Police protest outside City Hall for increased pay

Aug. 18—Courtney Protzman sat at the corner of Frederick Avenue and Faraon Street Wednesday morning with a sign that said, "I'm not homeless. I'm just an underpaid cop!" She, along with about 20 other police officers and their family members, was outside City Hall protesting labor issues.

Currently, the St. Joseph Police Department is 39 officers short, including 18 vacancies, officers on military leave and those injured in the line of duty. The department continues to struggle to recruit and retain officers, with some leaving for other cities.

Two officers recently left for the Gladstone Police Department, which offers a starting salary of $54,000 for people who have been through a law enforcement academy. The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #3, said the staffing shortage creates an unsafe community.

"We have to draw the line because our commitment is to serve the community and make sure they're safe as well as our people are safe," said Brendan McGinnis, the vice president of the FOP. "The city is not providing the resources that we need to adequately keep up."

A fully staffed shift at the St. Joseph Police Department includes 15 officers. Right now, the department is averaging nine officers per shift. However, during two hours on Sunday, only four officers were patrolling the streets, leading to an altercation.

"You have no one available and only four people on the street," said Sgt. James Tonn of the St. Joseph Police Department. "That same day, there was an officer screaming for help on the radio. We can't get to him. A citizen helped him. We couldn't even get there to help him in time."

It's the reason why FOP members are outside City Hall protesting while off-duty and on their own vacation time: They want more pay to better recruit officers to make the city a safer place.

"We need to attract people, and in order to attract people, we need to raise our rates, raise our wages to attract people, and we're drastically underpaid," Tonn said. "The city did a pay study. It shows that they're playing games. They're wanting to give us pennies."

It wasn't only officers out protesting for higher pay either — their family members joined them too.

"We support our local law enforcement and we just want to make sure that they are taken care of and their safety is our top priority," said Angie Hernandez, a mother of two police officers. "We need to make sure that we have enough officers on the street to keep our city safe."

For the last two years, the FOP has negotiated with the city for pay increases. The previous council approved a pay plan with a 3% cost-of-living-adjustment increase and incremental decompression increases from 3.5% to 2.5% to 1.5% over three years. However, only a portion of that pay plan was funded. In May, the new council approved the remainder of that pay plan. But it was too little too late for the FOP.

"At the time that we had discussions with the city, we weren't facing some of these issues that we're looking at now," said Brad Kerns, the president of the FOP. "It was something that was to catch us up to where they should have been back in the early 2000s."

To get a better sense of employee salaries, the city conducted a pay study. The FOP members are asking for what the pay study said they deserve, which is $48,348 for starting officers and a maximum salary of $72,000.

"I've been an employee of the city going on 17 years and I make $57,000, so I'm about $14,000 different to where their study says I should be," McGinnis said.

When city officials found out about the protest, they declined any interviews but sent a statement in response to public concerns regarding St. Joseph Police Department compensation.

According to the statement, less than two years ago, the city of St. Joseph and the FOP entered into an agreement under which police officers, detectives and sergeants would receive annual wage increases in the amount of 3% per year and those employed before October 2017 would receive an additional 7% increase over three years.

In recent months, the city has completed a salary study that has shown starting police officer salary should be increased from $42,695 to $48,348. The city has offered to increase starting wages to $49,000 to properly compensate recently hired officers and attract new ones to law enforcement.

The city also has offered to increase current police officer and detective compensation, based on length of service. On average, this offer would increase the annual salary of police officers, detectives and sergeants by more than $5,100. Including those individuals training to become police officers, the salary cost to the city would increase by an average of $5,694 per officer.

The statement also said the city remains committed to compensating its commissioned law enforcement officers fairly but that the plan must be sustainable.

Although the city agreed to pay $49,000 for starting officers — $700 more than the pay study recommends — the FOP is concerned with compensation based on length of service.

McGinnis, the FOP vice president, said the city's statement didn't mention that 4.5% of the $5,100 annual increase already was approved by the council and took effect in July. He also said the city plan is spread over 29 years with an average increase of $811 per year to reach the top of the pay scale (the city's pay study never specifies a duration to reach the maximum salary).

"We aren't asking to get rich," McGinnis said. "We're asking that they pay us what their pay study says they should pay us. The bottom number is $48,500, the top out is $72,000. We will let the public do the math and see if their offer is fair. "

Many city councilmen ran for office with a campaign centered on public safety, and the officers protesting are waiting to see if their promises lead to action. And the FOP is willing to wait, signs in hand, until their "message is received."

"This whole council ran on public safety," Kerns said. "We aren't saying that this council doesn't support us. We just want to make sure that they hear where we're at and they know where we stand, where our issues are. But we want to give them the opportunity now to do what they ran on, and the public can be a judge of whether or not they fulfill their campaign promises."

After hours of protesting outside City Hall on Wednesday, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #3, had a meeting with city officials.

Following the two-hour long meeting, Brendan McGinnis, the FOP vice president said the conversation was productive but there were no counter offers.

"It was very positive, we are making progress," McGinnis said. "There was a discussion, so we are very positive. We aren't there yet, but we hope to be there."

He said the conversation mostly revolved around the city understanding why they were protesting. Mayor John Josendale also said the meeting was positive and there will continue to be negotiations.

"We had a lengthy and productive conversation that I expect will help reach a long-term resolution," said City Manager Bryan Carter.

News-Press NOW will have more on this story as it develops.

Quinn Ritzdorf can be reached at quinn.ritzdorf@newspressnow.com