Salary notebook: Bloomington police officers, firefighters up for big increases in 2025
Bloomington police officers and firefighters are set to receive significant pay increases in 2025 compared to what they earned in 2024.
Appearing on the city council’s Oct. 30 meeting agenda is the salary ordinance for police and firefighters, which will put the legislative body’s stamp of approval on the collective bargaining contracts that have already been ratified by the police and fire unions.
For their base salary, Bloomington firefighters are looking at a 35-percent increase in 2025 compared to 2024—from $57,969 to $78,503. Under the terms of the new agreement, which runs just two years, in 2026 they’ll receive another 6-percent bump from the 2025 figure, to $83,503.
The collective bargaining agreement with firefighters that ends this year was a four-year agreement.
By way of comparison, the base salary for a firefighter working for the Monroe Fire Protection District in 2024 is $66,200, with a 10-percent increase in 2025 to $72,820, according to MFPD human resources.
For Bloomington police officers, it’s also a new two-year agreement, but stems from a re-opening of the existing four-year deal, which was ratified for 2023 through 2026.
Under the four-year deal, an Officer 1st Class was slated to get just a 2.9 percent increase between 2024 and 2025—from $68,184 to $70,161.
But under the terms of the revised agreement, in 2025 an Officer 1st Class will receive $82,161, which is a 20.5-percent increase over the salary for 2024. In 2026, an Officer 1st Class will receive another 3-percent above the 2025 amount, to bring the salary to $84,626.
In a June 18 letter to Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson, the city council commented on its desired attributes for the 2025 budget, which included fire and police salaries specifically: “Identify and fund strategies to address hiring and retention challenges with police, fire, and central dispatch. This may include increasing salaries through established collective bargaining processes with the relevant unions.”
At the city council’s Aug. 29 budget hearing, deputy mayor Gretchen Knapp described the collective bargaining sessions with the firefighter’s union as “a positive negotiation in four sessions,” saying that the contract was out for a vote by the union membership.
At the council’s Sept. 4 meeting, Wes Martin, who is a member of The Bloomington Metropolitan
International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 586, told the city council that the union had voted unanimously to approve the contract. Martin said, “As far as I know, that’s the first time, at least in recent memory, that we’ve passed a contract unanimously on the first vote.”
Also at the Aug. 29 budget hearing, Knapp told councilmembers that the administration was hoping to reopen the contract with police. That contract has now been ratified by the police union membership.
The Bloomington police union is the Don Owens Memorial Lodge 88, Fraternal Order Of Police, Inc. Responding to a B Square question, union president Paul Post described the negotiations with the deputy mayor as “low key.”
According to the memo to the city council from Bloomington HR director Sharr Pechac, the salary increases for police officers and and fire fighters will be partially funding by eliminating a $500 payment in 2024 that was given to the fire captains, chauffeurs, first class firefighters, and probationary firefighters, as well as to the police chief, deputy chief, captains, lieutenants, and probationary officers.
Also being removed from the fire and police compensation picture are recruitment incentives for newly hired firefighters, and retention pay that was given to active first class firefighters in 2024. Also eliminated is the longevity retention pay. According to Pechac’s memo, “All of these additional payments are being retired by the new administration to permanently increase the base salary of fire and police personnel.”
