The idea came as Chief Jeff Hinton was giving his department report during during a work session tonight.
Councilman Jon Baker asked Hinton how many vacancies he had, to which the chief replied three.
“We’re working to fill those vacancies,” Hinton said. “We’ve gone to area community colleges.”
The reply the chief gets is the average starting pay of $28,900 a year is not enough for the work officers in the city have to do, he said. “Some of the feedback we get from recruits is they can go other places.”
The base pay is $28,362.
Mayor D.N, Beale said this is an ongoing problem across the state. “All police departments of our size experience this problem.”
Baker said a study needs to be done. “I know we’ve talked about this,” he said. “It seems to me we need to be at the point where we catch up or get in the ballpark. It seems to me the pay is just too low for police officers.”
City Manager Paul Sabiston suggested doing an in-house study to compare the salaries of Roanoke Rapids to those of comparable size. “We’ll get pretty close in that we’re comparing apples to apples, at least get an idea of where we stand.”
Baker said he feels starting pay for officers in the city is inadequate.
Hinton said the police department is not always losing officers to higher paying jobs. “We lose them to the sheriff’s office,” he said, referring to Halifax. “Believe it or not, it’s usually the same pay but less workload. They don’t handle accidents or animal control.”
Said Councilman Ernest Bobbitt: “It’s an ongoing thing. It always seem we’re on the low end of the totem pole.”
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