Columbus to give roughly $10M in bonuses to public safety employees. Here’s what to know
Columbus Council approved a resolution Tuesday to spend an estimated $10 million for temporary sign-on and retention bonuses for officers with the police department, the sheriff’s department, the Muscogee County Prison, and the city’s fire and EMS operations.
The bonuses are for sworn personnel and retroactive to Oct. 1. They will end Dec. 31, 2022, or after the city’s pay study examining the salaries of all government positions is complete and a new city pay plan is enacted.
Under the resolution, newly-hired officers with the Columbus Police Department, the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office and the Muscogee County Prison will see their sign-on bonus increase to $5,000.
The bonus will be paid over the course of the year. Half will be paid once the officer completes the academy, which usually takes six months. The other half will be given when the officer completes their training at the end of their first year. The city expects to give $635,000 in sign-on bonuses based on hiring trends for the last five years.
New and current Columbus police officers, 911 communications technicians, county prison officers, sheriff’s officers and fire/EMS personnel will all receive a $1,500 retention bonus every three months. The city expects to spend nearly $9.5 million in retention bonuses.
Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson called the bonuses a “bridge” to help out the city’s understaffed public safety departments. The goal is to retain employees and remain competitive with what other governments offer.
The bonuses come as violent crime rises in the city. As of Tuesday, 68 homicides have occurred in Muscogee County this year.
“There’s (been) a pandemic throughout this nation with regards to violent crime. And it has hit in Georgia, and it has hit hard here in Columbus, Georgia,” he said. “This is a bridge to get us from where we are right now to the implementation of that pay study once it’s completed. We focused on our most critical need — public safety.”
Where’s the funding coming from? And what’s next?
Much of the bonus money will come from the salaries of unfilled positions, said Angelica Alexander, the city’s finance director. The remaining amount will come from fund balance reserves.
Sheriff Greg Countryman told the Ledger-Enquirer that he estimates his department has 50 unfilled positions. These include deputies, corrections officers, bailiffs and others.
City officials did not say how many positions in the police department are unfilled. Henderson did not respond to a request for comment before publication. City manager Isaiah Hugley was unable to provide an exact figure. Attempts to contact Reather Hollowell, the city’s human resources director, were unsuccessful. This story will be updated when a response is received.
“Due to the really low numbers in the officers that we have in our various public safety departments, salary savings will cover most of the cost of this,” Alexander said. “We do have some (departments) that don’t necessarily have as bad recruitment issues as other public safety departments. Those departments would likely utilize fund balance reserves.”
The first payments are expected to come next month, Hugley told the Ledger-Enquirer.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 4:58 PM.