The Jennings Police Department is always being placed on the city’s back burner and their problems ignored.  Today it is falling apart and if it continues to be ignored we are looking at a very critical situation.  Twice in the past the city tried to sell out the Police Department to the Sheriff’s Office, which is no cure for this Department’s ailments.  Since the city administration refuses to do anything worthwhile to fix the problem, it is beginning to look like they are allowing it to fall apart on it’s own so they will have a reason to try again to sell them out.  You may not have given that much thought, but we need a City Police Department.  No offense to the Sheriff’s Department, but you cannot get the quality of service a city this size requires from a parish-wide agency because they are simply spread too thin. 

Strong, pro-active leadership, coupled with a city administration who not only believes in the value of an efficient and well-trained Police Department, but also takes an active interest in the well-being and welfare of it’s employees in my opinion is the key.  There was a time when the Jennings Police Department was the envy of area Departments.  They were well-trained, well-staffed, well-paid and well-equipped.  But that was over 20 years ago.  And now, Police Departments in cities and townships much smaller than ours have far passed us in all of these areas.  Our officers are constantly being told the city doesn’t have the money to fund pay raises or to do most of the things the Department needs to move forward.  I’m sure the Officers don’t believe that anymore and we shouldn’t accept it either.  This town brags about how it thrives, audits are always great, the city is always in the green and according to the city administration, we are growing by leaps and bounds.  If this is so, why can’t they see that as a city grows, so does the crime rate, the traffic problems and everything else that goes along with growth and this will require the expertise of a strong Police force?

 I believe the public deserves to hear the truth about the morale and the pay of the officers at the Jennings Police Department.  This letter may step on some toes, but some things just need to be said.   On at least two occasions in the past, the Officers have presented the administration with proposals containing their own ideas on how they could help to fund their raise, but they were ignored.

 In June 1995 a representative appeared before the City Council to present the officers’ request to have their base pay reinstated to what it had been in July 1985, prior to the 1986 pay reductions, which were supposedly due to the “oil crash” and to request an pay raise to their base pay, something they had not received in 10 years (1985).  They pointed out that all other City employees received their reinstatements 8 years prior, only a year after the cuts were made, and they didn’t have to ask. 

After the presentation, Mayor Greg Marcantel stated to the Jennings Daily News that the officers were right and they had not been reinstated and admitted it was the administration’s mistake.  The council subsequently reinstated  the officer’s base pay, but refused to pay the officers for the 8 years of lost pay.  So, where do things stand 19 years later?

 In 19 years the City Clerk went from making $16,000 to making $20,000 in 1990, $28,000 in 1995 and he now makes over $35,000.  The city recently gave the Tupper Museum Curator a $4,000 raise.  Why is it that a Police Officer will see an increase of pennies on the dollar while other city employees receive raises in the thousands?  They also found funds to research building up the northeast section of Jennings and to help out the new High School project.   In comparison, they have told the Police Officers that the City simply does not have the money to give them a raise for at least the next 2 - 3 years.  But apparently they’re finding money somewhere because raises are being given out, but not to the Police Officers.  After 19 years, a new Police Officer recruit today makes $6.67 an hour, up from $6.15 an hour in 1985.  Their pay has increased by 52¢ an hour.  That translates to about $83.00 a month - in 19 years, that’s it.

This administration told you through the Jennings Daily News  that a new recruit at the Police Department makes $8.01 per hour.  Although they knew that wasn’t true, they never retracted it when the truth was pointed out to them.  $8.01 is the hourly pay a police officer makes after he has been employed for a year and a half. A NEW RECRUIT MAKES $6.67 AN HOUR.

 

This administration continues to talk about “longevity”  insisting that Police Officers get an annual pay raise.  The longevity issue really needs to be put to rest.  It is a state-mandated increase which is figured at 2% of  the individual officer’s base pay plus longevity.  Each officer receives that increase on a different date, his anniversary date of employment.  That means when the Police Officers got their base pay reinstatement in July 1995, some of the officers did not see the 2% longevity on that reinstated rate until as much as a year later.  And no Police Officer receives any longevity until after he has been employed with the Department for 1 year.

 When a police officer who makes $6.67 an hour gets his first longevity increase, it is about $22.00 a month (that doesn’t even cover cost of living increases, let alone annual insurance increases).  The cost of the City’s “group” insurance has gone up every year.  Last April it went up $132 a month for family coverage.  Friday they were informed it went up another $100 a month and the deductible went up from $300 per family member to $500 (although they never see any change to benefits, i.e. prescription card, vision or dental coverage). Now that $22.00 a month longevity increase has been swallowed up in less than 2 years by $232 in additional insurance premiums.  Deduct that from a Police Officer’s paycheck and there’s not much left.  So that pretty much voids the argument the city makes that longevity is an annual “raise”.  It’s bad enough that even the highest ranking Police Officers already qualify for food stamps and other government benefits. But, the insurance increases come like a nightmare every year and when you’re not getting any raises at all, there is nothing to offset the increase.  You just get farther and farther behind.  

Since the base pay reinstatement in 1995, the administration thought it was necessary or “fair” to give all City hall employees a 2% raise every year with each new budget.  They said it was done as an “ongoing effort to bring city employees in line with other municipalities in the state” and because they “felt it would be fair to pass that same 2% increase on to all our city employees.” (Jennings Daily News June 28, 1996). 

Why does this administration insist that an employee at city hall should be making the same pay as a law enforcement officer?  No offense to any of these employees, but how can they say that the pay for janitors, clerks, secretaries and other city support personnel should be the same as a Police Officer?  By doing it this way, many of the city hall employees now make more than the Police Officers.  The administration would have you believe that the Police Officers can make overtime so they have the potential to make more money.  The point is, they shouldn’t have to work extra hours, lose sleep, get stressed out, have no family life and no extra time at all and still be expected to be at 100% when on patrol, just to make ends meet.   

The way the administration’s 2% raise for the city employees works, if an employee for the City makes $18,000 a year and quits, the new, untrained replacement will start out making that same $18,000 because they received a 2% pay raise to their base pay, not a 2% longevity increase.  In contrast, no matter how high up in seniority a Police Officer gets, a new officer taking his place, or moving up into his position will make the same base pay, but a lower amount of longevity because it’s figured according to how many years he’s been with the force.  Actually, when that officer quits his replacement is the new recruit who will start out at $6.67 per hour.  The point is that a Police Officer never gets a base pay raise, and that is the amount their 2% longevity is figured against.                                               

The public was told the city employees were getting their raises as an “ongoing effort to bring city employees in line with other municipalities in the state”.  The Police Officers on several occasions have presented the administration pay comparisons for Police Departments of cities comparable in size to Jennings showing that they get paid substantially more than Jennings (almost twice as much in some cases), but no effort has been made to bring our Police Officers ‘in line with other municipalities in the state”.  In fact, they used the Pineville Police Department as a comparison when they wanted to implement the 2 year Police contract.  But what they refuse to compare is the pay the Pineville Police Officers make.   

Pineville’s population is between 15,000 - 17.000.  Their chief is appointed by the Mayor, their department is Civil Service.  Officers pay only a percentage of their insurance, receive State Supplemental pay and longevity.  They currently have around 30 officers and like us, are presently understaffed.  They too had lost officers to other departments who started their patrolmen at $30,000 a year, compared to their $15,000.   What our city administration failed to tell the Council and the public is that the Police Officers in the Pineville Police Department were given raises.  They raised their starting patrolmen from $1250 a month (ours is $1060) to $1600 a month.  It wasn’t until after this raise that the 2 year employment contract was presented.