Cleveland Police Union Votes Down Proposed New Contract, President Says

The president of Cleveland’s rank-and-file police union says members voted down a proposed contract over the weekend.

Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association president Steve Loomis said he isn’t sure why members rejected the agreement.

“To be honest with you, I have no idea,” Loomis said. “I thought that this was the end result of a lot of good, hard frustrating work on the part of the city and the members of the negotiating committee.”

Loomis said he thinks the opposition has to do with pay. The three-year contract increased base pay and gave two percent raises in the final two years of the deal.  

The contract also allowed for anonymous citizen complaints against police and retained discipline records in officers’ files for three years instead of two.

Loomis said the city and union will return to an arbitrator, who will sort out the points of disagreement. He said it’s not clear when the city and the union will have a final deal.

“So we have a rough idea of where the arbitrator’s headed with our last, best offers,” he said. “And we’re going to see what happens.”