State Police Colonel’s Authority to Mandate Overtime Is Non-Delegable: Department of State Police v. State Police Association of Massachusetts (AC 25-P-321, October 13, 2026)

The colonel of the Massachusetts State Police ordered troopers to work overtime on the Fourth of July in 2022. The union sued to arbitrate a grievance, relying on a twenty-three-year-old side letter that said Independence Day would not, by itself, trigger the colonel’s emergency staffing powers. The Appeals Court held that the colonel’s authority to mandate extra hours for public safety is a nondelegable statutory function. Arbitration stayed.

The Side Letter

In 1999, the department and union negotiated a side letter that purported to carve out two holidays from the colonel’s emergency authority. The side letter stated that “Marathon Monday/Patriot’s Day and 4th of July holidays, in and of themselves, will not be considered public emergencies, or unusual demands for services, or a need in the public interest.” It further provided that the side letter “shall be subject to the grievance/arbitration provisions of the Employer/Association collective bargaining agreement.”

But beginning in 2013, the colonel issued annual memoranda requiring troopers to work overtime for the July Fourth celebration on Boston’s Esplanade and denying leave requests from July 3 through July 5. The memoranda stated that the order was necessary “to ensure that the Department is at full operational readiness for July 4th.” On May 10, 2022, the colonel issued the same directive for that year’s Independence Day.

The Grievance

On July 25, 2022, the union filed a grievance alleging that the department violated the 1999 side letter by requiring members to work additional hours and prohibiting time off on the holiday. Arbitration was scheduled for February 6, 2024. On September 28, 2023, the department filed suit in Superior Court to stay the arbitration, arguing that the union’s attempt to arbitrate the colonel’s staffing order interfered with nondelegable statutory authority.

The department moved for judgment on the pleadings in July 2024. After a hearing, Judge Robert L. Ullmann granted the motion and permanently stayed arbitration. He concluded that § 18 grants the colonel nondelegable authority “to perform the narrow and important public safety function of ensuring that there are enough Department members to handle large crowds at events and other gatherings.”

The Statutory Framework

General Laws c. 22C, § 3 makes the colonel the “executive and administrative head of the department” with “charge of the administration and organization thereof.” Section 18 authorizes the colonel to “require such members to work additional hours of duty and prevent such members from taking time off” in the event of a public emergency, unusual demand for services, or whenever the colonel “deems it in the public interest.”

General Laws c. 150E protects public employees’ collective bargaining rights. But the SJC has recognized a “tension” between those rights and the Legislature’s intent to give public employers nondelegable managerial responsibilities. The nondelegability doctrine reserves certain personnel matters to the employer’s sole discretion when public policy requires it “in order to preserve accountability to the public in the performance of the essential functions of government.”

What the Court Held

The panel concluded that § 18 grants core managerial authority that implicates public safety and is therefore nondelegable. The court analogized to its decision in Andover v. Andover Police Patrolmen’s Union, 45 Mass. App. Ct. 167 (1998), which held that a police chief’s statutory authority to order mandatory overtime on Independence Day was a core managerial function and thus nondelegable under G.L. c. 41, § 97A.

The union argued that § 18 would have to specify “in no uncertain terms that the Colonel can force Association members to work on the Fourth of July” to be nondelegable. The court disagreed. The nondelegability doctrine “does not require such statutory specificity but instead applies to statutory grants, including those that are broadly worded, concerning authority core to the employer’s mandate.” By not enumerating every permissible decision the colonel could make in the “public interest,” the Legislature left those decisions to the colonel.

The union also argued that an arbitrator should determine whether the colonel met the burden of showing that the May 10, 2022, memorandum was supported by an unusual demand for services. The court held that this argument was “foreclosed by the Legislature’s broad and explicit grant of authority to the colonel.”

The Side Letter Cannot Override the Statute

The court held that the colonel cannot relinquish authority granted under § 18 through collective bargaining. “A nondelegable authority may not be delegated to an arbitrator, even with the parties’ consent,” the SJC held in Boston Police Superior Officers Fed’n, 466 Mass. at 216. The fact that the department agreed to arbitrate the grievance in 1999 is “of no legal consequence if the issue is beyond the authority of the arbitrator.”

The court rejected the union’s argument that there was no conflict between the side letter and § 18. The side letter compromises the colonel’s “freedom to perform [his] public functions.” Where a statute not enumerated in G.L. c. 150E, § 7(d) authorizes a public employer to perform specific functions, the employer’s statutory authority cannot be undermined by a CBA or subjected to arbitration.

The court also noted that the public interest in allowing the colonel to pursue the State Police mandate by enforcing § 18 overrides any equitable considerations arising from the colonel unilaterally revoking the side letter agreement. “Generally, the principles of estoppel are not applicable against the government in connection with its exercise of public duties, particularly when the government is acting in the public interest and safety.”

Why It Matters

The decision reinforces the boundary between collective bargaining rights and nondelegable managerial authority in the public sector. A public employer cannot bargain away statutory powers that are core to its public safety mission, even with the union’s consent and even if the parties have acted under a contrary agreement for decades.

For law enforcement agencies, the ruling confirms that staffing decisions tied to public safety remain within management’s exclusive province. The decision also clarifies that broadly worded statutory grants of authority, like the power to act “whenever [the colonel] deems it in the public interest,” need not specify particular holidays or events to qualify as nondelegable.

Labor practitioners should note that the court stayed arbitration permanently at the pleading stage. Once a managerial decision is determined to implicate nondelegable authority, no arbitration record is necessary. The legal question is resolved as a matter of law.

Read the full opinion: Department of State Police v. State Police Association of Massachusetts (AC-25-P-321, October 13, 2026).