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Vienna City Council puts police pay raise on hold for now

By Kristen Hainkel 3 min read

VIENNA -- Vienna City Council voted to table a resolution to increase City of Vienna police officer salaries by $12,000 a year at Thursday's meeting.

The starting rate for a Vienna Police Department officer is $23 an hour. The resolution would increase the pay by $5.77 an hour to $28.77 an hour.

Council member Tom Azinger was the sponsor and opened the council's discussion.

"We have a real problem attracting police officers in Vienna as well as other places. We've been down two officers for two years. Council here has been in office 2.5 years. This means that the police department is only 90% as effective as it could be," Azinger said.

He continued, "In 18 months, we could lose up to six police officers. That means we have about six months to hire eight police officers to bring us up to complement. The reason we only have six months is because when you hire a police officer, he has to take the written exam, he has to take the agility test, a polygraph test, he has to go to the academy, he has to go through the routine training before he is on the street. Time is of the essence."

Council member Kim Williams said while she is supportive of the measure, council needed to consider the whole picture.

"Where I think compensation needs to be increased, dollars are what we really need to consider," she said. "If you give a $12,000 annual raise, that's not where it ends. You have payroll taxes, the impact of a pension, and the impact of the overall budget. The impact is large," she said.

Williams also presented compensation numbers from other local departments provided by Police Chief Mike Pifer. The City of Parkersburg starts at $23.47 per hour, Williamstown starts at $22.05 and Washington County Sheriff's Department starts at $25.25.

One part of the police benefit package includes a pension internally funded by the city of Vienna. In order to attract officers from other areas, Williams suggested joining a statewide pension fund that can be transferred to other member cities.

Council member Roger Bibbee said recruitment is important, but taking steps to retain the department's current officers is important, too.

"I've been on council 24 years and most of you know that my priority as far as goes is public safety," he said. "I think one thing that is just as important as recruitment is retention. I think the retention of the officers that we have are just as important," he said.

Mayor Randy Rapp said he had worked with Finance Director Amy Roberts to come up with potential costs to the city if an increase was approved. He also met with the pension board to go over pension options.

"When you look at the numbers, in the last 30 months we have increased the salary of the officers in the police department by $11,138," he said. "If we go with a $1 an hour pay raise, it would impact our budget by $74,262.89. If you go to $2 an hour, it goes to $148,525.78. A $6,000 pay raise would be $2.88 an hour and that would increase it by $213,979.01. An $8,000 a year pay raise would be $3.84 an hour and that would $285,305.35. And if we went to a $10,000 pay increase, that would be $4.80 per hour increase which would increase the budget by $356,631.59. And if we go with $12,000 per year increase which is the $5.77 in the resolution this evening, it would increase our budget by $428,479.89."

Council voted 6-1 to table the resolution until the next meeting on Aug. 10, with Azinger opposed.

Kristen Hainkel can be reached by khainkel@newsandsentinel.com

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