A proposal from Peachtree City Police Chief James Murray would provide significant starting salary increases in an effort to lure more high-quality candidates to the department.

While several City Council members agreed a raise is needed, they balked at the estimated cost of implementing the raise for all patrol-level officers, which would cost in the neighborhood of $1 million. A more likely solution is one that phases in the increases over a span of several years, based on input from several council members at Thursday night’s budget workshop.

Under Murray’s proposal, the city would bump the starting salary for uncertified police officers (whom the city will send to police academy) from $30,942 to $38,000. Certified officers would rise from $32,508 to $39,900, a five percent increase, and a bilingual certified police officer would get an additional 5 percent increase, starting at $41,895.

In addition to the bilingual “bonus,” Murray also proposed the use of incentive pay of 5 percent to officers with associates degrees and 10 percent for those with a bachelors or masters degree.

Murray said while the city has a very good pension plan for officers, many young officers just starting out in police work don’t often look at benefits when they decide where to work. Instead, they look at the bottom line of how much they will be paid in salary, Murray said.

The department is having a hard time finding quality recruits, as evidenced by a recent law enforcement job fair in Gwinnett County where Peachtree City offered the lowest starting salary of all agencies in attendance, Murray said. Peachtree City only got one application back out of the 50 it gave out at the job fair, Murray added.

At a previous meeting, Mayor Harold Logsdon had said he hoped to wait to beef up the city’s public safety departments once the city’s newly annexed West Village subdivisions were well underway, providing more property tax revenue for the city. By Thursday night, he had changed his mind.

“I don’t think we can wait to fix this one,” Logsdon said.

Councilman Steve Boone suggested the increases be made on an incremental basis over several years, and several council members agreed.
“We can’t do one million this year,” said Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford.

In other budget business, council made no firm decision on adding six new firefighters and up to four total police officers to the city’s payroll. The firefighter/paramedic positions would beef up the city’s personnel on each shift from 15 to 17, coming closer to the 19 personnel needed to send two on each apparatus, which is seen as necessary to meet a standard of getting four firemen on the scene of a fire within the first five minutes.

The initial budget proposal from last week included just one police officer, to enhance cart path patrol, and no firefighters. But city staff cut enough from the budget to negate the initially proposed quarter-mill increase.

Council also made no final decision on whether or not to hire several other full-time positions recommended by City Manager Bernie McMullen: a assistant city planner, a city buildings systems supervisor and an accountant.