Raises approved for Wichita police officers amid calls for contract delay

Wichita police officers will receive substantial raises in 2025 as part of a new Fraternal Order of Police contract approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

The unanimous approval came over objections from multiple public speakers who called for a delay on the vote until the FOP and Wichita Police Department agree to address several recommendations from Jensen Hughes, a consultant hired in 2022 for $214,000 to develop a roadmap to restore public trust in police and improve the culture within the department.

The FOP contract will be in place in 2025 and 2026. It locks in police wage increases ahead of an anticipated budget shortfall of tens of millions of dollars over the next several years. More than one in three taxpayer dollars in the city’s general fund pays police salaries and benefits, according to the city’s budget.

The contract also includes eight weeks of paid parental leave, a benefit not available to other city of Wichita employees, and increases vacation time by 10 hours a year.

In at least two areas — internal investigations and suspensions — the new FOP contract directly conflicts with the Jensen Hughes recommendations.

It allows officers accused of misconduct — and an FOP representative — to review portions of the internal investigation files before the officer is interviewed by the Professional Standards Bureau, including the complaint, reports created by the officer and associated law enforcement recordings. It will, for the first time, exclude records or transcripts of witness interviews, the complainant’s interview and other officers’ reports.

The Jensen Hughes report said allowing officers to review the file before being interviewed was out of step with best practices in internal investigations.

“Knowing the content of the investigative file should have no bearing on the employee’s account of any alleged incident or behavior,” the report said. “Viewing the contents of the file could taint the testimony given by the employee during the administrative interview. It serves no good investigatory purpose. It would allow the subject under investigation to construct a story that may discredit or nullify any of the evidence.”

Jensen Hughes also recommended ending the policy of allowing officers to trade in accrued time off for suspensions. The new contract eliminated a code of conduct bonus officers received for not violating department policies, which officers had been able to trade in to avoid unpaid suspensions. But the contract leaves in place the option for officers to trade in up to 10 days of vacation time for suspensions, another move that directly conflicts with the Jensen Hughes recommendations.

“Like the ability of employees to forfeit Code of Conduct Standard Differential Pay, the practice of allowing employees to forfeit vacation in lieu of a suspension may prove to be problematic,” the Jensen Hughes report said. “Minimizing the impact an imposed sanction has on the employee does little to reinforce the desired behavioral change. It creates a disconnect between the penalty and the behavior of the individual because the employee may not personally experience any adverse effects by forfeiting leave time if they have accrued a significant amount of time. This practice may also create negative public perception by giving the appearance the employee was not held accountable for their transgression.”

The code of conduct bonus — $2.25 an hour — was eliminated from the contract. Those wages are now rolled into the officers’ regular pay scale, whether they violate department policies or not.

Police officers will receive a nearly 13% hourly base pay raise in 2025 and be eligible for an additional 2% merit raise. New officers will start out making $33.45 an hour under the new contract and max out after 15 years at $47.27 an hour. Detectives will make hourly wages between $36.66 and $51.80, while sergeants will make between $40.22 and $56.83 an hour.

Tracy Mason Sr., a youth advocate who runs a youth boxing club, urged the council to slow down to gather more feedback on the FOP contract.

“I don’t know enough,” Mason said. “To be honest with you, I don’t trust the FOP. And I should trust them. . . . I should be able to trust the WPD. But at this stage, and at this moment, I don’t have that trust because I don’t engage with them. I don’t see them. I don’t hear from them.”

“When you’re talking about a raise, you’re talking about giving someone more money,” Mason said. “You have to earn it. I feel you have to earn the right to receive more money. . . . With that being said, I don’t see any earning. And the reason I say that . . . I don’t see officers engaging with civilians.”

Council member Brandon Johnson said he agrees with Mason that the police department should be more involved in community engagement.

“But I also recognize that we are not fully staffed,” Johnson said. “And that’s been a struggle for officers that have to go from call to call to call to get out and actually enjoy engaging with the community. And I’m supportive of this (contract) because I believe that we need to continue to get closer to full staffing to allow for that.”

City officials said many of the Jensen Hughes recommendations, including policies on promotions, excessive use of force and the duty to intervene when an officer sees misconduct, are still being negotiated with the FOP through a meet-and-confer process.

Council member Mike Hoheisel said he supports the new contract but still has “some angst” that more Jensen Hughes recommendations weren’t included.

“I appreciate Chief (Joseph) Sullivan,” Hoheisel said. “I think he’s done a great job of bringing discipline and stability to the department. I hope he sticks around for a while. A little bit of angst about what comes after Chief Sullivan, though, so there is a little bit of concern there about just solidifying some of the policies we have.”

This story was originally published December 10, 2024 at 12:33 PM.