Despite Sharp Increase in Complaints, City Gives Metro Police a Raise. Why?
A rushed hearing with little opportunity for public input raises questions about merit, priorities, and accountability.
During testimony at DC Council’s round table last month, advisory neighborhood commissioner Lorenzo Green, April Goggans of Black Lives Matter DC, and others, explored the relatively uncharted territory of the link between police salary and budget, misconduct, and accountability. The round table, regarding a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and their union, was organized by Councilperson and chair of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, Elissa Silverman.
The CBA grants over 3,500 MPD officers with a 3 percent retroactive raise for fiscal year 2018, a 2 percent raise for FY 2019, and a 3.5 percent raise for 2020. The disciplinary section of the CBA reads the same as the previous agreement, despite a report released earlier this November by the Office of Police Complaints, a government-funded review body independent from the MPD, which found a 78 percent increase in…
