The City of Waynesboro currently has 17 job openings in its police department, including 13 full-time and one part-time officer vacancies.
The city is working to boost the starting pay for new officers to catch up to its peers locally and regionally. According to a document made available to Augusta Free Press, the starting pay for a new officer in Waynesboro ranges from $44,000 to $47,410 for a certified officer.
Those figures are in range for competing local agencies in Lexington ($39,988 beginning salary), Grottoes and Staunton ($40,000), Albemarle County ($44,524), Harrisonburg ($44,844), Charlottesville ($45,364) and Augusta County ($46,000).
The outlier regionally is the University of Virginia Police Department, which offers a starting salary for new officers at $53,000.
“The city has made meaningful progress improving compensation in the police department, especially for sworn personnel,” City Manager Mike Hamp said. “Compensation is changing rapidly in the field of public safety as agencies compete for qualified candidates in an unusual labor market.”
The number of job openings in the police department was an issue raised by several speakers at a public hearing on the proposed Sunset Park project earlier this week.
Mayor Bobby Henderson addressed their concerns, suggesting that the city needs more local tax money to be able to properly staff the police, fire and emergency services departments.
“You know, we’ve gone through the budget, this is my third year on the council, we’ve gone through the budget process for three years in a row, for three years in a row. We want to make stuff better for our public servants, for our employees that work for the city, our firemen, our policemen. But all three years, the same people that come and said, you’ve got to invest in the police, come and say, you can’t raise our taxes because we want our taxes to remain low. I’m just confused about this works,” Henderson said.
Story by Chris Graham
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