Video:Beginning Certified Police Officers Pay

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The Columbus Police Department Overview Committee is actively researching ways to recruit more officers to the department.

One of the things they’re working on is a proactive approach to get a bump up in officers salaries.

Police departments do whatever they can to recruit officers, and one thing that helps bring that competitive edge is more dollars.

Being a law enforcement officer is a tough job. Long hours and lots of sacrifices for relatively little pay.

“Pay is a factor when deciding what profession you want to come into. If you can make comparable money doing something less risky, less dangerous, why not do it, in this point in time with the way law enforcement officers are looked upon across the nation right now,” says Columbus Police Chief, Oscar Lewis.

However, it’s the passion that draws most officers to the job.

“People that get into this job are doing it to help the community, and to serve the community. The way I look at law enforcement and wearing this uniform is very prestigious, as well as very professional. It’s just like the military. They don’t do it for the pay, they do it to serve their country,” says Columbus Investigator, Christopher Vanhouten.

Passion may be one part, but paying the bills also figures into the equation.

“Maintain a competitive edge among other departments, you know, I mean if you have other departments paying the same amount of money, or more money, that’s going to be the big draw for the most part,” says Lewis.

That’s why Columbus is looking into doing this.

“We’re working on a package there to where that would help increase the moral also, and then overall, we’re looking at a plan to where we could present to the mayor and the council here in the next couple of months, to where we can look at a pay increase across the board for our police officers,” says Mayor Robert Smith.

Right now, Tupelo’s certified first year officers lead the region in pay, with Columbus certified rookies right behind them, and bottoming out yearly pay is Lowndes County Sheriff Deputies.

Bumping up the pay could help the Columbus Police Department with there shortage of officers.

“It’s been quite a while since they’ve had a substantial one. I think an opening officer makes around $32,000 a year, and where we are in the state of Mississippi, and in the country with officers not wanting to go to departments, we think there needs to be a loud and clear reason for people to come to the department,” says Columbus Police Department Overview Committee, Colin Krieger.

That’s not the only thing that needs to made clear.

“Salary definitely plays an important role, but then you have the other factors that you have to include in there also. It’s from overall, as far as like retention, moral, you know, efficiency, consistency, fairness, and stability also,” says Smith.