Palm Beach Gardens raises police officer salaries to stay competitive with other agencies

PALM BEACH GARDENS — The city is rewarding its police officers with higher salaries to stay competitive with other departments.

Officers and sergeants received 15% pay increases on Monday, May 6, and will see the raises reflected on their May 24 paychecks.

The starting salary for Palm Beach Gardens police officers jumped from $62,549 to $70,000 and from $98,880 to $109,000 for sergeants. The maximum pay is now $118,800 for officers and $134,000 for sergeants.

The city council unanimously approved the new contract May 2. It costs Palm Beach Gardens $1.2 million from its general revenue fund and nearly $500,000 from its police department budget.

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Human Resources Administrator Sheryl Stewart said the city has been losing officers to agencies that pay better for at least a year.

“Our labor market has continued to dramatically change, which has been impacting our recruitment and retention of our police officers,” Stewart told the council.

Seven Palm Beach Gardens police officers have resigned and four have retired since January 2023, according to a city spokesperson. Today, 105 police officers and 18 sergeants work for the department, which has 188 employees total.

Police communications staff will see 7% raises in their next paychecks. This brings the base salary for communications operators up to $56,120 and $63,800 for communications supervisors.

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Stewart said the department is chiefly competing with Palm Beach Sheriff's Office, which has a $69,768 starting salary for officers, and the Palm Beach County School Board, which has a $66,726 starting salary for officers, as of March 2024.

The city’s police officers and sergeants were set to receive 7% salary increases in October, but the Police Benevolent Association, a statewide union, negotiated for higher raises and for them to start earlier.

The police were operating under a contract that ran from October 2022 through September 2025, but this new contract kicks in now, replacing that final year and will expire in October 2025, when the city and the union will negotiate another.

"When you find out the reason people are exiting is because they can make more money somewhere else, it becomes pretty clear what you have to consider," said City Communications Director Candice Temple. "We feel like this will help us be successful in recruiting top-notch officers.”

The city aims to offer police salaries that are more competitve with similarly sized law-enforcement agencies in the county.

In 2022, Boca Raton Police Services Department offered the highest entry-level minimum salary among others in the county that year at $77,860.

Palm Beach Gardens Police hired 11 police officers since the beginning of this fiscal year, said Stewart, who noted that the raises are “very important and timely.”

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Before voting to approve the higher salaries, council member Carl Woods, a former Palm Beach Gardens police officer, called the salary comparisons to the school board “ridiculous.”

“We’re getting compared to the school board?” Woods asked. “No way. That's where cops go out to pasture when they’re done.”

Council member Bert Premuroso pointed out that the school board is looking to hire more experienced officers for “the situation that they are dealing with today.”

“We have to elevate because that’s what we always do,” Premuroso said.

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Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Gardens raises police salaries to keep officers from leaving city