Greensboro City Councilmember Justin Outling finally pushed the City Council into taking some action to provide additional assistance to the Greensboro Police Department at the Tuesday, April 6 City Council meeting.
Outling had to wait a couple hours for a vote on his motion, but when the vote was finally taken his motion to approve the recommendation of City Manager David Parrish to provide police officers with raises in September and December and to hire 16 additional police officers, with eight in 2022 and eight in 2023, passed unanimously.
Outling originally made the motion following the proposal by Parrish at the City Council work session held at 3:30 p.m. before the regular meeting at 5:30 p.m.
At the work session, Outling said that additional compensation would help the Police Department both in attracting new officers and retaining the current officers and that Police Chief Brian James had said that additional positions would be helpful even if they could not immediately be filled.
Outling said, “It would be helpful if this were approved by the council. I think it has to be approved by the council for it to actually constitute action that would help the chief reduce violence in our community. With that I’d like to make a motion that the city manager actually operationalize and proceed with the proposal on the timeline he has outlined.”
The motion was immediately seconded by Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann.
Outling said that by passing the motion the Police Department could start recruiting officers with the knowledge that there would in fact be a salary increase in September. He said, “Short of council taking action tonight we have a terrific recommendation from the manager but don’t actually have action by the council.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “Normally in work sessions we do consensus. We don’t take votes in work sessions.”
Vaughan added, “We have all made it pretty clear that public safety is a top priority.”
Vaughan then invited Outling to make his motion at the regular meeting later in the evening.
Outling said, “We can do that now.”
Councilmember Michelle Kennedy said, “My understanding is that we are in a work session, which is not a voting session.”
Kennedy then asked City Clerk Angie Lord for a legal ruling on whether or not the council could vote.
Outling said, “I defer to the city attorney on legal questions.”
Lord also deferred to the city attorney.
City Attorney Chuck Watts said, “As a matter of pure law, yes, you can vote anytime you want to.” But he added that it was the prerogative of the mayor to recognize the motion.
Outling said he would remake his motion at the City Council meeting.
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter said, “I’d like to make sure the city manager would be comfortable with that.”
Parrish, recognizing that he works for the City Council and not the other way around, said he would be fine with whatever the City Council decided to do.
Poor Justin.Its hard to imagine trying to get something accomplished in that bunch.Hang in there,Outling,you’re our only hope!
Procrastination is the name of the game. Will these new posts exceed the attrition rate?
The Council wants to satisfy the defunders.
FINALLY!
Outling for Mayor.
Outling is NOT pro-police. I will admit he is at least smarter than Nancy if not better. Look up last summer’s Greenway nonsense if you are not sure where he stands on police.
Make no mistake, a 65 cents per hour pay increase, which is what the bump amounts to, for police is in no way going to draw in masses of police applicants. It is simply a way for people campaigning for office to show that they are “pro-police”.
Do not fall for it. If you believe in Justin, at least hold him accountable to enact meaningful change. I don’t know, maybe insist that the largest police agency in Guilford County, that would be GPD, also be the highest paid agency in Guilford County rather than the third best. Not only is GPD still behind High Point amd Guilford County Sheriff as far as pay, but they get assigned vehicles while GPD has to share. This was “change” for political points and nothing more.
I’m not buying what council is selling and will vote for none of them when the time comes if they do not do everything they can to make my city safe.
Very happy to see Outling coming to task and trying to get things proposed and approved. It’s a shame that our Mayor and others would rather worry about formalities instead of real action. Maybe that’s why so little constructive work gets done. Action, not words, people.
He threw bread crumbs and called it a meal. Nothing more.
No rush on those raises. The proposed starting pay is still not equal or greater to High Point. It is also not comparable to the Guilford County Sherriff’s office which provides a substantial increase for each level of education. Why would a new person choose Greensboro when they could go to the other two major agencies in Guilford County and make more money with less hassle? These agencies, along with smaller ones like Graham, love to hire Greensboro officers.
Not to mention, both of those agencies have permanent take home vehicles. An element of incentive that Greensboro has refused to implement for decades.
That meeting was atrocious. From Hightower insisting that garbagemen need to be paid on par with police officers (no offense sanitation workers, but no one is calling for your death or cancelation on a national scale), to them trying to assert that GPD has take home cars, to finally agreeing to give GPD a $1200 bump in their starting pay to $40,212. Yeah, our “heroes” are now worth $19 an hour to risk their lives for us. Nothing says we cherish and need you like tossing your beloved police force a less than $1 per hour raise that you only gave them because they were so woefully underpaid already that their police force is drying up faster than a slug on a salt lick.
In the end Greensboro PD still makes less than neighboring High Point PD ($40,317), Raleigh ($42,300), the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department ($42,500 if you have a degree, and oh, they didn’t even bother comparing GPD to GCSD, even though their jurisdictions literally overlap), and Charlotte ($45,757). Winston-Salem still beats Greensboro too if you have a degree, speak a second language or have military service, none of which do you any good at Greensboro PD.
So yeah, Greensboro PD got a “pay raise”, but in typical city council fashion, it was a token move that did nothing to make our city competitive in a job market that has become incredibly cutthroat because there are so few eligible applicants that actually want to put themselves in both the literal and figurative line of fire. But now the council can all say how much they support our police, which all that really matters to them, I guess.
Toss bread crumbs… Check.
Say you love the police…Check.
Get reelected on faux pro-police platform… TBD.
Amen. It’s all political theater. Although I value the sanitation workers, give me a break Hightower. Why doesn’t she go through the academy and start answering calls? Oh that’s right-then she can’t vote herself lifetime healthcare through a lobbyist or get the election delayed until 2022.
When you side with rioters who destroy our downtown (May 2020), it’s hard to then compensate the police. The attrition is growing. Younger officers aren’t going to suck it up and stay 30 years. Once they find something better, they are out. That may be a better agency or a better career path.
Another thing: the slide show produced by the city for the salary study looks like it was product a 5th grader. Months of waiting for a salary study and that is what they produced? They “studied” an agency in Virginia who did not provide half of the information. Plus Virginia has a different retirement system. NO GPD does not have take home cars. If you take the car home on your 4 days of work, then your personal car is at work. How many of you would like to go without your personal car for 4 days?
I have a five year record of strongly supporting public safety. Unlike what you have now. I will continue that as a top priority if I am re-elected to Council.
The comparison of salaries to other local governments in our area is not of primary importance, although needed anyway. With people willing to relocate to other cities, you need to compare Greensboro to similar sized cities with similar populations in our state. For instance, cities of Cary and Apex have starting salaries above $45,000, and increasingly other cities are at 43-45k to start, with liberal benefits and extra pay for 2-yr and 4-yr degrees, as well as take home cars.
Then again, this council wants to prioritize funding for community support groups and give money and salvaged cars to community groups without having a bidding to get the highest dollar.
Question. . . .for those on the council who are also recipients of “grants” to their various “non-profit” organizations, are the salaries they get for their work with these non-profits public record? If so, why not publish them the same as the city does for their employees which the Rhino publishes each year?