Officers take pay cuts to save jobs in Sultan

Sultan police officers unanimously decided to forego cost-of-living allowances, holiday pay and education incentives for the next 16 months so that none of them would be laid off.

Six of Sultan's seven officers could have lost their jobs and if that had happened, at least two others said they would have left the 12-member department, said Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser.

The cuts are a result of Initiative 695, which slashed vehicle-registration costs and ended subsidies to small cities without large retail tax bases. For the city of Sultan, that means a cut of about $188,000 this year with more than $60,000 cut from the police budget.

"It would've decimated the Police Department and they knew that," Walser said.

"For all of them to sacrifice what they did is extraordinary. I was pretty overcome, pretty emotional when they told me."

On average, each officer will take home about $4,000 less this year.

The impact will be felt most by officers with families since most relied on banked holiday pay to make it through the Christmas season, said Officer Mitchell Moffitt.

The pay cut comes a year after city administrators told police they couldn't afford to pay overtime. This year, Moffitt estimates his income is already down $5,000 from last year.

But banding together is what officers do, said Moffitt, who is also the shop steward for Teamster's Union Local 763, which represents the city's officers.

"We live and work together, put our lives on the line for each other, and this is just an expanse of that," he said of the decision to take a pay cut. "We're such a tight-knit group that we really are like a family."

The police chief, a commanding officer and a sergeant didn't participate in last week's vote because they, unlike their officers, are not represented by the Teamsters. Under their contract, the officers would have been laid off in order of seniority.

But because the salaries of the three most junior officers are paid for with a federal grant, three others would have lost their jobs to make up for the shortfall, said Walser.

Next year could be even bleaker, especially if Initiative 747 passes, Walser said. The proposed property-tax rollback "could wipe us out and we're already operating on a razor-thin budget," he said.

This year, Walser has already been forced to cut all money for officer training, supplies and uniform replacement while "criminal-justice costs" — from jailing suspects to insuring police cruisers — continue to rise.

At the same time, Sultan officers are responding to at least 1,000 more calls every year in a city whose population has doubled in the last six.

Adding to the pressure are the 23,000 cars traveling daily through Sultan on Highway 2, on their way to Stevens Pass, Leavenworth and Wenatchee, the chief said.

But a proposal last year to save money by contracting for police services with the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office brought dozens of citizens and business owners out in support of Sultan cops, Walser said.

"They told the City Council they wanted their own Police Department," he said.

"And my officers are willing to make a commitment to their city by taking a pay cut because to them, it's more than a job."