Ellie Park, Senior Photographer

After more than two years of fraught negotiations, a new contract between the University and Yale Police Department union seems to be on the horizon.

The Yale Police Benevolent Association, or YPBA, has been pursuing collective bargaining action for a new contract with Yale since February 2023. In June, relations between the union and the University hit a new low after all 51 union members voted to authorize a strike in response to Yale negotiators’ refusal to schedule additional negotiation sessions. No strike has occurred.

Just three months later, the circumstances are vastly different.

“We’re close,” YPBA President Mike Hall said in a phone interview on Thursday. “There are still a few issues that need to be ironed out. I’m confident that the University and the YPBA can work these out together and resolve our issues and get this contract.”

Hall declined to describe the outstanding issues.

Joe Sarno, Yale’s head of union management relations, wrote in a statement to the News on Thursday that the University’s negotiations with the police union were ongoing.

“We have not reached an agreement yet but hope to have one soon,” Sarno wrote.

Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Head of Public Safety Duane Lovello said he was as “anxious to move this forward as anyone else.”

Under the current contract extension — which was instituted after the last contract expired in June 2023 — the union was prohibited from striking while the agreement remained in effect.

Instead, over the past two years, the YPBA has capitalized on highly visible events to stir community support for its demands. During Bulldog Days in the spring, more than 30 union members gathered outside the Schwarzman Center to hand out leaflets encouraging students and parents to support a fair contract for “the people protecting you.”

However, as first years arrived on campus for move-in on Aug. 17 — and upperclassmen returned only a few days later — the YPBA was noticeably silent, after two consecutive years of applying public pressure on Yale during move-in days.

Hall explained the organization’s silence as the outcome of “significant progress” made over the summer in negotiations between the union and the University.

“We didn’t think it was necessary to do anything on freshmen arrival,” Hall said.

In November 2024, University negotiators had presented their “Last, Best and Final Offer” to the union. The union promptly rejected the offer, which did not meet its demands for long-term disability benefits for officers injured in the line of duty, wage adjustments and enhanced due process protections.

Hall previously told the News that the union provided a counterproposal a month later and Yale refused to respond.

It is unclear whether the University has agreed to meet any of the counterproposal’s demands over the summer negotiations.

Last spring, Officer Richard Simons, the caretaker of the Yale Public Safety service dog Heidi, had expressed his hope to retire with Heidi once the new contract came into effect.

Simons told the News this week that he is confident he will be able to retire by the end of the month.

Simons’ and Heidi’s retirement party is currently scheduled for Sept. 22.

The last YPD contract was ratified in 2018 and expired in June 2023.