Half of city police maxed out on pay

Published 12:00 am Thursday, January 27, 2005

[1/26/05] Only about a third of Vicksburg’s 67 police officers received raises following evaluations for the last quarter of 2004, but more than half have reached the maximum pay scale for their ranks.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted Tuesday to approve quarterly raises for 20 uniformed police officers. The raises totaled $13,871, or about $693 per officer.

Deputy Police Chief Richard O’Bannon said since merit-based pay raises began two years ago, 36 police officers have obtained the maximum pay for their ranks and are now only eligible for education bonuses and annual physical agility pay.

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“It shows that they’ve been working hard and keeping their noses clean,” O’Bannon said. “I think all in all the city’s got a better department than what it had a few years ago.”

The pay system started when Chief Tommy Moffett took over the department in 2001. When announced, the new pay scale was touted as the highest in the state with incentives for better performance.

The merit raises are based on performance in 20 areas, including grooming, attendance, knowledge, quality of written reports, initiative and suspect contact. O’Bannon said 11 officers were not eligible this quarter because they were either new hires, on leave or had disciplinary action against them.

When the new pay scale and goals were announced, Mayor Laurence Leyens said the plan was to attract the best officers from all over the state to Vicksburg. Since then, the department has been cut from 108 sworn officers, and officials say it’s better than it’s ever been.

“The officers that we’ve hired are of so much better quality than we’ve ever hired before that they are hard to find,” Leyens said. “We’re not interested in officers that were no good some where else coming here.”

O’Bannon said that although there are fewer police officers, more of them are on the streets than before because supervisors, sergeants and up, are now required to be on patrol.

In other matters the city board:

Approved a contract with APAC Mississippi for $708,850 to repave 20 streets including Sky Farm Avenue, Rifle Range Road, Cherry Street and several smaller road inside the city.

Authorized the City Clerk to advertise for bids to build a new floating dock at City Front.

Approved a $150 advertisement for the Vicksburg High School Gator Baseball Team.

Allocated $20,000 to the Four Season of the Arts which includes the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s concert for the city’s 130 birthday celebration at 7 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

The City Board will meet again at 10 a.m. Feb. 7 at City Hall Annex.