San Bruno police union, city reach tentative contract agreement: City Council will vote on approving the contract at Tuesday meeting 

The vote to accept the contract was unanimous, Ledesma said, and largely achieved their goal of entering the median range of police salaries in the county to retain police. 

“We got roughly the median of where we are in the market,” he said. “It was a give and take — the ultimate goal was to retain personnel.” 

The city declared a negotiations impasse March 3 after members of the police unit rejected a proposed 19% salary increase for sworn staff and a 9% to 22% salary increase for civilian staff over three years. The accepted contract is similar, City Manager Alex McIntyre said, although it repackaged various elements and extended the length of the contract an additional six months.

“It’s good for the city overall to have this behind us,” McIntyre said. “To have a 3 1/2 year contract means we don’t have to deal with this again for quite some time.” 

Like the city’s negotiations with other employee groups, many already accepted, the goal was to get payment into the median salary range to promote employee retention, McIntyre said. San Bruno has yet to reach a contract agreement with midlevel police and fire management. 

“One of our challenges in San Bruno, we have always struggled to pay a market wage. What this contract does is, it really puts us into the market,” he said. “It should create stability.” 

Although creating a more stable workforce was a necessity for the city, it also may exacerbate San Bruno’s upcoming budget woes. The city is planning for a $1.7 million budget deficit for the upcoming 2026-27 fiscal year, a trend that could become more dire in the years beyond. 

McIntyre largely attributed those budgetary concerns to the state government’s financial decisions. That includes a $3.4 million loss from new state restrictions that will prevent casino Artichoke Joe’s from offering blackjack and $8 million in annual losses, plus possible $43 million in repayment, if San Bruno loses rights to sales taxes from Walmart.com, whose e-commerce headquarters are located in the city. 

Although the contract with the police union, which will cost the city $4.07 million over the next 3 1/2 years, isn’t the cause of San Bruno’s financial problems, the city will have to manage its resources wisely going forward, McIntyre said. 

“It’s not because of the contract we find ourselves in this position. It’s a bunch of other factors, starting with the state of California,” he said. 

As far as the police contract itself, Ledesma said he couldn’t speak to what exactly prompted the negotiations finally coming to a conclusion, but acknowledged the outpouring of community support for officers to get what they were asking for. 

“I think anytime a community has a significant outpouring for a cause, especially in a small community, it tends to open up eyes, and say maybe we’re not looking at the big picture,” he said. “I can’t speak to the city, in terms of why they did what they did.” 

The City Council will vote on whether to approve the tentative agreement and authorize McIntyre to execute it at its meeting May 12.