By Erica C. Barnett

Many city of Seattle employees were startled to learn on Monday that the city won’t cut checks for their retroactive annual wage increases in 2023 and 2024 right away, as the city has in the past, but will wait until at least October—a minimum of six months after the mayor and city council finally signed off on wage increases for more than 10,000 city workers last month.

Emails went out to employees in departments across the city on Monday informing them about the protracted wait, which HR staffers suggested is somehow related to the implementation of a new payroll system called Workday later this year.

“The retroactive pay for 2023 and 2024 [wage increases] will be handled through Workday, with an estimated payout scheduled in October,” one such email says. “We will provide a more precise date for the retro payment as we get more information, following the launch of Workday in July.”

“It’s completely unreasonable,” PROTEC17 director Karen Estevenin, whose union represents more than 6,000 city workers, said. “City workers have been waiting too long already for these wages. We are hopeful to work with the City to speed this timeline up.”

“What’s fascinating to me is that they don’t explain why the transition would be a barrier,” one employee told PubliCola, “especially since the launch isn’t until July. It feels like we’re being told (whether we like it or not) that we’re giving our employers an interest free loan for six months.”

Contract negotiations have been contentious; Mayor Bruce Harrell initially offered city employees a sub-inflationary “cost of living adjustment” of just 1 percent before agreeing to a 5 percent retroactive increase for 2023 and a 4.5 percent increase for 2024, with future cost of living adjustments pegged to inflation and capped at 4 and 5 percent for 2025 and 2026, respectively.

The Seattle Police Department, whose tentative contract includes a three-year retroactive pay increase of 23 percent, is also moving its payroll to Workday, SPD confirmed. It’s unclear whether their checks for retroactive pay, like other city workers’, will be delayed until the fall.