Mayor’s budget will include pay hike for new police officers

If a police pay reform included in Mayor Teresa Tomlinson’s fiscal 2017 budget is approved, starting pay for new police officers would top $40,000 a year for the first time in Columbus.

Not only would the pay hike help attract new officers, but it could help the department entice young officers away from other cities, Tomlinson and Police Chief Ricky Boren said.

“We have come up with a way to enhance police officer pay in a way to allow us to be more competitive for these entry-level positions and retaining folks who we’ve trained at a high cost to taxpayers,” the mayor said at Tuesday’s Columbus Council meeting.

The plan involves taking 16 of the 100 new officer positions funded by the 2008 Other Local Option Sales Tax and, while keeping them in the department, unfunding them permanently and using that money to fund the pay hikes.

“It is budget-neutral. It uses funds this council has already budgeted to the police department,” Tomlinson said. “This does not require the transfer of money into the police department.”

Currently, there are four tiers of starting pay for police officers. Those with no college degree make about $38,900, which increases to $39,750 with an associate degree, $41,000 with a bachelor’s and $42,250 with a master’s. Under the proposed plan, those with no degree would make $40,600, which would rise to $41,500 with an associate degree, $42,700 with a bachelor’s and $44,000 with a master’s.

The pay plan was crafted by a group of the city’s top administrators, including Boren.

Boren said the plan could help with the always arduous task of recruiting new officers and hopefully help with officer retention, too.

“We are getting into dire straits when it comes to hiring police officers. It’s getting harder and harder to hire young officers and to retain them with what we pay,” the police chief said. “I think that this will make us competitive with other departments around the state, if not slightly above most. And hopefully we can do, as the mayor said, what I refer to as head-hunting, going out into other department and looking for officers who are already POST certified.”

The police department has recently lost more than 40 officers to other cities, different lines of work and a variety of things and it is getting harder and harder to keep replacing them, Boren said.

“I feel like at $40,000 a year at the door, up to about $44,000 depending on education, I think we can turn that around,” he said. “And we’re doing it solely with money that’s within the department.”

Boren said he didn’t particularly like the idea about dipping into the 100 new police officers promised in the 2008 OLOST campaign, but he sees no other way to attract young officers while staying within his existing budget. And should the plan be successful that he can hire the full 84 officers that would be funded, he will be back at council to ask for more money to hire the full 100.

“I promise you, and I promise the citizens that if we can get back up to where we’re supposed to be, I will be back before council and will be asking you to fund those 16 positions,” Boren said.

Budget debate

Tuesday’s presentation was a preview of part of Tomlinson’s fiscal 2017 budget, which council will receive and start debating on April 26.

Last year, the city instituted a police pay reform plan aimed at improving retention of officers, more so than attracting them. It offers automatic pay increases over an officer’s professional lifetime.

Under the plan, after three years of service, officers receive an automatic $1,000 a year raise. After five years, it’s an automatic $1,300 a year raise. Subsequently, officers would receive automatic $1,500 pay raises every five years through their 30^th year on the force.

In total, an officer who works 30 years would get raises totaling $9,800, over and above any cost-of-living increases or other pay adjustments the city might offer.

Like the current pay proposal, it applies only to the Columbus Police Department and not to other public safety departments.

Apparently, word of the proposal that was about to be presented to council got around the law enforcement community. Prior to the administration’s presentation Tuesday night, 15-20 uniformed sheriff’s deputies came before council during the public agenda, which precedes the city manager’s agenda, where the proposal was slated.

Their spokesman, Deputy Louie Abney, said they did not object to the police department getting a raise; in fact, they support it. But he voiced concern that it does apply across the board to other public safety departments.

“There’s no doubt that all the officers in the Columbus Police Department deserve a pay raise and we fully and whole-heatedly support them,” Abney said. “But we’re being told again, for the second time, that a pay increase for public safety is not for all of you, but just for some of you. You can imagine what that does for morale.”

Tomlinson responded by saying last year’s plan does not involve increasing the police department’s budget, but by reallocating funds already in the budget. Last year’s pay plan was funded by eliminating ”gap time,” a form of overtime, and devoting that savings to the plan. The current proposal would be funded in much the same way.

The mayor also suggested that the deputies address their concerns to Muscogee County Sheriff John Darr, who has sole province over his budget, as a constitutional officer. He could craft a similar policy within his budget, she said.

“Have you had the opportunity to speak to Sheriff Darr about your concerns, because I notice that he’s not here this evening,” Tomlinson said. “The reason why it is so important to speak with him is, as you mentioned, he does have the discretion to spend his budget.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Mayor’s budget will include pay hike for new police officers."