New Boston police contract could ease backlog for construction details

The Boston City Council has signed off on an $82 million collective bargaining agreement with the city’s largest police union, passing the funding measure unanimously at its final meeting of 2023.

The agreement brings at least two significant changes to the Boston Police Department: Some officers facing criminal charges won’t be able to appeal firing or other discipline through the arbitration process. Also, police details will now be available to other law enforcement, including university police, retired officers and some trained civilians — at higher pay.

City officials said the flagger measure "breaks the monopoly" on police details, and was one of the reasons it took more than a year and a half to hammer out the five-year agreement.

"We would not bend on civilian flaggers," said Lou Mandarini, a city attorney who negotiated the contract on behalf of the Wu administration.

The civilian flagger change traces back 15 years, when Massachusetts changed the law to allow non-police details — the last state in the country to do so. But implementing that rule in Boston has been slow going.

Part of the impetus for allowing civilian flaggers statewide was to reduce the cost of details. But Boston's contract actually increases the hourly rate of detail assignments, from $46 to $68.

But the contract could help address the problem of unfilled details. Every day, hundreds of details are requested for construction sites and events across Boston. In 2022, just under half of the nearly 142,000 detail requests went unfilled, according to Boston police.

The head of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, Larry Calderone, said officers are glad to see unfilled details go to other police, as well as to certain civilian contractors.

“Whether it's our Boston police officers, our superior detectives, college campus police officers and everyone within the hierarchy, it only makes Boston a safer place to live and to visit,” Calderone told reporters.

The new contract sets in place a two-tier priority system for detail requests, with “type 1” details involving “substantial risk to public safety” to be filled before less-urgent requests.

The contract also establishes a hierarchy for which officers get first dibs at detail assignments. First is Boston police officers; then department retirees; Boston Housing Authority officers; university officers; Boston municipal officers; and finally civilian contractors.

Outgoing Councilor Kendra Lara said the new detail rules represent a historic first in Boston. But she urged strong oversight as the measure is implemented in the coming year.

“ We need to make sure, either by way of ordinance or by way of holding this administration accountable … that the jobs that we are creating are going to the people in the city of Boston,” Lara said.