15-17 - Police Compensation-Recruitment-Retention

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academy plus a three month FTO program. During this same time period, we lost 10 in the department for various reasons. For transparency though, we hired 4 in February 2022 from a 2021 test, so the actual hire vs. lost in 2022 is 6 vs. 10. Nevertheless, we lost more than hired and our recent testing has done very little to account for the 17 positions we are down. To help put the timing imbalance in to focus; an officer wishing to leave the City of Paris must simply give us a two week notice. From that point, the time it takes to refill that position is typically 2-3 months in advertisement for a new test, 2-3 months in testing (discussed above), 6 months in an academy (unless they are existing certified, and assuming we are able to get our candidate in the next available academy), and three months of FTO program, totaling approximately 7 — 15 months from start to finish. This is a very lopsided timeframe and further amplifies the importance of 1) retaining existing officers and 2) attracting more candidates. The above changes are meant to 1) attract more candidates to take our test, 2) attract existing certified candidates, 3) attract candidates from afar to move to Paris, and 4) retain our candidates once hired by getting them through the first few years where local competition in compensation is strongest. This is not a guarantee to obtain 17 new officers immediately nor losing any further officers for any number of reasons (i.e. retirement), but something needs to be done to try and halt our current downward trajectory in staffing numbers. BUDGET: To authorize lateral senior it pqy° by hiring experienced officers and placing them at a seniority level equivalent to their years of experience will equate to payment beyond the base pay for a police officer position. Attached to this agenda memo is our current pay plan which shows the bi- weekly seniority payment based on years of seniority. This will not have an immediate impact to FY22/23 given it would only be given once their probationary period is complete, and while it could raise our expense in FY23/24 and beyond from what we would see hiring new officers without seniority pay, there would be some offset in savings by not having to send these experienced officers to the academy while also expediting this now -filled position to field service, thus relieving some OT and burn out from other officers. In addition, hiring experienced officers should reasonably offset the issue of hiring a new inexperienced officer only for them to determine that police work is not suited for them, thus resigning, which can occur at any point in the 7 — 15 month onboarding period. To make an increase in sign -on bonus from $5,000.00 to $10,000.00, that would be — at most, 17 positions x $5,000.00 increase = $85,000.00. It is extremely unlikely that we will have 17 successful hires in one year, and these are one-time payments over the course of their first year, assuming they remain employed with the City of Paris. This therefore will have a negligible impact to any one Fiscal Year as it will be spread out over the next several years.