City administration attempted to give Columbus police officers a pay raise for the coming fiscal year and may consider a millage increase to support 2017-18, Chief Operations Officer David Armstrong revealed Thursday.
Armstrong talked about the attempt during the police overview committee’s second meeting at the municipal complex. He said both he and Mayor Robert Smith wanted to give officers a raise, but it wasn’t financially feasible for fiscal year 2016-17, which begins Oct. 1.
“We looked at every which way we could do it, but we just couldn’t make it work financially this year,” Armstrong said. “I can tell you he’s committed to doing that.”
The talk arose as committee members discussed CPD’s patrol numbers. During the discussion, Lt. Donnie Elkin told the committee CPD has four patrol shifts, two with six officers and two with seven. He said the department is supposed to have 12 officers on patrol each shift.
The issue is compounded by CPD’s ongoing recruitment struggles. The department has 51 officers, but is budgeted for up to 77. Armstrong said increasing pay should help attract new officers.
However, he said that’s going to be difficult for the city to do without some sort of millage increase. He noted that for most people, the difference in a one-mill increase would be less than $50 a year.
“Nobody likes to hear about raising millage,” Armstrong said. “We have got to raise millage. We are in a no-growth economy. It’s just the fact. We don’t have tax base moving in, and the sad reality is there’s not a whole lot you can do other than raise the tax. We have to have taxes to make our local services work — police fire, public works, whatever. I’m hoping the mayor and council will look at that real hard next fiscal year.
“We’re not going to attract quality people without paying them,” he added. “That’s just the reality of it.”
Starting annual pay is $31,915 for a non-certified CPD officer. Once an officer completes academy training and becomes certified, minimum pay is $35,700.
To illustrate the difficulties with attracting new officers, Armstrong said the city advertised in the Delta earlier in the year.
“We did not get one single application,” he said. “Not one single one, and we ran this ad a good bit.”
CPD Capt. Brent Swan, who sat in for Chief Oscar Lewis at the meeting, said it’s not unfathomable that job duties could push the six or seven officers on a shift down to two or three.
“If you’ve got one call, sometimes it takes two or three officers to tie it up,” he said. “If you’ve got one or two people doing reports and two officers on the call, it’s pretty simple math to realize you’ve got one or two people actual patrolling.
“But these guys, they come in and make it work,” Swan added. “If there’s four or five who show up, they make it work.”
During the meeting, Ward 4 Council Marty Turner suggested the city could use the extra money from the officers CPD does not currently have employed to pay current officers more.
Armstrong said it wasn’t likely.
“What’s happened is that we’re having to transfer that deficit salary money into overtime, because with the lack of officers, they’re having to make up and work and work … it’s really eating into that overtime that is coming from that,” he said. “That’s kind of what’s been going on this past fiscal year. We kind of look for that to happen next fiscal year, too.”
Officer honored
The committee opened its meeting by honoring CPD officer Drew McCain for helping a civilian during the summer.
On July 29, McCain stopped to help a stranded female motorist with a flat tire near Love’s Truck Stop. A passerby saw the incident and took a picture that has since been viewed thousands of times on social media, with more than 500 likes or positive comments.
McCain has served with CPD for three years. He said he responded to a stranded motorist call and just wanted to help the woman.
“I got there and she was sitting on the side of the road,” McCain said. “She didn’t have any way to change the tire by herself because she only had two small kids in the car and her mother. … I told her I’d help her out so she wouldn’t have to call a wrecker — something I’ve done a couple of times for other people.”
The committee awarded McCain a certificate of appreciation and a Harvey’s gift card for the act. Swan awarded McCain a chief’s coin for his service.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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