Baton Rouge Police Department employees could soon get the largest across-the-board pay raises in department history if East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards latest ask of the East Baton Rouge Metro Council is successful.
At a news conference Thursday (March 19), Edwards laid out his agenda: all officers would receive at least a 15% raise, non-sworn employees would receive a 3.5% raise and the chiefs would receive a 5.9% raise. The base pay for a sworn officer would be kicked up from about $41,000 to about $58,000 under this plan. According to the mayor’s office, the changes would give the department the highest base salary in Louisiana.
Edwards’ request will be discussed at the Metro Council’s second meeting in April.
The proposed raises have long been a goal for Edwards, who ran for election on public safety, and said he’s been working on this his whole time in office.
“ This is the day I've looked forward to since the moment I first took off,” Edwards said. ”In fact, it was a prime motivator for me running for office in the first place.”
City officials hope the raises will attract new officers to join the police department, which is currently understaffed. Police Chief TJ Morse said BRPD currently has 528 officers, but should have about 150 more.
“ When I worked the First District night shift, we had 14 officers on my squad. That same squad today has seven officers working nights,” Morse said
But Mason Batts, executive director at the mayor’s office, said the city doesn’t have the money to fill all those positions, but they could fill about 40 to 45.
If the metro council approves the raises, BRPD employees should see the increase on their checks starting in June. Implementing the raises at the mid-year point would cost the city-parish $7.5 million this year. In a full year, the raises will cost $12.5 million. The cost would increase up to about $18 million if the extra officers were hired.
Funding for the raises will come from three main sources: changes made to city-parish health care spending, taxes overperforming estimates and self-imposed budget cuts to the police department — which was not required to make the same 7% cuts most other departments had to.
The city-parish asked its employees to switch over to Medicare Advantage, the private version of the public health care plan, in October.
At the time of the changes, Batts told WRKF that the savings would mostly account for an increase in health care spending. But he said more people signed up for Advantage than expected, so there were larger savings.
Batts said the raises are possible because of the conservative fiscal choices made to address the city-parish budget deficit.
“ We were conservative with our estimates; that was the one thing. But if we didn't make those cuts, we would not be here today,” Batts said.
Batts and Edwards both said they are working to get more funding to make up for the previous budget cuts, but some offices are underfunded.
East Baton Rouge Emergency Medical Service employees are also in line for a raise. Edwards announced his office will put in a request for them in the near future.
EMS is funded by its own tax, so Batts says its raises would be funded with the department's own money. The specifics of the plan are still in the works and have not been announced.
