So I'll complain to having been initially confused by the complaints of David Addison and the nearly 200 Durham P.D. officers and residents who showed up at a more-pay rally on Wednesday night.
In case you missed it, the H-S reported:
Police say pay disparities compared to surrounding police departments, the length of time it takes to reach maximum pay and inequities built into the system that allow some newcomers to earn higher pay than more veteran colleagues is a toxic combination.
"Morale has definitely suffered," [Police Benevolent Assn. president] Addison said.Worse, City Council raised taxes this year with the promise that part of the new money would address some of the pay issues, Addison said.
"They unfortunately did not fix that problem," he said.
The complaints come just a few months after the City Council raised police salaries by an across-the-board pay increase for Durham public safety positions that, at the time, was claimed to average $4,340 per officer in a year when only half of City employees received raises.
So: what happened? The jury's out on the details, and we're still trying to pull the details together.
But bottom line: Durham's HR department appears to have pushed out a program that focuses on top pay for the first rank of front-line employees in a way that could surpass more senior members. Meanwhile, other City staff face the reality of different priorities for public safety employees versus line staff.
And it promises to become Tom Bonfield's first real dust-up as city manager.
This issue stems from an HR/pay consulting report delivered by The Waters Group this summer, before the arrival of Bonfield in the City's top office.
The report apparently called for an eight-figure increase in the City's spending on payroll -- we've heard $11 million, we've heard $15 million. Reportedly presented to City Council this summer, the city made tough choices to whittle market-based pay raises into a tough economic year.
At the same time, The Waters Group was working off (reportedly) two benchmarks for public employees: looking at 22 peer municipalities, their salary targets aimed to bring fire and police staff into the top one-third of that comparison group, while trying to bring other city employees to the mid-point.
As this particularly meaty report worked its way through the sausage grinder of the City's HR machinery, we at BCR understand that entry-level fire and police officers ended up with salary increases of as much as 25% in some cases over last year's numbers.
Which is an important step in resolving Durham's issue of attracting top candidates to become fire fighters and patrol officers.
Yet the raise amounts squeezed into this cycle were much lower for second-step frontline officers -- the slightly-more-senior positions like corporals and fire technicians, who provide leadership but who aren't formally managers.
In some cases, according to those agitating for a fix to the issue, more-experienced fire techs and corporals could end up making less than more junior firefighters and patrol officers. (At least some of whom have said, not necessarily so much in jest, can we move back to a position with less responsibility and get more money?)
Adding fire to the matter: according to our reporter, Durham's HR department made its recommendations this summer and send them to department directors in the police and fire department -- but asked those heads to keep the matter confidential. Public safety officers at least reportedly first learned about the program in mid-September -- just a couple of weeks before it went into effect, and without much chance for feedback.
Which explains the seemingly out-of-the-blue appearance of this issue on the radar screen, and the anger of police and fire officials.
Meanwhile, an anonymous poster calling himself a City employee made the case on PAC listservs yesterday that City staff, too, deserve the City Council's attention for fair pay:
It's well-known that City employees only receive raises of 2%-6% per year; what's in question for Police personnel is whether they're properly classified in comparison to officers in other municipalities. Personally, while I believe anonymity is necessary to retain my job, I'll share that people in my job title are in a pay band grossly below not only our value in the marketplace, but far below folks in similar jobs in our own Department of the City. We had hoped this inequity would be solved by the Waters Group report, but again, those recommendations haven't been shared with us yet, and in any case, we've been told that Council was not able to implement their recommendations due to Budget constraints and the extraordinary effort being made to raise the Pay Bands of certain positions, especially in the Police Department.
There are MANY of us that serve the citizens of Durham faithfully, yet are grossly underpaid. The City Departmental environment suffers greatly from a perceived lack of respect from the City Administration. I believe that idea is misdirected.
We might get a clue on Monday night, when police officers are planning to march as a group to City Hall:
"We want to occupy every seat that they have" so that no other citizens with business before the council could be heard without the police getting elected officials' attention first, Addison said.
This episode marks the most significant that Bonfield has faced in his new tenure as City Manager. Seeing how he solves a thorny labor issue will say a great deal about how the calm, seasoned manager -- who has impressed many with his demeanor in his first months -- handles a real challenge.
Wow. How could the City HR dept have screwed this up so badly? Anyone not named Sarah Palin could see that paying new, junior-grade employees more than experienced, higher-grade employees would breed serious resentment in the ranks.
The one thing you don't want to do is give experienced staff an incentive to leave - especially ones who put their lives on the line as a part of their job. If true, this is just crazy. TomBon has a nice little hornet's nest on his hands now.
Posted by: Todd | October 03, 2008 at 10:44 AM