By Karen Gleason The 830 Times
Pay for entry-level Del Rio police officers must increase by at least 35 percent for the department to attract new recruits and to remain competitive with others in the region, a police association negotiator told city officials earlier this week.
Carlos Zambrano, of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), one of the negotiators assisting the Del Rio Police Officers Association (DRPOA) members in their collective bargaining meetings with city officials, made the case for the significant pay increase during the second round of talks between the DRPOA and the city on Wednesday.
Zambrano said the Del Rio Police Department (DRPD) currently consists of 70 officers. He said this includes all of the DRPD’s supervisors, except for the chief of police.
Zambrano said, “Currently the department has 44 officers employed. There’s nine recruits about to graduate the (police) academy and go through the (department’s field training) program, and that will bring the total to 53, if they all pass (the state licensing exam).
“On the other side of that coin, you have 14 current police officers in the department with active applications with other (law enforcement) agencies, looking to leave the department. These staffing shortages have led to the dismantling of the traffic enforcement unit, so supervisors are getting a lot of phone calls, complaints from citizens throughout the city about traffic problems,” Zambrano said.
He also said the DRPD has dropped its routine park patrols, and there is no one permanently assigned to the department’s training division.
Zambrano said, “The criminal investigations division has a total of seven people assigned, including the lieutenant, the sergeant and the corporal. (There are) five total investigators as compared to the 12 that were once there. Because of that shortage, certain offenses are not being investigated by detectives. Some of the minor (offenses) are being back sourced to the patrol officers to complete, such as Class B misdemeanors.”
He added of the seven detectives, five are currently applying with other agencies.
Zambrano also said as more experienced officers leave the department, the average experience level of the remaining officers decreases.
Zambrano said, “Part of the problem is, obviously, compensation. I would say that’s the bulk of it. In speaking with the officers, talking about the contract, talking about their concerns, I didn’t see very many who said, ‘I can’t wait to get out of here.’ They want to be here, but family comes first and sometimes they have to make that hard choice.”
Zambrano gave a presentation he said would demonstrate “exactly where Del Rio falls” as compared to Eagle Pass, Hondo, San Angelo and Uvalde, four regional competitors for Del Rio’s officers.
He said, “I can tell you that just about every single place, Del Rio winds up fifth out of five for compensation.
Zambrano pointed out a 35.1 percent increase would be needed to move the $39,078 starting pay of a Police Officer I in Del Rio to the starting pay of $52,790 offered to Hondo’s entry-level officers.
Also, the current pay increase of 2.8 percent from a police corporal to sergeant doesn’t encourage officers to take on the added responsibilities and liabilities of the higher rank, Zambrano said.
He next compared the four cities he had mentioned in his introduction. He said Eagle Pass was used as Del Rio’s closest border-market peer; Uvalde was used as its closest Highway 90 corridor peer; Hondo was used as a Highway 90 recruiting competitor; and San Angelo was used as a west Texas benchmark.
“Del Rio trails all four of the peers at the front door. We are five out of five for starting pay, comparable only to Eagle Pass, which is $1,000 more for entry,” Zambrano said.
He said Eagle Pass offers a starting pay of $40,198, Uvalde offers a starting pay of $51,891, Hondo offers starting pay of $52,790, and San Angelo offers starting pay of $65,725.
“These are very real competitors. These are departments that are in the immediate area, close enough that officers will be tempted and will be applying for and you’ll be competing with,” Zambrano said.
Zambrano said as officers gain more experience, the pay gap widens even further.
“You have your Patrol Officer IV and your Senior Officer III, which is the top pay for the patrol division compared to the max pay for those divisions with Hondo and San Angelo, so we are behind, and we stay behind,” Zambrano said.
He pointed out the maximum pay in the similar San Angelo division, $85,948, is 65.4 percent above the Del Rio Police Officer IV pay of $51,967, and the maximum pay in the similar Hondo division, $79,165, is 52.3 percent above the Del Rio Police Officer IV pay.
Zambrano next addressed the Del Rio Police Department’s pay ladder, saying that despite its complexity, it still produced below-market pay.
“Because of the ladder we have to achieve the next (level in pay), it just gets more complex as it goes along. Officers in certain ranks, such as senior officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, they have to wait several years to move on to the next rank, and in most cases, the increase is somewhere around $1,500 for the year. Having to wait two to three years to wait for that increase, and there’s at least (police officer) in here who is maxed out, who cannot ever get a raise again,” Zambrano said.
He said the increases between the ranks don’t provide much of an incentive to take on the added responsibilities and liabilities of the higher rank, but the other side of the coin was that the increases, though small, provided at least a little extra money.
Zambrano said peer departments use a different rank promotion system “that makes it a lot clearer and a lot easier to attain raises.”
Zambrano pointed out promotions should “create a meaningful pay premium for added testing, liability, supervision and decision-making.” He said in the DRPD, a top corporal gains only $1,676 when attaining the rank of sergeant, and a top sergeant gains only $1,807 when attaining the rank of lieutenant.
“This can make promotion less attractive to qualified candidates,” Zambrano said.
Zambrano said a starting entry-level salary of $52,800 for a certified peace officer would match Hondo’s $52,790 minimum and is close to Uvalde’s entry level salary of $51,891.
“We’re still not trying to reach for San Angelo’s (minimum salary). We’re not trying to get that. We’re just trying to stay competitive and keep officers here,” Zambrano said.
“If you were to pull these officers aside one-by-one and ask them about what they want, they want to stay here. They want to be in their community. They want to help out here. No one wants to leave, but when we’re talking about numbers like these and differences like this, it’s easy to see why we have 14 (officers) actively applying with other agencies,” Zambrano added.
Zambrano went over some of the options that could help the city address the pay gap.
He said the first option is to immediately set the Police Officer I entry-level pay at $52,800 and rebuild every rank now.
The second option would be to phase in the $52,800 pay increase over the next two years, raising the salary 20 percent in the first year and 12.6 percent in the second year, and to “fix” the rank differentials.
The third option is phasing in the $52,800 over three years, with a 15 percent increase in the first year, 10 percent in the second year and 7 percent in the third year.
In finishing his presentation, Zambrano said, “Let’s correct the market gap, protect career progression and pay leadership meaningfully. . . This request is not to make Del Rio the highest paid department in Texas. It is to keep Del Rio from remaining structurally below the agencies competing for the same officers.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
