STARKVILLE — Police Chief Mark Ballard said the city’s starting salaries for police officers is approximately $15,000 less than cities similar in size to Starkville.
All across the country, law enforcement agencies have struggled to retain police officers, with Starkville being no exception.
Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn expressed concern at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled board of aldermen meeting regarding city police officers continuously leaving the department for other agencies or jobs, saying he does not know if the city will ever be fully staffed if it cannot maintain officers.
“They’re doing a great job keeping the place safe for us in a college town, and we just constantly hear about losing police officers,” Vaughn said. “That’s very concerning to me because I’m hearing some negative things out there.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill said this issue was already at the forefront of her agenda for the upcoming budget year. Across the state, people are paying officers more than they ever have, she said, saying if Starkville wants to be competitive, it may need to increase taxes.
“If we dedicate another mill to the police, I think that is not beyond consideration for us because aside from that, I don’t know how you pay them in a sustaining way,” Spruill said.
Budget chairwoman Sandra Sistrunk, who represents Ward 2, said Ballard and Human Resources Director Navarrete Ashford are studying other cities similar to Starkville to see their processes for officer pay. She said Starkville needs to become an area where salaries are raised in more than just small increments because some cities pay their officers up to 25-percent more than Starkville does.
“It’s not a small amount,” Sistrunk said. “It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that would get us to where we would need to be.”
While salaries depend on experience level, the starting salary for a new, uncertified officer is $18 per hour, Ashford told The Dispatch.
Aside from pay, Ballard said finding the right people for the department and not having enough individuals applying for jobs has also affected retention.
Starkville has an accredited police department, meaning the officers are the “best of the best,” Spruill said. Ballard said it can be difficult to find officers that have been out of the police academy for some years with the skills desired by the department because these are the officers all agencies across the state try to recruit.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘OK, you’re got people that you don’t know if they are hit or miss out of the academy, so let’s go for senior officers because the (senior) officers recognize the violence that’s out there in all communities,” Ballard said.
Park improvements
The city is taking the next steps to improve its park system.
The board unanimously approved a plan with architecture firm Kimley Horn to finalize a design and construction plan for renovating Needmore/George Evans Park and the first phase of McKee Park.
Kimley Horn presented a preliminary master plan of improvements to all parks throughout the city to the board in December. Spruill said because Cornerstone Park, the city’s new baseball and softball sports complex, will open this summer, McKee Park will not have a need for its baseball fields anymore.
“We need to be in the planning stage to where we can move forward in the next construction season after we dismantle McKee Park,” Spruill said.
In Phase 1 for McKee, the design will include a new pavilion, play areas, a flex lawn and dog park.
Kimley Horn said it plans to completely redo the Needmore Center on Gillespie Street, removing the existing facility and building a new 3,000 square-foot facility. George Evans Park, which Sistrunk said has not had improvements in decades, would have a new parking lot, restroom facility and tree-lined sidewalk in connection to Gillespie Street.
Funds for these improvements will come out from the city’s 2-percent food and beverage tax or potential bonding. Some of the city’s 1-percent tax will be used on McKee Park as well because the original referendum called for these funds to be spent on the Sportsplex and McKee, not just the creation of Cornerstone.
Phase 1 of McKee is estimated to cost $4.7 million, with George Evans being $800,000.
If the two parks are designed concurrently, the design process will take about eight months. The bidding and construction process for Needmore/George Evans Park will be 10-11 months, and McKee Park’s bidding and construction process will take 12-14 months to complete.
“The reason to move forward with McKee is to make it viable when we take things out that are going to be in Cornerstone,” Spruill said. “We need to be ready to replace it with something that makes it a viable park and doesn’t leave it in disrepair.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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