City Council agrees to 3% raises for three years, other incentives for Police Department

The union representing Emeryville police officers has been making the case for a pay hike for months, and on Tuesday, it was granted. 

Emeryville City Council voted 4-0, with Kalimah Priforce absent, to approve a new three-year labor agreement that provides 3% annual salary increases for the next three years, even as the city faces projected seven-figure budget shortfalls. The agreement also increases education incentive pay and adds an additional 1% incentive pay for officers with a certificate from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

“Public safety is the top priority of this city. Even though we have a budget that’s so small, we have to balance it with what is the priority,” Mayor Sukhdeep Kaur said.

The previous contract expired on June 30. On June 2, Warren Williams, vice president of the Emeryville Police Officers Association, told City Council the city’s overall compensation package lagged behind Livermore, Santa Clara, San Francisco and BART police by $27,000 to $69,000. One sergeant even took a demotion, he said, chasing better pay. 

“We need a competitive package to retain what we have,” Lance Goodfellow, the union’s president, said at that meeting.

Last year, Emeryville police officers averaged a base pay of about $152,000, with total compensation, including benefits, of about $246,000, according to Transparent California. The new deal will increase police spending by $1.18 million over three years.

It also puts city expenses beyond what is currently budgeted, increasing costs by $203,477 in the 2026-27 budget. The city had projected general fund expenditures to exceed revenues by about $5.42 million in the current budget, without factoring in the new police contract.

According to city records, police spending accounted for a third of the city’s $55.3 million general fund expenditures in the 2025-26 budget.

Priforce said in an interview before the meeting that the city’s budget problems stem from years of poor fiscal planning, rather than public safety spending. Police services, he said, should not bear the consequences of those broader financial problems.

Both Priforce and Kaur said Measure BB would help ease the city’s budget deficit. The measure, on the November ballot, would raise Emeryville’s business license tax to as much as 0.4% of annual gross receipts and generate about $5.9 million annually.

While Emeryville competes with neighboring cities to recruit officers, its department is uniquely small. At the September Public Safety Committee meeting, Chief Jeff Jennings explained the department had 21 officers out of a maximum authorized strength of 30. Four were on medical leave, leaving 17 officers operating on a weekly basis. 

Without the right incentives, union officials have said more officers might leave.

 “We have people that can retire. We have five that can walk out the door today.” Williams said in June. 

Vice Mayor Matthew Solomon said the agreement is a “fair balance between our fiscal constraints and what the police officers need and deserve to do their work.” 

The Emeryville Police Officers Association did not respond to requests for comment. 

The city will account for the agreement’s additional first-year cost in its midyear budget. Costs for the second and third years will be included in the next two-year budget, which is scheduled for adoption in June.

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