Council finds way to partially fund Staunton Police Department career development plan

Among the requests for funding that the City of Staunton wasn’t able to fulfill in the recommended budget proposal was one from the police department, asking for $383,000 for a career development plan.

Staunton Police Chief Jim Williams told council Thursday night, April 17, at its budget work session that what his department is facing is unprecedented. The department has authorized 54 sworn officers, but they are currently six short of that number. Each year Williams said they average about five people leaving through retirement or resignation.

“What has happened over the last couple of years is the applicant pool has just shrunk so much,” Williams said. “As you know, or maybe you don’t know, it takes almost 12 months to train a police officer.”

Williams said that, if the force goes from down six officers to down eight or 10, it might be time to look at cutting some services, anything from reducing school resource officers to deciding if there are some type of calls they won’t be able to respond to.

“Things that we don’t want to do,” he said.

Attracting new officers is important, he said, but retaining the officers they have is crucial. Other police departments use a career development step program. The plan gives credit to sworn officers for various criteria like training, education, language skills, military service and other experience.

“You can be in a neighboring jurisdiction and be a police officer with three years service and be earning $15,000 more than in Staunton,” Williams said. “The keeps us from recruiting those folks.”

He said it’s only a matter of time before officers in Staunton begin moving to other jurisdictions because of pay.

“We’ve got the best police department in the area,” Williams said. “One of the top in the United States. I would put our officers up against any … We’ve built an incredible culture, but we need to increase some of the pay for our officers to keep them there.”

Williams, who was appointed chief in July 2003, said he isn’t ready to ring the alarm bells yet, but he’s close.

After some changes by city staff at the behest of council, It appears Staunton will be able to fund about 59% of the police department’s initial request in the proposed budget that will be brought to council for approval Thursday, April 24.

With some of the funds from an almost $1.2 million sale of two parcels at Staunton Crossing, Staunton can fund the economic development website, allowing that item to be removed from the budget. Staff also increased revenue projections in the budget for both business licenses and personal property tax.

Jessie Moyers, the city’s chief financial officer, said the revenue projections for business licenses and personal property tax are conservative enough that it shouldn’t cause a shortfall. Actual personal property tax revenue for fiscal year 2024 was $7.2 million and the amount in the proposed budget is $6.9 million. Moyers said they felt comfortable increasing that by $140,500. They will also increase the business license revenue by $50,000.

The three items combined would provide an additional $225,580 to be used for the career development plan. It will be an annual expense in the budget, however, per Moyers, the amount will vary depending on current staffing.

It’s not the full amount the police department requested, but it will kickstart the pay plan. Williams said funding would allow the department to phase in the plan and, hopefully, they would get that additional funding next year.

“The funds for the initial phase of the program will help us as we attempt to retain our officers and hopefully make us able to recruit other certified officers who would like to join our department,” Williams told The News Leader.

Councilor Corrie Park said she was 100 percent in favor of using these funds for phase one of the plan, calling funding the police department one of the most basic things council can do to make sure the city is safe.

“We don’t want to become the place that people who are in this profession just end up because they can’t get hired anywhere else,” Park said. “We are not that kind of city.”

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— Patrick Hite is a reporter at The News Leader. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Connect with Patrick (he/him/his) at [email protected] and on Instagram @hitepatrick. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Staunton Council finds way to partially fund police department pay plan