Will this pay increase help Durham fill its police and firefighter vacancies?

The Durham City Council will get a proposal Thursday to raise police and firefighters pay to help fill vacancies and reduce turnover.

“This is something that has been in the works for several months,” Police Chief Patrice Andrews said in an interview with The News & Observer.

“After doing market research, the city’s Human Resources Office collaboratively worked with the staff here at the Police Department to come up with a pay plan,” she said.

About 13% of police officer positions are vacant, or 68 out of 537 positions, according to city data.

The N&O could not get the firefighter vacancy rate on Wednesday, after the proposal was released.

In 2017, the city adopted “step plans” for police officers and firefighters designed to go up regularly with the market and reward performance.

In 2018 and 2019 those who achieved effective performance moved up one step (a 5% merit increase).

In June 2021, overall adjustments raised police pay by 4% and firefighters pay by 3.5%, with bonuses for effective performance.

The new proposal, based on market analysis, would raise police recruits pay by 10.6% and firefighter recruits pay by 14.3%. The city surveyed 13 other municipalities before developing its market analysis.

Pay for a police recruit in Durham would rise from $38,511 to $42,593, while pay for a firefighter recruit would rise from $35,592 to $40,682.

Jimie Wright, president of the Professional Firefighters of Durham, said they have concerns about salary compression, or the difference in pay, the plan would create between new and existing firefighters.

“We’ve lost a significant amount of firefighters last year due to compensation because we are the only ones who are not paid the city hourly wage,” Wright said. “And so we feel that this a step in the right direction towards getting us there.”

“But we will wait to see if and how the council will address the compression, ” Wright added.

If approved, the pay increase would take effect Jan. 18 and show up in the Jan. 28 paychecks for both groups.

“That ball is already rolling, and I’m very hopeful that council will move ahead with the plan that will be introduced,” Andrews said.

Leadership to join patrols

In addition to a pay increase, the police chief announced in mid-December that she and other high-ranking officers and detectives will join patrols this month to cope with a vacancy rate nearly twice what it was a year ago.

The “very temporary” program will require four days of patrols through March and will not affect “the tasks that they have to do in their day-to-day work,” Andrews told the City Council.

Andrews said she hopes the program helps “retain some of [the] officers that were on the cusp of leaving the department.”

The city council meeting begins at 1 p.m. and can be viewed through the city of Durham’s YouTube channel at bit.ly/3n0dAos.

This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 5:55 AM.