Can pay reform help with recruiting, retaining Columbus police officers?

The Columbus Police Department continues to struggle to keep police officers, despite having plenty of money to hire as many as they can.

Over the last five years, the department has had an average of about 243 people a year apply for officer positions. From those, the department hires an average of 47 new officers a year, which would be fine if that were the only part of the equation. But over the last five years, the department has lost an average of 53 officers a year to resignation, retirement, termination and death.

“This is where we’re having our biggest problems within the police department,” Police Chief Ricky Boren told Columbus Council this week. “Keeping our staff, either hiring new individuals or retaining the individuals we already have.”

In 2014, the department had a particularly good year, hiring 59 new officers and losing only 41 to the above causes, leaving it with 18 more employees that year. But in 2015, that trend was reversed. The department hired 49 new officers, slightly above average, but lost a staggering 74 employees, 57 of them to resignation and 13 to retirement, leaving the department down 21 positions.

To aid the struggle to obtain new officers and retain those who are hired, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson included a police pay reform plan in her proposed fiscal 2017 budget. The plan would increase officers’ salaries by about $1,750 a year across the board.

▪ Officers with a high school or equivalent education would increase from $36,890 a year to $38,600.

▪ Officers with an associate degree would increase from $37,740 to $39,490.

▪ Officers with a bachelor’s degree would increase from $38,980 to $40,741.

▪ Officers with a master’s degree would increase from $40,230 to $41,988.

▪ On top of the base salary, new hires get a $2,000 signing bonus, which is paid out in four $500 installments over their first two years.

The broad pay raise would affect all 268 budgeted police officer positions and would cost the city a little over $605,000 a year. But the administration has devised a way to fund the raises from within the department’s existing budget.

As part of the 2009 Other Local Option Sales Tax, the city created 100 new police officer positions with an eye toward adding that many officers on the streets. But the department has yet to be able to fill all of those positions. So the administration is proposing in the fiscal 2017 budget to unfund 16 of those 100 positions and use the savings, about $650,000, to fund the pay hikes.

In addition to the proposed pay hikes, the mayor’s budget includes one-time bonuses for all sworn officers in the police department. Using about $523,000 in salary savings from unfilled positions, Boren is proposing a $1,200 bonus for all sworn officers. At Tuesday’s Budget Review Committee meeting, Deputy City Manager Pam Hodge reported that salary savings are coming in higher than anticipated and the city could afford to increase the one-time bonus to $1,500 per person. Columbus Council will make the final determination if the bonuses are paid at all and at what amount when they finalize the new budget, possible next week or the week after.

In 2014, the city started a program called “Join the Force for Good,” which includes a professionally produced recruitment video and billboards. Boren said he has also contracted with Carmike Cinemas to show the recruiting video before motion pictures in their local theaters, which puts the message in front of about 20,000 viewers a week, he said.

“We’re hoping that will help us with the recruiting process,” Boren said.

This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 6:43 PM with the headline "Can pay reform help with recruiting, retaining Columbus police officers?."