THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100017
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Regarding Virginia Beach City Manager Jim Spore's ``How Virginia Beach is striving to raise police pay'' (Another View, Oct. 5): I am a Virginia Beach police officer. I have a wife and two children. I have been employed as a police officer for five years. I currently make $25,966.54 a year. According to the market-based salary survey Mr. Spore refers to, the starting salary for a police officer is $26,554.32. With five years of service, I currently make $587.78 under the starting salary of a first-year police officer.
Mr. Spore's letter leads the citizens of Virginia Beach to believe that his goal is to bring police officers to the 50th percentile in pay as soon as possible, and to the 65th percentile over the next few years. This is very misleading. In fact, what Mr. Spore's pay plan proposes is to bring me to the 50th percentile of a police officer in his first year, not his fifth year.
According to the survey, a five-year officer should make approximately $32,529. Mr. Spore and City Council chose to give me a 1.5 percent pay increase on July 1. This 1.5 percent did not even bring me to the minimum starting salary and nowhere close to the salary of a five-year police officer.
Mr. Spore goes on to mention a 4.5 percent pay raise which I will be eligible to receive on my anniversary date next year. This 4.5 percent is based on a new 10-year pay plan. This pay plan does not take into account a police officer's previous years of service with this city. Thus, in my case, the 10-year plan that a new police officer starts out on is now a 15-year plan for me. This 4.5 percent annual increase has not been committed to for any budget beyond `95/`96.
Furthermore, Mr. Spore mentions that all police officers now have 10 percent more earning potential. My only response to this: My mortgage company doesn't accept potential dollars.
I think if the city were making an honest attempt to bring police to the 50th percentile, it would look at the 10-year pay plan and place each officer in that plan according to number of years of service, not start everyone who is under the minimum all over again.
Officer SEAN R. COERSE
2nd Precinct
Virginia Beach, Nov. 2, 1995 by CNB