The Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) will soon receive a historic raise after the East Baton Rouge Metro Council signed off on it Wednesday (April 22).
All officers will receive at least a 15% raise, non-sworn employees will receive a 3.5% raise and the police chief will receive a 5.9% raise. The base pay for a sworn officer would be kicked up from about $41,000 to about $58,000 under this plan.
Implementing the raises at the mid-year point will cost the city-parish $7.5 million this year. In a full year, the raises will cost $12.5 million. The cost will increase up to about $18 million if extra officers are hired as planned.
This has been a major goal for Mayor-President Sid Edwards, who said getting raises for police officers is one of the reasons he ran for office.
“My biggest reaction is how grateful I am. It is a big weight off of me,” Edwards said. “I just felt this was critically important, and I am just very grateful.”
BRPD Chief TJ Morse said there has been a massive increase in interest for the department, and Edwards said getting more officers on the force was one of the main goals of the legislation.
“I’ve always said from the very beginning that the Baton Rouge Police Department was a premier law enforcement agency,” Morse said. “What was holding us back was pay. So now that we are getting up to rates that are fair and competitive, we’re going to be able to start to hire a lot more people.”
Leading up to the vote, the decision to give raises to BRPD while excluding the rest of the parish’s employees was met with much criticism.
One of the leading voices in support of adding other parish agencies to the raises was Baton Rouge Constable Terrica Williams, whose office was excluded from the police raises. Despite initial opposition, she spoke in favor of the plan at the meeting, and indicated that there was a proposal to get her deputies' raises coming before the council in three weeks.
That plan was introduced at Wednesday’s meeting and will be considered at the May 13 meeting. The cover letter that accompanies every ordinance is sparse, indicating only that it will make changes to the city-parish’s pay plan.
The mayor’s office said it will hold a press conference to announce the details of the plan on Friday (April 24).
Details of the plan were discussed in a public forum by council members and the constable, but when asked to confirm what was said, the mayor’s office declined.
“Let’s just focus on the win tonight,” Edwards said.
This is a developing story. Check back with WRKF for updates.
