Police salaries were a big part of the discussion at the Tuesday, May 23 City Council work session held in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber.
In April, the City Council voted to raise the starting salaries for police officers to $57,000 in the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget.
City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba ignored that direction from City Council in his 2023-2024 recommended budget, aka “Moving Forward Together.” In Jaiyeoba’s recommended budget, the starting salary for Greensboro police officers was raised to $52,459.
At the work session, the council was told that increasing the starting salary for police officers to $57,000 would require and additional $6.3 million and a tax increase in addition to the 4-cent tax increase in the manager’s recommended budget.
Councilmember Tammi Thurm noted that the salary data that showed raising the salaries to $52,459 would put Greensboro at the middle of the pay range of comparable cities was about six months old.
She said, “We know that things have changed dramatically in salary rates from January to May.”
She added, “We don’t want to fool ourselves. We are barely keeping up with the Jones.”
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter noted that the Police Department, already down 120 officers, recently lost nine officers to a municipality 20 miles away.
She said, “I say we need to do something and do something now. We need to go up to $57,000 and go up to $57,000 now.”
Jaiyeoba said, “I do get the spirit behind that direction.”
He added, “It will take us another year or two to get there, but we will get there.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan questioned the compensation survey and noted that it didn’t include Burlington, which is leading the local market with a starting salary of $57,000, or Rocky Mount, which has a starting salary of $60,000.
Even Councilmember Sharon Hightower questioned raising the property tax rate higher than the 4 cents in the manager’s recommended budget.
Hightower said, “Be mindful you can only increase your property tax rate by so much.”
Hightower and Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann both noted that the recent major economic development announcements weren’t going to bring any additional tax revenue to Greensboro, since they are not located in Greensboro and one not even located in Guilford County.
The city manager needs to go. This city already has the highest tax rate in the state. Why can’t he budget within that money. This is ridiculous!! I wish I could afford to move!!!!
Lying fools. Wake up and fire your city manager. Admit you made a giantic SNAFU.
They won’t give them the raises because they (city counsel) doesn’t care about Police.. Especially Hightower.
I saw a 12yr old boy arrested for purse snatching in Lebauer Park as patrons thronged on their way to see Frozen at the Tanger. In broad daylight. He then proceeded to assault the arresting officer.
This is what happens thanks to City of Greensboro’s defacto Defund The Police. Rampant crime and overworked, underpaid police.
The city manager again shows what a joke he is. I feel pretty certain that the shortage can be found if they cut out some of the other wasted spending in the budget. The police deserve the increase and having to work in this town it is justifies.
Easy….get rid of city Mgr ….Charlotte got us again …
Jaiyeoba said, “I do get the spirit behind that direction”. What a crock. Smooth talking words spoken by a smooth taking operator. Suggestion for Jaiyeoba, cut the budget in the giveaway areas and fire all these superfluous city workers you have added to the payroll. GCC, lower the salaries of Jaiyeoba and the worthless city attorney, Chuck Watts by half. This would be enough to hire 5 police officers at 57K. Residents of Greensboro, would you rather have 5 more police officers helping make the City safer; or Jaiyeoba and Watts?
City budget should cover the normal city infrastructure first before nice to have job creation and non profit funding. Policing, water, sewer, roads, garbage and refuse collection are the basic reasons for having a city government. The citizens of the city should not be expected to fund a continuous expansion of items in that are only accessed by targeted groups.
Get real. The city manager’s budget requires a 4% increase in taxes on top of the 30% last year, and they can’t raise the police salaries to the recommended level? It’s time to fire the socialist they hired and get someone new that doesn’t want to bloat the city bureaucracy with 4 or five assistant city managers and all the “feel good” diversity hires he’s made, some of whom can’t even handle the made up job they’ve been given. People who try to tax a population in order to fulfill their self aggrandizement and redistribute the wealth had a name many years ago… Commie rat badtard. I’ll refer to him as CRB henceforth.
Let’s all sing a chorus of Kumbaya for Greensboro’s Wokest City Manager to date. Great job City Voters!
I do wish these people would just give the police what they are asking for and quit this bickering back and forth. Maybe they just need to cut all their feel good pet projects. Crime is absolutely getting ridiculous.
Oh, the mendacity of this City Manager. He was instructed by the elected councilmembers to do X, which he refused to do. He cites the expense, which is strange since he has expanded the budget extravagantly.
But this City Manager, a Marxist from Africa, despises the police. He helped create a huge mural in Charlotte that was a tribute to BLM (BLACK LIVES MATTER). And that movement hates the police and wants to defund them.
And so he furtively defunds the police while expanding every other aspect of government exponentially.
I’m not a big fan of law enforcement agencies, but they must exist.
I suspect that Jaiyeoba would like to eviscerate them.
The city manager also said there was no where in a $749 million budget to cut. Not one thing.
Also, Mayor Nancy-quit talking about take home cars. They do not exist. You cannot advertise what does not exist,
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! To the Mayor, Councilwoman Thurm, Councilwoman Abuziaiter, Councilwoman Hightower.
I cannot believe the way the manager treated the Council….like they were children. He blatantly ignored the Council’s mandate to raise police salaries, yet is giving other employees more…..
Defend the police by attrition. If I worked for the GPD, I’d be outta here PFQ.
It’s time to prepare to defend ourselves, our family, and our home. There will be few GPD to answer the call, finally reaching a crime scene.
Is council finally waking up to the tactics of this anti- police city city manager? Council must question what other directions council has made to him and he ignored. Who is really in charge, council, mayor or city manager?
Even Hightower raised questions! That should be an eye opener.
Why doesn’t this council understand that he works for them? They can make a motion that salary is 57K, vote it up, and he either follows orders or gets fired.
I don’t get it.
It’s all behind closed doors.
As seen many times before, this city manager does what he wants to do how he wants to do it. He works directly for the city council, and gets his direction from them. This is yet another example of him not doing the job he was hired for and not following the direction of his bosses. It’s way past time to send this city manager packing !! The police department is dangerously short staffed already, and him saying that we will get there in a year or two on the salary is ridiculous. By then the department will be at about 50% capacity and be one of the most crime riddled cities in the southeast.
“As seen many times before, this city manager does what he wants to do how he wants to do it.”
Actually, he’s getting his marching orders from the council. He does what they want, or he’s gone, and some on the council are using false narratives so they can appear to be against the manager. . . which is politics. Each one of them hve their pet projects.
We had a chance to get rid of Nancy the last election, and she would have lost had it not been for 3 people in the race.
A five year plan for take home vehicles for police. A two year plan for salaries based on 6 month old information. With the highest tax rate in the state (or at least in the top 3). Why is council not asking for a more detailed budget and then they make the cuts? That is what they are elected to do. You council are the manager’s boss, act like it. You cannot keep raising taxes to redistribute wealth-which is what you are doing when you raise taxes to give to non-profits. Your tax base is going to move. I have lived in Greensboro my entire life (most of my life in Hightower’s district) and have started researching moving into an incorporated city in Guilford County or out of here entirely.
I cannot believe I am typing that after watching the meeting that Hightower made the most sense. She mentioned the water rates going up as well as the taxes. And Thurm-give the manager a direct order to provide a line by line budget-not a summary. Do not wait until next year.
This is what happens when you use affirmative action to hire city managers.
you should look into all the departments being moved out of MMOB and other city owned building into very expensive leased spaces.
!
Nancy, if they add take home cars to the website, then someone gets hired and then doesn’t get a car, don’t you think that’s going to cause more issues than it solves? In my world we would call that false advertising. Another stellar idea from council.
You also cannot nickel and dime your way to a competitive rate. Better heed the chief’s warning and do something bold and dramatic before some other nearby agency does. Otherwise you will be right back to the drawing board.. So dumb.