Bloomington plans to spend $3 million to raise police officer salaries by 2025

The city of Bloomington plans to expand salaries of police officers by at least $14,000 starting next year.

“The goal is to strengthen recruitment and retention by aligning wages and benefits with neighboring agencies,” said Desiree DeMolina, communications director for Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson’s office.

The council will discuss the pay increase in a special session Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

City Council President Isabel Piedmont-Smith said the increase “should put the city in a competitive position against other police departments in the coming years.”

BPD’s salary lags behind other agencies

The Bloomington Police Department for years they have been losing officers to better-paying departments elsewhere in Indiana and to the private sector. BPD became the lowest-paid police department in Monroe County this year after Indiana University increased salaries for its police officers statewide by $7,000.

BPD currently has 89 officers, which is 16 fewer than budgeted. The department has added officers in recent years but continues to lose young and experienced officers to other departments, city officials say.

City leaders have said Bloomington regularly pays to train young officers, only to have them transferred to other departments for better pay. In addition, understaffing contributes to burnout and a lot of involuntary overtime.

Senior Constable Paul Post, head of the police union, said a BPD officer recently left to work for IUPD.

Post said the planned salary increase would make BPD pay competitive again and he is “hopeful that the department will be able to add more officers in 2025.” However, he doubted BPD would reach 105 officers by the end of next year.

“The union is very pleased with the proposed salary increases and is grateful for the work being done by Mayor Thomson and her administration,” Post said via email.

The Thomson administration also allowed officers to be equipped with Tasers — a measure that previous administrations resisted for decades — and allowed police officers to take their squad cars home. Post said these steps have also made BPD more attractive to recruits and transfers.

Under the proposal, all police officers would get the 2.9% pay increase called for in their contracts on Jan. 1, plus an additional $12,000. For officers with one year of experience, that would mean their base salary would increase to $82,161, almost $14,000 more than what they make now. For a senior police officer, this would mean an increase in base salary to $87,826, an increase of more than $16,600.

Desk	Basic salary
Indianapolis MetroPD	$71,829
Carmel Police	$71,409
Indiana University PD	$70,325
Columbus PD	$70,000
Lafayette PD	$68,112
Fishers PD	$65,792
Fort Wayne Police	$65,630
Ellettsville Police	$64,998
Bloomington police	$63,683
Greenwood PD	$63,000
Noblesville Police	$62,753
Plainfield Police	$62,400

Bloomington Police Department salaries lag behind many other departments that serve smaller populations, such as Ellettsville, Columbus and Lafayette.

DeMolina said via email that the planned increase will increase BPD salaries by a total of $3.05 million compared to the 2024 budget.

The government aims to recruit enough officers to benefit from a full workforce, although it acknowledged this was an “ambitious target”.

The city is struggling to recruit and retain police officers

The city council has discussed it for years how to improve recruitment and retention of police officersand the council and then-Mayor John Hamilton police salaries increased by 13% starting Jan. 1, 2023. That agreement increased salaries for officers with one year of experience by $6,700 and for officers with 20 years of experience by $9,200.

Piedmont-Smith, the City Council president, did not answer a question about how the city could get out of the cycle of raising police salaries, only to be raised the following year by the sheriff’s department, Indiana State Police, IUPD or departments. in wealthier cities like Carmel.

DeMolina said, “In addition to higher salaries, we have also introduced take-home vehicles and Tasers – benefits that many other jurisdictions have long offered. Combined with BPD’s long-standing reputation for exceptional training and skilled investigators, and a supportive administration, these improvements create a more competitive, comprehensive and complete package. This approach allows us to offer more than just a salary increase, making BPD a more attractive choice while pursuing salary parity with surrounding jurisdictions.”

Post, the union’s president, said it’s difficult to answer because the number of people wanting to become officers has dropped nationally. As older officers retire, departments across the country are competing fiercely for the few candidates available to replace them.

The Police Executive Research Forum had said back in 2019 that police stations were seeing a declining number of applicants. And police officers in Indiana told The Herald-Times in 2021 They used to get hundreds of applications for open police positions, but back then they only got dozens. And about 90% of applicants do not make it to the preliminary stage testing and training.

However, PERF, a nonprofit police research and policy organization, also reported that police departments hired more officers in 2023 than in the previous four years and fewer officers resigned or retired overall.

“In 2023, responding agencies hired nearly 30% more sworn officers than in 2020 and 6.4% more than in 2019,” PERF said.

Post said Monday: “Salary and benefits are the most visible things when recruiting new employees, but you see agencies trying all kinds of new initiatives to better position themselves to attract new employees (sign-on bonuses, relocation expenses, cost of living). , changes in educational opportunities, changes in healthcare coverage, etc.)”

The city of Bloomington still advertises on its website a $5,000 sign-on bonus for transfers from other departments or rookies who complete law enforcement academy training.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at [email protected].