(The Center Square) – There is no telling how long it could take for Seattle to recover $13.1 million in overpayments to hundreds of police officers, Mayor Katie Wilson’s office said Monday, or if it can at all.
The city overpaid about 900 members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild in June when it distributed a one-time 6% retroactive raise for 2024 under the union’s new contract. The costly misstep amounted to about $14,600 per affected employee, which has already been taxed, making recovery complicated.
Wilson’s office told reporters earlier this month that they had issued the pay adjustment using 2020’s base salary rather than 2024. As a result, the Seattle Police Department exceeded its 2026 budget authority by $13.1 million, which Wilson has proposed addressing with a supplemental budget ordinance.
“There will be no effect on the City’s long-term finances, if the funds are recovered,” Alex Hudson, the mayor’s interim press secretary, wrote in a statement on Monday to The Center Square. “In the short-term, it meant that $13.1 million of General Fund was not available to support the 2027-2028 Proposed Budget.”
The Seattle City Council’s staff told councilmembers on Thursday that the budget does not assume repayment.
The issue came to light shortly after Wilson proposed a plan to close a $175 million general fund gap, though local reporting shows the city discovered the error in mid-July. Hudson said this was a one-time thing, and that recovering the money requires bargaining with the guild under state law.
She declined to comment on the status of the negotiations and could not provide a definitive timeline.
SPOG President Kent Loux told The Center Square that it’s still too early to tell how it will all play out.
“The guild’s stance is we’re not looking to keep money that we’re not owed,” Loux said in an interview.
He said SPOG members have dealt with salary issues for more than two years because of the city’s “horrific payroll system,” arguing his officers still find underpayments from prior pay cycles to this day.
When asked whether SPOG thinks its members are entitled to the $13 million overpayment in return for years of payroll discrepancies, Loux said: “The answer is we don’t know.” He understands the city’s position, but said the administration hasn’t addressed what SPOG believes are “underpayments.”
“Let’s have the full conversation,” he said. “Let’s figure out the math [and] figure out what’s accurate.”
Another factor is that the government had already deducted taxes from the retroactive overpayments.
Loux said that money is already in the hands of the federal government, so even if every member who received an overpayment put all of it in savings, they still wouldn’t have the full amount to repay Seattle.
“This is just negotiation,” Loux said. “We’ll figure this out. What we want is just an accurate number.”