Speakout

Friday, January 22, 2016

What's the salary?

I wanted to speak out about the raises that the policemen got. I realize that it said they had gotten a $3,000 raise already. I notice that you didn't print how much of a raise they were going to get that was approved by the city council. When they were asking the public to vote on the sales tax I noticed that they were quick to put the salaries of all of the other police around were getting but they didn't put the Sikeston police salary in there. Could they please print that - how much the raise is and how much the salary is a year?

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I called in a little over a month ago and I've seen everything in the paper except what I asked. My question is regarding the sales tax that was voted on to give the policemen a raise. I understand the policemen have already got a $3,000 raise and I wanted to know how much more are they gonna get in July? I think I already have the answer to that, but I want you to answer to see if I've got the truth or not. I heard on top of the $3,000 they are going to get another $10,000 for a total of $13,000 a year. I was just wondering if that was true. It was said to me that they were going to upgrade the park over here in Sunset. I guess time will tell. Thank you very much, God bless you and thank you for your time.

In addition to the previously approved $3,000 raise for all sworn positions, the City Council approved a $4,000 raise for Public Safety Officers, $2,000 for detectives, $2,000 for sergeants, $3,000 for lieutenants, and $3,000 for captains. The new starting salary for a Public Safety Officer will be $37,602 per year. As we said during the campaign for the sales tax, we aren't trying to be the highest paid department in the region, we are only trying to be competitive. We believe the new pay rates make us competitive. The raises will become effective in July after the city starts receiving distributions of the new sales tax. Expenditures on parks and streets will be decided during the budget process each year. Annually, the city adopts a Capital Improvement Plan that outlines the needed projects, and then the City Council decides which projects are the highest priorities for funding in the upcoming budget year. That process will begin this spring. Several years of budgets, audits, and capital improvement plans can be found on www.sikeston.org.