Hefty pay raises are on tap for Seattle police now that a new labor contract has been ratified.
The deal also clears the way for the expansion of a specialized response team that handles issues surrounding drug addiction and mental crisis. In return, police have agreed to new accountability measures that city leaders said will better address officer misconduct.
Taken together, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell called it a big win for the community, offering a pathway to build up the police force as well as invest in a non-police response for low-level, non-criminal behavioral health and crisis calls.
“This is good for everybody, everybody affected in our city, and it also significantly strengthens police accountability,” Harrell said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Erin Goodman, the executive director of the SODO Business Improvement Area, said her members are often hard-pressed not just by property crime but also from the impacts of homeless encampments, where people who live there often struggle with drug abuse and mental illness.
“In the past, the only place to call was the police,” Goodman said. “Now we have another option.”
That other option is the Community Assisted Response and Engagement team, or CARE, a group of unarmed civilian responders who specialize in mental health and addiction issues but are also trained to handle more general welfare checks.
“The task of the CARE responders is essentially to interact with those who have lost hope, those who are untethered from reality sometimes, those who are nearly lost to brutal cycles of addiction,” said CARE Chief Amy Barden.
CARE had been capped at two dozen responders due to the city’s prior agreements with the Seattle Police Officers Guild. The new labor contract struck with the union now lifts those restrictions, allowing CARE to expand citywide and be directly dispatched to calls without an armed Seattle police escort.
In exchange, the police union secured sizeable wage increases for officers with new recruits now starting at $118,000 a year. Raises are retroactive to 2024 and represent a nearly 13% increase when tabulating all increases through 2026.
“The agreement modernizes our wages and keeps benefits high so that we can maintain a well-staffed police department,” said Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes. “When officers feel valued and equipped they are better able to provide a level of service, the level of service, that our community expects and that our community deserves.”
The police contract also imposes several new accountability measures, including a simplified 180-day timeline to resolve complaints against officers. There will also be a process within SPD for supervisors to address minor performance or misconduct issues and then impose discipline. Another provision is to have civilians take part in investigations of officers in cases involving potential termination.
“It is critical to have civilians working on the most serious disciplinary cases,” the mayor said.
Left out of the contract is any significant arbitration reform. Arbitrators have sometimes overturned disciplinary decisions imposed by the police chief.
What this labor agreement does accomplish is it allows CARE the freedom to expand citywide and build on 6,800 responses to crisis calls since it was launched two years ago. Barden said 40% of people contacted have accepted referrals to services, which in some cases includes entering treatment. Barden called the work complex and full of challenges to gain trust from the people they try to help.
“Our calls don’t get resolved with an arrest, a jail booking, or a simple drop at the emergency department,” Barden said.
While the payouts to police are substantial, Jon Scholes, the president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, hopes they will improve recruitment and retention to rebuild the police force.
“We applaud Mayor Harrell for securing a collective bargaining agreement that will bring more officers to the Seattle Police Department and more effectively utilize the necessary work of the CARE Department,” Scholes said in a statement. “We urge the Seattle City Council to ratify this contract. Chief Amy Barden and the CARE team are addressing a critical demand in our community, which is the appropriate public safety response to people in need on the streets. We commend Mayor Harrell for investing in this approach. The scale of this crisis calls for additional resources so CARE will be able to meet the current need and achieve successful outcomes in getting people the help they desperately need. These additional public safety investments are additive to our efforts to create a healthy and vibrant downtown for all.”
Goodman said the business owners she represents in SODO are also eager to see positive changes to public safety. “I’m looking forward to seeing the expansion of the CARE team and to increased retention and recruitment of officers,” Goodman said.
The Seattle City Council still needs to give final approval on the police contract. As for the CARE team, it is looking to double in size next year to 48 responders and grow from there. To help fund that expansion, the city recently approved a 0.1% additional sales tax that could raise as much as $40 million.
The $118,000 starting salary for new Seattle police recruits positions the department among the highest-paying law enforcement agencies in the country, reflecting the city’s desperate need to reverse staffing declines that saw SPD lose hundreds of officers during the defund-police movement and pandemic-era retirements.
The nearly 13% raise through 2026 represents substantial taxpayer investment in policing at a time when Seattle faces budget constraints in other areas, raising questions about whether increased officer compensation will translate to improved public safety outcomes and community trust.
The removal of the 24-responder cap on CARE and elimination of armed police escort requirements represents a major philosophical shift where Seattle fully embraces alternative response models that progressive advocates have championed as more appropriate for mental health and addiction crises.
The 6,800 CARE responses since launch two years ago with 40% service acceptance rates demonstrates moderate success, though 60% of contacts declining referrals suggests limits to voluntary engagement approaches that cannot compel treatment for individuals cycling through crisis.
The 180-day complaint resolution timeline addresses longstanding criticism that SPD disciplinary processes drag on for years, allowing problematic officers to remain on duty while investigations languish and evidence grows stale.
Civilian participation in termination-level investigations provides external oversight but stops short of giving civilians decision-making authority, maintaining management prerogative while adding transparency to the most serious misconduct cases.
The absence of arbitration reform represents a significant gap, as arbitrators have repeatedly reinstated fired officers, undermining police chief authority and allowing officers terminated for serious misconduct to return to duty over departmental objections.
The 0.1% sales tax increase funding CARE expansion shifts costs to consumers rather than property owners, a regressive funding mechanism that disproportionately affects lower-income residents who spend larger portions of income on taxable goods.
SODO Business Improvement Area’s support for CARE reflects business community frustration with police responses to quality-of-life complaints that don’t rise to criminal levels but affect commercial operations through customer deterrence and employee safety concerns.
The planned doubling to 48 CARE responders still represents modest capacity relative to Seattle’s scale of homelessness, addiction, and mental health crises, suggesting the program will continue facing demand far exceeding available resources.
