The Champaign, Illinois City Council granted a hefty bonus to their police officers at this evening’s City Council meeting. Upon the execution of the new Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Contract, which was unanimously passed by the Council at the March 1st, 2022 meeting, each police officer employed by the Champaign Police Department will be granted $10,000. If the officer remains with the Department for three years, they receive another $10,000.
Though the contract is clear that there exists no residency requirement for police officers, any officer who moves to the City of Champaign will receive a $10,000 bonus, plus $7,000 per year, so long as they remain a Champaign resident. The same residency bonuses are awarded even if an officer who already resides in Champaign moves to a different address within Champaign.
The entire FOP contract is back-dated to begin on July 1st, 2021, so the retention and residency bonus provisions will have started eight months ago.
The new contract also increases police pay by 3, 3.25, and 3.5% each year (again, starting eight months ago). The previous Champaign FOP contract held a constant 2.5% annual pay increase.
Not including the annual pay increase, each Champaign Police officer can receive $51,000 in bonuses as a result of the new contract. Given that the contract’s effective start is July 1st, 2021, currently employed officers may have already accrued about half of the $51,000 just from the past eight months.
With a department of over 100 officers (124 fully staffed), the bonus package could theoretically cost the City of Champaign over five million dollars, though it is likely that only a fraction of the department would avail themselves to the moving bonus.
The new police contract does not make any mention of police Use of Force Policy or increased standards for accountability.
No member of the Champaign City Council offered comment or discussion on the new FOP contract. District 1 Council member Davion Williams spoke very briefly, but he did not mention the contents of the contract.
Williams: “I just wanted to dispel a myth about this Council about how we do not support the Police Department here in Champaign….that is not true.”
Williams urged residents to check their facts regarding the Council’s history, but did not mention anything specific. He said the contract was the Council’s “effort to try to bring something together with the Police Department, and good efforts, and to create a better relationship and environment with our community and City Council and everyone here.”
The Champaign City Council members were not the only ones who went silent on the issue. When presented the opportunity, no member of the public opted to speak about the FOP contract before the vote.
Check CU could not locate a prior meeting or time when the City Council openly discussed the FOP contract details or invited input from the public. From the Report to City Council provided by City Manager Dorothy Ann David, “Community input was not sought beyond this Council Bill due to the confidential nature of the collective bargaining process.”
David’s report to the Council appeared on page 124 of the single 250 page document supplied to the Council and the public, making it unlikely that residents found it unless they knew where to look (Check CU has broken down the 250 page document into its three components and provided separate links for this article).
The new Champaign Police FOP contract is in force until June 30th, 2024 and is then renewed annually. Copies of Champaign Police FOP contracts dating back to the year 2000 are available on the Illinois Documents website. Direct links to the 2018-2021 and newly approved 2021-2024 contracts are provided below (click on each image for full PDF).
“The new police contract does not make any mention of police Use of Force Policy or increased standards for accountability.“
Uh yeah, no union contracts do that. That is enshrined in state law, and the implementation is completely a management right. Meaning the City could do it unilaterally.
Do your reporters understand what they’re reporting on?
Thanks for your comment. On the contrary, most police union contracts are very largely devoted to issues of standards and accountability. Traditionally, that language has been in the direction of removing accountability. Many past and current police union contracts do provide for various accountability mechanisms, such as police review boards. Urbana’s FOP contract has included a provision regarding their Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) for years, and that also obligates the Police Department to perform TASER reviews with the CPRB.
You are correct that language regarding use of force has traditionally gone unseen in police contracts. However, demands for inclusion of such language have been very high for the past couple of years. Duty to intervene, de-escalation, and de-escalation training have been inching their way in. In the interest of reducing use of force and promoting de-escalation tactics, Urbana’s contract provides for increased pay for police officers that have mental-health training. We could not find any state law that would prevent public bodies from putting use of force regulations, de-escalation requirements, or de-escalation training requirements directly in their police union contracts. If you are aware of such a statute, please do post it here.
The reason there would be a desire to put it directly in the contract is that police departments tend to have complete control of their own police policies. So aside from firing the police chief, the legislative body essentially forfeits any additional police requirements which they do not put in their contract.
Indeed, Check CU reporters understand the subject matter!
Contracts continue to include a provision for the city to pay an officer’s attorney fees in cases of civil litigation. That provision likely tends away from increasing officers’ practices of de-escalation techniques. It’s disappointing that the provision makes no mention of case outcome in determining to pay attorney fees.