Members of the East Baton Rouge Metro Council have asked Mayor-President Sid Edwards to revise his proposal for a historic pay raise for Baton Rouge Police Department employees to instead spread the money to most city-parish workers.
Councilmembers Anthony Kenney, Darryl Hurst, Cleve Dunn Jr., Twahna Harris and Carolyn Coleman — all Democrats — signed onto the proposal.
Kenney said that he and his colleagues want to take the chance to get an across-the-board raise, pointing to a 2024 total compensation study by Management Advisory Group that recommended base pay for each department.
“While we have identified the opportunity for funding, now let’s look at this from a holistic aspect,” Keeney said.
The Democratic council members point to the lowest-paid employees in the parish, who roughly make $21,932 per year, or $10.54 per hour. Following the recommendations of the study would bring those salaries up to $26,063 per year, or $12.53 per hour.
The remaining seven council members are Republican. A motion needs 7 votes to pass.
The study suggests making police base pay about $52,000 — nearly $6,000 lower than the mayor's proposed raise. Edwards’ proposed police raise would cost the city-parish $12.7 million in a full year, and could reach as high as $18 million after more officers are hired.
Kenney said that he’s all for a police raise, but wants it to be fair to all parish employees.
“We are not against the police getting a pay raise, but we’ve been getting a lot of calls from city-parish workers, DPW workers and mailroom workers,” he said.
The study says the cost of total implementation of the raises would be around $20 million, but the Democratic councilmembers say it would cost closer to $12.9 million after the fire department receives raises through its own millage.
Councilman Dunn Jr. points out that the police are already ahead of parish agencies thanks to a raise in 2022 under Sharoon Weston Broome’s administration, where BRPD received a 13% raise while most other offices received a 5% raise.
Edwards said that he’s on the same page as the council members and their proposal, but on a different timeline.
“Those council members and us all want the same thing, and that is a pay bump; more fair wages for our employees,” Edwards said.
He said he remains committed to getting raises for his employees, but his priority is and has been getting raises for BRPD.
Dunn Jr. said it’s as simple as giving all employees a raise, not just some of them.
Fears of partial dissolution
Council member Aaron Moak plans to vote for the mayor’s proposal when it comes before him on the 22nd to avoid partial dissolution of BRPD — or when a municipality needs to pay the state’s police retirement system because it doesn’t have enough active officers paying into the system.
It’s what costs New Orleans millions of dollars a year.
An office can be partially dissolved if it loses 50 officers in a year, or the number of officers is less than 70% of what it had the previous year. Both of these are calculated on June 30th, when the retirement system marks its fiscal year.
Ben Huxen, the executive director and general counsel at the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System, said BRPD isn’t presently at risk of reaching partial dissolution. If the minimum number of officers on staff isn’t reached by June 30, the department would be put on watch and would have a year to get its numbers back up.
The fine amount the city would have to pay would vary significantly by how many officers were on the force because the retirement system is only 80% funded by the state. The rest comes from municipalities paying into the system.
This could all change, however. A bill passed through the House Retirement Committee that would get rid of the partial dissolution process. A substitute version of HB 49 would put the burden of paying for the gaps caused by partial dissolution on other municipalities that contribute to the system.
Huxen said he expects the bill to make it out of the Legislature this session.
Edwards’ raise proposal was intended to increase the size of the force to avoid the dissolution payment.
So far, it’s working. BRPD Chief TJ Morse said he’s seen a stark increase in applications after the raises were announced in March.
Constable raises concerns
Constable Terrica William has been one of the loudest voices advocating for more city-parish employees to also receive raises.
Her fight began during last year’s budget season, after BRPD and the Baton Rouge Fire Department were exempted from budget cuts that every other department received.
Edwards gave the justification at the time that those offices were exempt because he was prioritizing public safety.
Williams publicly questioned why her office’s employees, who are required to have the same officer qualifications as other law enforcement agencies, were in those cuts at a metro council budget meeting last November.
“ This is really, truly an insult to any other law enforcement officer that wears a uniform, a gun and a badge that this is our mayor for the city of Baton Rouge,” Williams said. “He is not just the mayor for Baton Rouge City police.”
At the press conference announcing the proposed police raises, Edwards pointed to her, described how her office needed support and he was going to get her it.
“ And constable, we're gonna find a way — see that smile on her face because she's been burnt so long,” Edwards said.
Williams replied, “I’m not smiling,” just quiet enough that it wasn’t caught on mic. She said she felt like the frustration was obvious on her face.
“ I felt that it was a joke and he was being sarcastic towards me,” she said. “And he may not have been. It may have been genuine, but for me, I felt that it was a joke.”
Edwards said the next people he’s working to get raises for are the Constable’s Office and Department of Public Works employees.
“ If I had my way, I'd give everybody just the biggest pay bump ever,” Edwards said.
Williams said she is not against the BRPD raise and she thinks they deserve it. She just wants her deputies to be treated fairly. Williams said her deputies make $19.30 per hour — about $40,144 per year. She said she’s not confident they will get their raise. The pay plan Democrats are proposing would bump their pay up to about $49,000.
Williams said she feels like the mayor hasn’t communicated well enough with her to explain why her office has been left out of the raise.
“ I do feel that if I was not their boss or their commander, would they be going through what they're going through right now?” Williams said.
Williams, who is Black, said she feels like race may play a part in the decision. The heads of BRPD and EMS, which is also receiving a raise, are white. So is Edwards.
“ The mayor hadn't come talk to me yet to say, ‘Constable, you're wrong,’” Williams said. “I don't know, but what I feel, I haven't seen it happening to no other person.”
Edwards said that race has nothing to do with his decision, and he’s disappointed to hear Williams think it does.
“It’s very disappointing, and of course it is absolutely false,” Edwards said. “I’ve never made a decision about anything I’ve done based on race.”
