City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, CITY MANAGER /s/
DOCKET TITLE:
TITLE
Consideration and Approval of Pay Increases for Certain Public Safety Classifications.
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ISSUE: Regional competitiveness of the City's public safety salaries.
RECOMMENDATION: In order to improve the City's regional competitiveness, thereby increasing the City's ability to recruit and retain quality public safety personnel that City Council:
1. Increase the pay for Police Officers by 6.22 percent;
2. Increase the pay for Firefighters and Medics by 5.0 percent;
3. Increase the grade level for four classifications in the Sheriff's Office as listed below:
i. Deputy Is and IIs from a grade 9 to a grade 10
ii. Lieutenants from a grade 16 to a grade 17
iii. Captains from a grade 20 to a grade 21
4. Allocate the $3.6 million held in the public safety pay contingent in the FY 2019 approved budget to the Police, Fire and Sheriff's departmental budgets.
5. Implement the proposed salary increases above with an effective date of September 22, 2018; and
6. Defer consideration until FY 2020 of the request to move the Sheriff's Office uniformed employees from the Virginia Retirement System general pension plan into the Virginia Retirement System for Law Enforcement Officers.
BACKGROUND: Over the last few years, the issue of public safety pay competitiveness has been one that the City has needed to address. In the public safety arena there has been and continues to be a high degree of hiring competitiveness among federal, state and local public safety agencies that can lead to excessive turnover, as well as difficulty in recruitment and retention of qualified personnel. This is a national trend that is exacerbated by the presence in the Washington metropolitan area of a sizeable cadre of federal law en...
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