’s Dec. 3 agenda reads: “This bond issue is required to pay the mandatory retroactive salary payments pursuant to an arbitration award to the PBA, going back a period of five years that they were without a contract.”

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After negotiations between the Police Benevolent Association and the city reached a stalemate, the city council in September 2012 granted an arbitrator permission to award a seven-year deal instead of a contract covering the first two years as required by state law.

On May 29, 2013, Arbitrator Arthur Reigel decided to award police the seven-year contract that runs from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2015, including five years of back pay. The first three years of the contract will each include a pay increase of 3.75 percent, a 3.5 percent increase for 2011 and 3.15 percent for each of the final three years.