Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced Monday a new, year-long contract agreement with the Boston Police Departments largest union which will require patrol officers to wear name tags, overhaul the performance evaluation process for patrol officers and give all officers a 2% pay increase.
Wu called the name tag provision a step towards “building trust and transparency and accountability,” and contrasted it against federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who, under the Trump administration, obscure their identities with masks as they seize individuals suspected of being in the country without legal status.
“Our officers take an oath to protect our residents,” said the mayor at a press conference. “They call our city home and don’t build trust with our community by hiding.”
The Wu administration said in the past only officers with the Superior Officers Federation, a union for officers higher up in the police heirarchy, regularly wore name tags. The change means officers who are unionized with the Boston Police Patrolman’s Association, about 70% of the BPD, will now display their names as they patrol Boston streets.
“Real public safety requires transparency. And knowing someone’s name makes a difference,” Wu said. “It means that when you’re in crisis, you won’t be facing down a stranger behind a uniform. You’re speaking to a person, a neighbor, a fellow member of our community.”
The new contract also includes an agreement for the city to fund gyms at each district station, the department headquarters and the Boston Police Academy, and a provision for officers to workout for a half-hour each shift pending staff availability and supervisory approval.
Additionally, the new contract rearranges some unspecified aspects of patrol officers’ performance evaluation process. Wu described the change as overhauling the officer evaluation system “to assess more areas of performance regularly.”
Cox hinted that details of the new evaluation provision are forthcoming and said the changes are a key part of BPD’s pursuit of national accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, or CALEA.
According to CALEA’s latest annual report, only three Massachusetts municipalities – Danvers, Fall River and Haverhill – plus Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst police departments are accredited by the professional standards group.
“Part of the accreditation process is you need to be able to evaluate your personnel, and so, we’re in the processes of formalizing that mechanism to make sure that that process gets completed…and when we complete that, we will have another announcement to talk [about it] a little bit more,” said Cox declining to specify how the evaluation process will change under the new contract.
Under the agreement, all police officers will receive a 2% pay increase for the period from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 with an estimated cost of $6.7 million. The new agreement also expands officers’ designated summer vacation window, giving them additional time to schedule their two-week vacation.
