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As the Seattle City Council green-lit a $50,000 hiring bonus to lure new officers to the Seattle Police Department (SPD), current officers are dealing with a different kind of compensation issue 鈥� they’re not getting paid. This fiasco stems from Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office pushing forward with a new payroll system, despite years of warnings that it couldn鈥檛 handle police payroll. Now, the union representing officers is contemplating legal action while they try to get this mess fixed.

“It’s a <expletive> disaster!” one officer vented to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

The October 4, 2024 paycheck was a mess: many officers got less than half of their expected pay, special event overtime pay vanished and deferred compensation loans 鈥� supposedly paid off 鈥� were still being docked. Meanwhile, city-matching retirement funds aren’t being deposited, leaving officers with less in retirement because they’re not seeing the same returns in their portfolio since it’s without the funds the city was supposed to contribute.

The problem has also gone beyond missing paychecks, causing medical coverage lapses and sparking fears among officers that they might default on loans.

Seattle police want to know: 鈥榃hat鈥檚 up with my paycheck?鈥�

The issues first surfaced with a September paycheck, leading the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) to file a grievance and a Demand to Bargain over deferred compensation. SPOG is also planning a labor action regarding “retro repayment” in the near future.

“It’s a nightmare, this disaster we predicted, sadly, and we told our members, prepare for a catastrophic failure when it comes to pay and your time,” SPOG president Officer Mike Solan explained on “The Jason Rantz Show.”

Was the Seattle Mayor’s Office warned about this payroll disaster?

The city rolled out a new payroll system called Workday in September via the Office of Finance. A spokesperson for the mayor said it was done “because the previous payroll system the city was utilizing was 30 years old and no longer able to meet the needs of our workforce.” But the new system is already proving to be a problem.

According to multiple Seattle Police sources, city staff weren鈥檛 properly trained, and Workday isn鈥檛 equipped to handle the pay complexities of officers working 24-hour shift cycles.

For the last two years, SPD leadership flagged concerns about Workday鈥檚 implementation, warning the Mayor鈥檚 office that it would be a disaster. But those warnings were apparently ignored, and now, unsurprisingly, the mess has unfolded just as predicted.

“The city didn’t listen to leadership of SPD that this isn’t going to work,” a source told “The Jason Rantz Show.” “SPD tried to warn the city that Workday would be a disaster for two years. No one’s stuff transferred over correctly.”

The writing was on the wall

It’s understood these kinds of massive changes can lead to small problems. But SPOG President Officer Mike Solan said he’s not sure why the mayor’s office didn’t heed the warnings of major problems SPD officials predicted.

“It boggles the mind that when your own major department, the police department, is telling the city that, ‘This will not work! Do not do this,’ but they continue to push it … I don’t see where any of that is remotely in the realm of common sense or reasonableness,” he explained.

If the mayor’s office didn’t believe or trust SPD leadership, they could have looked to the Los Angeles Police Department. They similar issues when they migrated to Workday in the summer. The also ran into problems with Workday in January 2023.

It鈥檚 not just Seattle Police pay that is a mess 鈥� leave accruals are incorrect, overtime and holiday rates are wrong, deferred compensation deductions are botched, sick leave is inaccurate and even federal withholdings are off.

It’s more than just Seattle Police pay that’s impacted

The Office of Finance confirmed the entire city has felt the effects of the new payroll system, resulting in an interdepartmental city team helping to navigate the problems as they come up. But it appears, according to sources, SPD has been hit the hardest.

The Seattle Police pay crisis has even left officers unable to add new dependents to their health insurance, leaving newborns and spouses at risk of steep medical bills if an emergency occurs. It does not appear that the problems were the fault of Workday, but of a city that implemented a program that wasn’t built to handle the needs of the SPD.

鈥淯nfortunately, this system was not designed for the complex payroll structures that we have,” interim chief Sue Rahr explained to staff in an email obtained by “The Jason Rantz Show.” “It鈥檚 nothing short of miraculous that our internal team from SPD has been able to get us this far.”

Meanwhile, the mayor’s office is scrambling to downplay the crisis, hoping it doesn鈥檛 turn into a bigger story since they were warned of this inevitable disaster.

“Some of these errors were related to calculations in the system as well as the learning curve associated with changes in data entry for timekeeping,” an Office of Finance spokesperson explained. “When an employee鈥檚 pay needs to be corrected, that correction is reflected in the next pay period.”

However, nearly a dozen officers have contacted “The Jason Rantz Show” to express their frustration, accusing the city of not taking the issue seriously enough.

“It鈥檚 been almost a month and nothing has been rectified or fixed,” a second officer explained.

Nearly every source that discussed this issue, however, made one thing clear: the SPD Human Resources department has been extraordinary. Officers recognize it wasn’t the HR team that created the Seattle Police pay mess.

Fears that the Seattle Police pay crisis is just the tip

The city plans to first address the missing compensation for officers who received less than 50% of their paycheck, with those payments expected to be corrected this week. After that, they’ll work on fixing the next batch of affected officers. However, there’s growing concern that some officers could face loan defaults due to this payroll disaster.

Seattle officers are allowed to take out loans against their deferred compensation for expenses like mortgages. But now, there鈥檚 a real fear they could default on these loans because of the city’s payroll incompetence.

This adds another layer of stress for officers who are already dealing with a system that isn’t working.

“This is the worst attempt at implementation I’ve seen,” a third officer explained to “The Jason Rantz Show.” “Massive failure on the city’s part to listen to leaders of SPD regarding what will or won’t work for the department. Officers aren’t getting paid, paper checks are being printed sometimes a week after payday. Command Staff is tracking entire bureaus by hand to try to correct multiple mistakes for every member of the department.”