Sacramento police could get 11% raises under new contract. What would it cost?

Sacramento police officers could receive 11% in pay raises over three years under a proposed labor agreement headed to the City Council on Tuesday, even as the city faces a projected $72.3 million budget deficit in the 2028-29 fiscal year.

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The agreement is slated for the council’s consent calendar, where routine items are typically approved together without individual discussion unless a council member requests otherwise. Council members would also have to waive the city’s 10-day public posting requirement for labor agreements — a move requiring a two-thirds vote.

The proposed agreement includes an 11% increase in salary ranges over three years, with raises of 3.5% in 2026, 3.5% in 2027 and 4% in 2028. It also includes additional longevity pay, increased health care contributions and other benefits, according to a city staff report.

The contract would cost the city’s general fund about $7.3 million in 2026-27, rising to $13.8 million in 2027-28 and $19.3 million annually beginning in 2028-29, according to the report.

The city plans to use savings from a previous fiscal year to help cover the agreement’s costs. City officials said they also accounted for anticipated labor costs while developing the budget. Its latest forecast projects a $44.3 million general fund deficit in 2027-28, growing to $72.3 million in 2028-29 after accounting for the proposed labor agreement.

Union leaders said the pay raises and incentives were crucial to retaining officers in a department that had lost nearly 200 sworn officers from a previous force of 800, even as Sacramento’s population grew. Additional staffing cuts were planned for 2026-27.

Officers sought salaries competitive with those offered by other law enforcement agencies in the region, incentives to retain experienced personnel, increased city contributions toward rising health care costs and workers’ compensation benefits to help injured officers recover and return to work.

Sacramento’s Police Department budget for 2026-27 was more than $253 million, about $3 million less than the previous fiscal year but nearly double its budget a decade earlier.

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The agreement comes before the council as the city faces a projected $72.3 million budget shortfall in the 2027-28 fiscal year, according to a city staff report.

City negotiators and the Sacramento Police Officers Association reached a tentative agreement ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. The previous memorandum of understanding, covering 2025-26, expired in April, prompting months of negotiations during which union leaders accused the city of delaying a new contract.

Tensions escalated in August when the union, which represents rank-and-file officers, sergeants, dispatchers, community service officers and city park rangers, submitted its “last, best, and, final” offer to city negotiators, saying “the time for delay is over.”

“Our members will not wait indefinitely while the city continues to delay and refuses to meaningfully address the recruitment, retention, and compensation crisis facing the Sacramento Police Department,” SPOA leaders wrote in August.

Sacramento City Manager Maraskeshia Smith said at the time that the city was negotiating in good faith and “balancing the needs of our employees with our responsibility to be good stewards of public resources and our continued commitment to providing essential services to the community.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2026 at 12:24 PM with the headline “Sacramento police could get 11% raises under new contract. What would it cost?.”