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Commerce proposes police reorganization to fund higher wages by reallocating three patrol positions
Summary
To improve recruitment and pay competitiveness, staff proposed reducing three patrol slots on paper and moving those savings to raise wages across the police department; staff said the change will not reduce on‑the‑ground coverage when accounting for the university police presence.
City staff and police leadership presented a staffing and compensation reorganization aimed at making police wages more competitive in the region. Staff said a market compensation study showed the police department lagged peers and that funding everyone into a new compensation plan required a structural change.
"What chief recommended is reduced by 3 so that you've got a staff patrol and 1 floater," the staff member explained, describing a plan to reallocate the savings from three vacant or hard-to-fill patrol positions into salary increases that move all sworn officers into the new pay plan while preserving separation between experience levels. Staff argued the city’s recruitment improved after the proposal was announced. Council members asked whether the loss of three patrol positions would overburden remaining officers; staff responded that many of those positions had been vacant for a long time and that the department was already operating under those constraints.
