Seattle demands cops return $13 million after city payroll blunder

The demands come as the Seattle Police Department continues struggling to rebuild its ranks following years of officer departures and City Council defunding decisions. Seattle recently eliminated police hiring bonuses despite being hundreds of deployable officers short of its staffing goal.

The Seattle Police Officers Guild says its members did not cause the payroll mistake and wants the city’s figures verified. The union also says Seattle has yet to resolve underpayments that followed the introduction of its payroll system more than two years ago.

“SPOG members did not create these discrepancies, and they should be able to rely on the City to accurately calculate their wages,” the guild said in a statement Thursday.

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According to KOMO News, the error involved a police labor agreement that took effect earlier this year and included a 6 percent retroactive raise for 2024.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office said the city used officers’ 2020 base salaries instead of their 2024 salaries when calculating the adjustment, resulting in overpayments. Officers who worked for SPD in 2024 received the retroactive wages in their June 12 paychecks.

SPD alerted the City Budget Office to a discrepancy involving those payments in July. Officers were notified in September of the amounts Seattle expected them to return. Several told KOMO they had been asked to repay between $10,000 and $20,000.

But the guild says the city’s payroll problems also include money officers are still owed. “Since the City implemented its new payroll system more than two years ago, SPOG has repeatedly raised concerns about inaccuracies in our members' pay, including underpayments that remain unresolved,” the union said.

SPOG said its members and other city employees have filed a class action lawsuit concerning inaccurate pay and underpayments. Guild President Kent Loux told KOMO that officers are not seeking to keep money they were not entitled to receive, but want accurate repayment calculations and an accounting of outstanding underpayments.

The dispute adds to the challenges facing a department still working to recover from its staffing losses. SPD had 929 deployable sworn personnel as of August 21, including command staff and management. Of those, 854 were fully available, deployable SPOG patrol officers. Although SPD listed 1,197 total sworn personnel, that broader figure included officers still undergoing training or unavailable for duty. The department had recorded 69 officer departures through August 11 and projected approximately 113 separations for 2026.

Despite the continuing shortage, Seattle announced it would stop offering hiring incentives beginning September 1, including bonuses of up to $50,000 for experienced officers transferring from other departments.

In an August interview with The Ari Hoffman Show on 570 KVI, Loux warned that ending the incentives would make Seattle less competitive with surrounding agencies still offering them. “We are still trying to recover from when they uttered the words ‘defund the police’ over six years ago,” Loux said. “We still have not recovered from that.”

The council’s reductions extended beyond 2020. In December 2022, councilmembers permanently eliminated funding for 80 police positions in the 2023 budget. Then-Mayor Bruce Harrell had proposed temporary reductions to address a budget shortfall, but the council made them permanent while SPD was already understaffed.

Wilson’s office said Seattle will bargain with SPOG over the repayment method. It also said SPD, the City Budget Office and the Office of City Finance are working to improve internal controls to prevent another payroll error. The mayor’s office characterized the mistake as a one-time expense and said it would not affect the police budget going forward.

The guild wants every affected member’s pay reviewed, outstanding underpayments addressed, and any resolution handled in accordance with its collective bargaining agreement and Washington law. “Our members deserve an accurate paycheck and a payroll system they can trust,” SPOG said.