California Highway Patrol pay to be restored in agreement with Newsom administration
The California Association of Highway Patrolmen has reached an agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to undo the pay cuts patrol officers took last year.
Newsom and the Legislature imposed pay reductions on officers along with the rest of state employees last July, when lawmakers were expecting a $54 billion budget deficit from the coronavirus. The state instead ended up with a large surplus going into the new budget year, and Newsom’s administration has been negotiating new union agreements to lift the pay cuts in July.
The officer union’s new agreement with the administration will undo a 4.62% reduction the officers took last year, according to a copy of the agreement posted on the state Human Resources Department website.
Officers will no longer receive the nine hours of leave per month they have been getting while the pay cuts are in effect.
A $920-per-year uniform allowance will be restored, along with a $25-per-month stipend for cleaning and maintaining the uniforms.
Officers also will have to start making contributions to their retirement health insurance.
The officers’ contributions will be increased in increments each year, starting at 0.9% in July. The state will contribute 5.9%.
The officers’ contributions will increase each year, and the state’s share will decrease, until each side is contributing 3.4% in 2024.
The union’s retirement health insurance contributions have been different from other unions, and the new agreement aims to bring them into alignment.
For most state employees, the state deducts the required contributions from paychecks directly. For the officers, which were the first to start contributing to the fund in 2009, the state has instead withheld portions of officers’ raises to cover the contributions.
The new agreement allows officers to bank up to 924 hours of leave through June 2023, and provides for a one-time opportunity to cash out up to 80 hours of leave this fall.
The agreement allows for the possibility of additional premium pay being paid to the officers after details are finalized for essential worker in the federal American Rescue Plan.
The agreement doesn’t address specific general salary increases. Unlike other groups of state employees, the union representing California Highway Patrol officers doesn’t negotiate annual salary increases with the state.
Changes to their pay instead are based on an average of the raises local peace officers receive at departments in five of the highest cost-of-living areas in the state — the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, San Diego Police Department, Oakland Police Department and the San Francisco Police Department.
This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 5:25 AM with the headline "California Highway Patrol pay to be restored in agreement with Newsom administration."