Boise police union says contract negotiations are back on. What’s city say?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boise police union and city remain split on whether talks will resume in 2025.
- City finalized contract and issued 3% pay raise despite union objections.
- Union cited concern over last-minute contract edits and poor communication.
Boise’s police union is going back to the negotiating table — at least according to them.
The back-and-forth over the yearlong negotiation process has hit another snag after apparent mixed messaging between the city and the union. On Thursday evening, the police union announced that the city had agreed to continue negotiations. But Friday morning, the city said that’s not the case.
“I have not received a formal request thus the city has not agreed to return to (the) negotiation table,” Mayor Lauren McLean’s chief of staff, Courtney Washburn, told the Idaho Statesman by email early Friday.
Two hours later, Washburn responded to a follow-up question that the city had “communicated a willingness to return” and expected to receive an official request to return to negotiations.
Boise-based attorney Chad Johnson, who represents the union, told the Statesman that he’s been in contact with Todd Hanchett, a Portland-based employment litigation attorney who is representing the city, for the past few weeks.
Johnson said he and other attorneys representing the union reached out to Hanchett for clarification on returning to negotiations on July 3. Four days later, Hanchett wrote back that he’d discuss with the city and get back to them, Johnson said.
Then Hanchett emailed the union on July 9, saying that “the city was willing to return to the table,” and would send them some available dates, according to Johnson. “We are currently waiting for those proposed dates,” he added.
All of this comes after the police union last month took aim at the city’s negotiation team, which includes Washburn, for pushing forward a contract that had language over various provisions that was “snuck in” at the last minute, said Boise Police Officer Darren Lee, who is part of the union’s negotiation team.
Their concerns included 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.
“They’d introduced all kinds of things that we had never seen before. It was new language, new articles that have never been properly introduced into the negotiations, much less the contract,” Lee said in June. “And so for us, we felt like, again, it was another bad-faith tactic that the city’s negotiating team was employing.”
Washburn said in the interview that she and the city “respect the role of unions.”
“Negotiations are hard on both sides, and so I appreciate the effort the union has put into this, as I do the city staff who have contributed to this negotiation,” Washburn said. “In the beginning, we did not think it would take over a year. So I have an appreciation for the process and for what the union is doing to represent its sworn officers, and I harbor no ill will to the Police Department or its union members.”
City budget has to be finalized, Washburn says
The union’s contract lapsed in September, and despite initial desires — from both sides — to approve the next deal before it expired, city and union leaders didn’t come to an agreement. Representatives have held 11 negotiation sessions since May 2024, with frustrations still building over a year later.
When the city and union met last month to continue negotiations after an eight-month gap without a public meeting, tensions continued to rise. Washburn informed union leaders at that June 17 meeting that Boise planned to present a contract to the council the following week, as it was “essential” they finalize the deal to complete the upcoming budget.
She also sent out an email to officers during the meeting, informing them of the plan, which the union was frustrated with, as leaders had been fielding calls throughout the day from concerned officers.
“Frankly, it felt like an attempt to circumvent the negotiating team: to reach out to the body talking about things that our contract explicitly states that we can’t discuss outside of this room or outside of these two parties,” Lee said at the hearing. “So, needless to say, this has become a really frustrating process for our side of the table.”
“We feel like we’re not being listened to. We feel like we’re not being heard.”
A week later, the City Council approved the contract while acknowledging the union’s position. Lee made it clear that the union’s frustration lay with the city’s negotiating team, not council members. But Washburn said the city’s budget — including finalizing raises — still had to move forward, whether contract negotiations were happening or not.
She said the city couldn’t wait any longer and chalked the issue up to timing.
“The city’s fiscal situation this year is constrained — like everybody else’s — and so I didn’t want to end up in the position of not even having the money we offered the union at the time,” Washburn said in an interview Wednesday. “It isn’t ideal to have been put in a position not to pay officers more money for over a year.”
With the steps the city and council took last month, officers received a 3% raise within days, Washburn said.
The four-year contract, which raises salaries 3% each October, brings a patrol officer’s base salary — which doesn’t include overtime — up from $63,606 to nearly $74,000 by 2028. When the city’s negotiators presented the budget to the union, they called it their “best and final offer.” The city also added six detective positions, three of which would be assigned to juvenile cases to assist the police department’s school resource officers.
Boise’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1, and city leaders are working to get the proposed budget approved by the end of August.
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.” He said he wished he 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.”
He said the union’s concerns aren’t about money, which was reiterated in a news release.
“Law enforcement is a demanding profession — physically, emotionally, and mentally. The daily challenges our officers face, and the sacrifices made by their families, are significant,” the release said. “Our current focus is not on money; it’s on protecting our workplace rights and ensuring fair day-to-day working conditions for our officers. Fair conditions foster wellness, stability and enable our officers to do their best.”
