City Council votes to give police a raise

By Jack Hunter

Oct. 24, 2021

LEXINGTON — Lexington City Council unanimously passed a 12% department-wide raise Thursday for the Lexington Police Department amid a staff shortage.

“One of the priorities we have to focus on is paying our employees,” City Manager Jim Halasz said at the biweekly City Council meeting held at Lylburn Downing Middle School.

            The department has lost four of its 18 officers since July and has not been able to hire anyone since. Lexington Police Chief Angela Greene said that the salary for a Lexington police officer is the main reason the force is short-handed.

            “The existing pay is the main contributing factor of our workforce crisis, creating an over 20% reduction in my police force,” Greene said to the City Council. “All of the officers that have left in the 5 months I have been here have left for a higher paying job in another law enforcement agency.”

Lexington Finance Director Jennifer Bell and Human Resources Director Robby Bailey conducted a survey with 15 nearby city and county police forces and found the average starting salary for officers among them to be just over $40,000. Halasz said the starting annual salary for a Lexington police officer was $36,299 before the raise.

Greene said an added strain on her short-staffed police force has been Lexington’s 35 annual events, including seven of them occurring on holidays. With officers working mandatory overtime during the week and more events on the weekend, Greene is concerned about more officers leaving.

“Increasing the pay for our police officers is an urgent necessity for retention that can be immediately implemented,” Greene said.

Halasz said the annual cost of the raise is $99,000, but $79,000 of it is already accounted for with the vacant positions inside the department. He said the other $20,000 will come from undistributed revenue.

            City Council also unanimously passed a measure to move $800,000 dollars into an equipment replacement fund to buy a new ladder truck for the Fire Department. Lexington Fire-Rescue Chief Ty Dickerson said the current truck is three years past its shelf life of 20 years and has undergone $10,000 worth of repairs in 2021.

            The Lexington Fire Department currently boasts a class 3 rating from the Insurance Services Office, which Dickerson said only 7% of Virginia fire departments have. The rating analyzes fire department’s resources and abilities and can influence citizens’ property insurance costs in the area.

Dickerson said his department will most likely move back to a class 4 rating if they can’t purchase a new ladder truck soon.

“It has a great benefit to the taxpayer when we invest in the fire department and improve the fire department,” Dickerson said.

            Halasz said the current cost of a new truck would be just under $1.6 million and would take 16-20 months before it arrived in Lexington. When Dickerson started asking for the new truck almost five years ago, he said it costed $1.2 million, but inflation has and will continue to increase the price.

            The $800,000 comes from an end-of-year balance of over $1.5 million. Halasz said he expects to raise the other $800,000 from the community and has already reached out to Washington and Lee University, Virginia Military Institute, and the Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital.

 Halasz said the equipment replacement fund usually doesn’t have enough capital to support a large expense like the truck, but the large end-of-year balance now gives them the ability to do so.

“It is the thought of the committee to move and strike while the iron is hot,” Halasz said.

(This story was an assignment for my news writing class)