The document discusses proposals to address staffing issues and increase salaries in the city's fire and police departments in order to improve retention and recruitment of employees. The fire department has experienced high turnover rates among new employees and staffing shortages due to injuries. The police department is also losing highly trained officers to other agencies. Both departments propose to eliminate vacant positions and use the savings to fund equal base pay raises for all ranks, in order to become more competitive in pay and benefits. The changes could be made without tax increases by using available funds in the current fiscal year budget.

1. Discussion / Action on Fire and Police Re-
Alignment and Salary Adjustments
Presented By: Buddy Kuhn, Fire Chief & Rick Pruitt,
Chief of Police
Item# 8
City Council Meeting
November 14, 2016

2. SUMMARY
Police and Fire continual loss of employees –
current and projected
 Very low retention of new employees
 FD average tenure from start to 5 years =
1.87 years – 14 employees, 50% of operations
staff
 FD short of staffing due to injuries beginning
March 2016 – September 2016

3. SUMMARY
Anticipated additional losses FD
 Where they are going / reasons
include more opportunity, better pay,
retirement and health insurance

4. SUMMARY
 Solutions to increase base pay in
FD:
 Reduction in staffing of 4 personnel, 1
admin and 3 FF / paramedics
 2 removed from FD budget and 2 from EMS
budget

5. Summary
 Reductions would reduce FD from 28
uniformed to 24
 3 operational shifts with 7 max and 5
min personnel (Reduced from 8 & 6)
 Admin position reassigned as
operational shift commander

6. Pros of staff reduction
 Able to provide needed raises to be more competitive
 In the job market – Retention and Attraction of
employees
 Reduction in payroll costs – initial and legacy costs
including health insurance, retirement and
commodities
 Current FY 17 budget has ample funding

7. Pros of staff reduction
 Requires no tax increase or transfers from other
funds
 City still has funding leftover even after raises are
given to use on other projects
 Minimal impacts on service – can’t eliminate risk but
can minimize through auto aid with other agencies

8. Cons of staff reduction
Impact to residents
Impact on operations staffing
Possible reduction of ISO score in 2019
Impact to sister EMS cities – Olmos Park and
Terrell Hills – changes to contract

9. FISCAL IMPACT
 FY 17 FD Salaries budget - $1,826,230
 FY 17 FD amended budget - $1,788,513 ($37,717)
 FY 17 EMS Salaries budget - $593,374
 FY 17 EMS amended budget - $ 505,524 ($54,447)

10. FISCAL IMPACT
Combined salary savings FD / EMS -
$92,183
Additional $9,805 reduction in commodities
($101,988 total savings)
Elimination of positions before raises of
$288,897
Proposed raises would cost $186,909
including fringe

11. FISCAL IMPACT
 Raises distributed equally among ranks for all
positions EXCEPT the department heads
 All ranks between FF and shift commander receive
$5,000, DCs receive $7,000 base pay raise
 Additional legacy costs savings, health insurance,
retirement, FF turnouts, etc.
 Equal raises avoids salary compression
 Questions

12. 12
Police Department
Discussion

13. 13
● Loss of highly trained and experienced police
officers can have a negative impact on police
operations and quality of service
• AHPD has lost ten officers over the past five
years and the retention problem is escalating
• Two officers to Bexar County Sheriff Department
in the past two years and one officer to Travis
County Sheriff Department last month
Summary

14. 14
● Two additional officers have received and
accepted offers from the Selma Police
Department
• Five more officers have active applications or
have made applications with other police
agencies
● Their loss is a loss greater than just the officer;
in some cases there is financial impact
Summary

15. 15
● The recruiting challenges for police
» competitive salary, benefits, insurance
coverages
» signing and “staying” bonuses
» lateral transfer programs
» evaporating applicant pool
Summary

16. 16
• Proposed solutions to increase base pay level in
AHPD
» eliminate the vacant assistant police chief
position
» eliminate one vacant corporal position
● The administrative sergeant position would be
transferred to patrol to maintain authorized
strength of seventeen officers
Summary

17. 17
• Improve salaries as a marketing tool for
retention and recruiting
• Equal pay status for patrol level officers
• Parity between salaries of ranking police officers
and ranking firefighters having comparative
supervisory responsibilities
● All salary adjustments are funded by the
approved FY17 Budget without amendment
Goals

18. 18
• Requires no tax increase or outside resource
funding
• Reduction in future employee costs related to
insurance, retirement, other legacy costs and
commodities
• No reduction in patrol response, patrol presence,
productivity or level of service
Goals

19. 19
Fiscal Impact
Funding Source Adjusted Budget Impact
FY 17 adopted police salary budget $2,590,995
Proposed amended salary budget 2,778,097 (+)187,102
Remove asst chief and corporal: (-) $205,687 2,572,410 (-) 18,585

20. 20
● Base salary increases for each respective
rank:
» Patrol Officers: $3,633 to 7,054 ($51,791)
» Corporal: $8,041 ($60,000)
» Detective: $8,460 ($61,500)
» Sergeant: $10,563 ($70,097)
» Lieutenant: $7,792 ($77,066)
Fiscal Impact