Does Boise police union have new deal with city? Depends which side you ask
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boise City Council approved a police labor contract despite union objections.
- Police union cited removal of key provisions and lack of agreement as core issues.
- City leaders viewed the deal as final; union seeks continued negotiation with mediator.
This story has been updated.
When the Boise City Council approved a final labor contract for the police department, one council member spoke of it as an “olive branch” to the union.
The city’s police union doesn’t agree.
Boise-based attorney Chad Johnson, who represents the union, told the Idaho Statesman in a phone call Thursday that union members “explicitly” opposed the contract that council members approved Tuesday.
“It seems the city wants to try to end the 51-year relationship between the police union and the city,” the union said in a news release. “It is disappointing that while the city talks about prioritizing public safety, it is actively trying to silence the police union.”
The union’s contract lapsed in September, and despite initial desires — from both sides — to approve the next contract before it expired, city and union leaders didn’t come to an agreement. Representatives held 11 negotiation sessions after May 2024, with frustrations still building over a year later.
Johnson reiterated in an email Friday that it should be obvious the contract isn’t valid unless both sides agree. He said the union is unhappy with provisions related to discipline and transfers, and health contributions, among other things.
”The reason the situation is confusing is that the city has sent signals that the city is unilaterally imposing this contract regardless of whether the union agrees,” Johnson said. “That’s not the way contracts work.”
Emails to Boise city officials from the Statesman on Friday for further comment did not immediately get answered.
Boise Police Officer Darren Lee, who was part of the union’s negotiation team, said in a Friday interview with the Statesman that the union’s frustration lies with the city’s negotiating team, which includes Mayor Lauren McLean’s Chief of Staff Courtney Washburn and others, not the City Council members.
With the council’s purview being the budget, Lee said, he thought members met the police where they could with raises, which Lee said union members “absolutely appreciate.” On the other hand, he said, he wished he had felt that same respect from the city’s negotiators.
“City Council is depending on the negotiation team to hand them a good product,” Lee said. “We’re not negotiating with City Council, we’re negotiating with a conglomerate of people at a table who represent the city’s negotiation team.”
City declined mediation, union says
Portland-based employment litigation attorney Todd Hanchett presented, on behalf of the city, what officials called their “best and final offer” at a meeting in October.
In that four-year contract, the city offered 12% raises, including back-pay hikes, bringing a patrol officer’s base salary — which doesn’t include overtime — up from $63,606 to nearly $74,000 by 2028. They also added six detective positions, three of which would be assigned to juvenile cases to assist the police department’s school resource officers.
“That is the city’s best and final,” Hanchett said, according to a video recording of the meeting. “We’re not interested in moving in that direction. The city is interested in the language that we have on the table.”
That’s when the union requested mediation. The process was exacerbated by a lack of mediation help from the federal government after the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, dubbed DOGE and spearheaded by Elon Musk, fired 130 mediators employed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which handled labor disputes.
But the police union still wanted to continue negotiations and hoped to bring in a private mediation specialist. Lee told the Statesman that the union hoped to hire the mediator privately and asked the city to split the cost, but never heard back.
Then the city reached out asking to continue negotiations in June without mediation, after eight months without a public meeting, the union said.
City and union representatives had a tense session on June 17, according to a recording of that meeting, at which Washburn informed union leaders that Boise planned to present a contract to the council the following week, as it was “essential” they finalize the deal now to complete the upcoming budget.
Washburn acknowledged at the gathering that “despite significant efforts on both sides,” they hadn’t reached an agreement. “We also agree with you that delaying this further will hurt the officers that continue to serve our city, and we look forward to a productive conversation today,” she added.
The city’s team added that it wouldn’t accept a counteroffer and was not interested in mediation. Union leaders throughout the meeting expressed confusion and frustration with the process, with Johnson asking whether the city planned to take the contract to the council “regardless of whether the union agrees to it.”
What the police union wants to discuss
Police said their concerns aren’t just about salaries.
While the union acknowledged that pay is important, “no officer” expected to receive a 9% raise over the course of the contract, the union’s release said, and officers were surprised that the city agreed to authorize a 3% bonus to compensate officers for back pay.
Instead, Johnson said the concerns were over other provisions the city “snuck in” at the end of negotiations. He pointed to the modification of the disciplinary standard in the contract about determining whether the department may involuntarily transfer officers to undesirable positions; the creation of a new corporal rank; and changes to the language regarding the city’s contribution to officers’ Health Reimbursement Arrangement.
He also said the city removed the agreement’s evergreen clause, which would “gut union protections” for officers, according to the news release Thursday. Such a clause allows an expired contract to stay in place if the parties can’t agree on a new contract. On Tuesday, the council approved adding the evergreen clause back.
“It’s unfortunate the city’s negotiation team never brought this additional ‘olive branch’ to the negotiation table,” the release said.
Council President Colin Nash, who made the “olive branch” statement, said he didn’t think any more bargaining would be productive.
“I would be surprised if the agreement did not get ratified,” Nash told the Statesman. “The council was giving its best effort to resolve the contract dispute that had gone on for over a year.”
The city’s relationship with police officers has sometimes been a struggle for McLean.
During the 2023 election, Boise’s police union endorsed her opponent, Mike Masterson, who attacked McLean’s record with the Police Department. Masterson is a former Boise police chief.
Some officers have criticized McLean for selecting former Police Chief Ryan Lee, who later resigned at her request after she said he’d lost the trust of officers. Police have also complained about comments McLean made after incidents, including protests, that officers said showed a lack of support.
McLean said during Tuesday’s meeting that she appreciated the service of police officers and that the raises in the contract were “much-deserved.”
Why Boise City Council voted yes
During Tuesday’s meeting, Council Member Luci Willits touched on the union’s discontent. Willits said she was uneasy voting on the contract when the union had an offer on the table and was awaiting a response to that.
But she ultimately felt police deserved more money.
“I’m uncomfortable that this has the potential to undermine trust,” Willits said Tuesday. “I think this has hurt the relationship of trust and I hope that that can be rectified.”
Two other council members said they couldn’t comment on the union’s possible issues with the deal because they hadn’t heard them yet.
The city was pushing to finish the negotiations because police make up a large part of the budget, Willits and Council Member Kathy Corless said. In hindsight, Corless said, the city could have taken more time in going over proposals with the union.
“When I voted for that (contract), I thought this would have been an acceptable offer for the police union,” Corless said by phone Thursday.
Council Member Jordan Morales, however, said he came into the meeting thinking union leadership wasn’t likely to approve the proposal as it was.
“It felt heavy to have union leadership not appreciating the contract as presented,” he said, though he liked that back pay was part of the deal, which would be contingent on police ratifying the contract.
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 6:33 PM.
