While County officials have enough problems on their hands with their trash program, now our own St. Louis County Police Officers Association is doing battle with County officials and the County Council.
The St. Louis County Police Officers Association is a Chapter of the National Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #15 and has a long tradition of maintaining the highest standards for our police officers in St. Louis County. Unfortunately, St. Louis County Government has created a situation where they are experiencing serious problems in recruiting qualified police recruits and retaining exper1enced officers.
Last year the St. Louis County Police Department lost 67 experienced police officers and civilian employees through resignation or early retirement. Many of these employees felt they had no choice but to leave the County Police Department for careers with competing departments or
other employers offering better pay and lower out of pocket family health insurance costs. Police officers are paying 22.4% of their Gross wages just to provide health insurance for their families. For a dispatcher it's 28.15%. That's roughly 50% of their take home pay gone before paying any bills or putting food on their tables.
Our police officers pay has not kept pace with surrounding police departments, which has left us ranked 33rd of the top 44 police departments in the area. This situation has been brought to the attention of County Executive Charlie Dooley and Chief Operating Officer Garry Earls by the Police Association at several County Council meetings as well as private conferences. Mr. Earls stated he believes the St. Louis County Police is the finest police department in the area and should be ranked somewhere in the top 5 to 10 police departments in pay.
After meeting with Mr. Dooley and Mr. Earls and confirming they were aware of the problem, the Association conducted a study and created a fiscally responsible plan to restructure our pay scale to correct this situation. The plan was designed to slowly scale our officer's pay up to position 10 in the St. Louis area over a three year period. The County's budget was examined and it was determined they could easily cover this plan with a fraction of a new revenue stream created in 2007 by an already established cell phone tax, earmarked for LAW ENFORCEMENT USE.
As of the rapidly approaching end to the first quarter in 2008, Mr. Dooley and Mr. Earls have spent most of this revenue stream on other issues (think "trash") and have continued to disregard the problems within the Police Department.
After cutting merit raises by 40% in 2004 and with out of pocket family insurance costs outpacing any salary increases, many experienced officers were left with no option but to seek other employment. In 2008, the cut in merit raises was corrected but, after 4 years, the damage was already done.
Your St. Louis County Police would like every tax paying citizen and business owner in St. Louis County to contact St. Louis County executive Charlie Dooley and ask him to address this critical situation at your police department. With help from county residents, the St. Louts County Police Department will continue to provide the same excellent police services they have since its inception in 1955.
St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley can be e-mailed at cdooley@stlouisco.com or please address a letter to the County Executive’s attention at 41 South Central Ave., Clayton MO
63105. Please send a copy of your message to: St. Louis County Police Officers Association President, Bob Frohne at: bfrohne@slcpa.org.
The St. Louis County Police Officers Association is a Chapter of the National Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #15 and has a long tradition of maintaining the highest standards for our police officers in St. Louis County. Unfortunately, St. Louis County Government has created a situation where they are experiencing serious problems in recruiting qualified police recruits and retaining exper1enced officers.
Last year the St. Louis County Police Department lost 67 experienced police officers and civilian employees through resignation or early retirement. Many of these employees felt they had no choice but to leave the County Police Department for careers with competing departments or
other employers offering better pay and lower out of pocket family health insurance costs. Police officers are paying 22.4% of their Gross wages just to provide health insurance for their families. For a dispatcher it's 28.15%. That's roughly 50% of their take home pay gone before paying any bills or putting food on their tables.Our police officers pay has not kept pace with surrounding police departments, which has left us ranked 33rd of the top 44 police departments in the area. This situation has been brought to the attention of County Executive Charlie Dooley and Chief Operating Officer Garry Earls by the Police Association at several County Council meetings as well as private conferences. Mr. Earls stated he believes the St. Louis County Police is the finest police department in the area and should be ranked somewhere in the top 5 to 10 police departments in pay.
After meeting with Mr. Dooley and Mr. Earls and confirming they were aware of the problem, the Association conducted a study and created a fiscally responsible plan to restructure our pay scale to correct this situation. The plan was designed to slowly scale our officer's pay up to position 10 in the St. Louis area over a three year period. The County's budget was examined and it was determined they could easily cover this plan with a fraction of a new revenue stream created in 2007 by an already established cell phone tax, earmarked for LAW ENFORCEMENT USE.
As of the rapidly approaching end to the first quarter in 2008, Mr. Dooley and Mr. Earls have spent most of this revenue stream on other issues (think "trash") and have continued to disregard the problems within the Police Department.
After cutting merit raises by 40% in 2004 and with out of pocket family insurance costs outpacing any salary increases, many experienced officers were left with no option but to seek other employment. In 2008, the cut in merit raises was corrected but, after 4 years, the damage was already done.
Your St. Louis County Police would like every tax paying citizen and business owner in St. Louis County to contact St. Louis County executive Charlie Dooley and ask him to address this critical situation at your police department. With help from county residents, the St. Louts County Police Department will continue to provide the same excellent police services they have since its inception in 1955.
St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley can be e-mailed at cdooley@stlouisco.com or please address a letter to the County Executive’s attention at 41 South Central Ave., Clayton MO
63105. Please send a copy of your message to: St. Louis County Police Officers Association President, Bob Frohne at: bfrohne@slcpa.org.
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ReplyDeleteWhat's more important to county residents? Trash or our police department.
ReplyDelete