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City Council Authorizes Higher Pay for Police Officers and Corporals

Published on Friday, June 12, 2015 | 5:45 am
 
Members of the Pasadena Police Officer's Association demonstrated for higher compensation and appealed directly to the Pasadena City Council on March 30, 2015.

Nine weeks after a group of 150 Pasadena police and their families demonstrated at City Hall and told the City Council the department was underpaid, understaffed and facing an “imminent” crisis as experienced personnel left for better-paying jobs in other cities, the Council has reached a new compensation agreement with officers and corporals.

The Memorandum of Understanding with the  Pasadena Police Officers’ Association raises pay and provides additional annual compensation adjustments and offers incentives designed to attract experienced officers from other police departments to transfer to Pasadena.

The agreement does not cover police sergeants or lieutenants. Negotiations are continuing with the Pasadena Police Sergeants Association.

Key among a nine pay package points covered in the agreement are additional qualification “steps” which may be earned by officers and corporals that increase their pay.

Effective the pay period that includes July 1, 2015, salaries of police officers at Step 1 will be increased by 8.65°/o. There will be ten additional steps offered with a minimum differential of 2.5°/o.

Effective the pay period that includes July 1, 2015, salaries of the corporals at Step 1 will be increased by 3.5°/o. There will be seven steps with a minimum differential of 2.5°/o.

On July 1, 2016, the new agreement provides for a base pay increase of 2% followed on July 1, 2017 with an increase of 1.5%.

To attract experienced officers outside the city to consider transferring into the Pasadena Police Department, the Council authorized an entirely new benefit that provides these “lateral police officers” three incentive payments of $2,500 upon completion certain service milestones plus an initial bank of forty hours of sick leave upon hire.

The new agreement also modifies police specialty pay, creates alignment to the City’s standard for medical insurance and EOBF allowances, institutes adjustments to holiday pay practices and a reduction of liability associated with holiday leave banks.

The officers’ demonstration in March for higher pay and benefits came after months of heightened police activity with respite.

Starting late last year and continuing for months, increased gang tensions resulted in several murders and almost weekly “shots fired” service calls. The department mounted an aggressive, overtime intense Violence Reduction Task Force operation which produced results but placed additional strain on an understaffed department.

In March hearings related to the release of an auditor’s report reviewing historical Pasadena Police Detective operations, Police Chief Sanchez revealed the Department was operating with significantly fewer officers than budgeted.

Sanchez later indicated that the Department was having difficulty retaining veterans, recruiting new applicants and attracting experienced officers from other departments (so-called lateral transfers). In all, the department was operating with a “dangerously low” complement of only 219 officers on a budget which called for 240.

In recent weeks, however, the Department has announced a total of seven new recruits have been retained who will start training in early July.

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