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Kyle Police DepartmentPosted March 8, 2007, 12:30 a.m.
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Hays Highway Editor
KYLE – The Kyle City Council and staff commissioned a study of police compensation and discovered thereby that high turnover on the police force probably occurred for a predictable reason – compensation and benefits for the Kyle police lags behind police departments in other local cities of similar size.
But four Kyle councilmembers expressed disappointment with Katherine Ray of Ray Associates for not developing a more anecdotal picture, as if to suggest that low pay couldn't possibly account for the levels of turnover in the Kyle Police Department, which reached 52 percent in 2006.
Ray held firm to her findings in the face of vigorous questioning by councilmembers, noting that of the eight people who left the KPD last year, six departed before the city implemented a $3,000 pay raise across the board for Kyle police. The other two departures, Ray said, are consistent with normal turnover.
The consulting firm, Ray and Associates, did a salary and benefits survey of several nearby law enforcement agencies – such as the Hays County Sheriff's Office and the San Marcos police department, as well as police in Live Oak, Schertz and other towns, then compared those departments with KPD salary and benefits in the eight positions they have in common.
Ray found that Kyle pays two positions at double-digit percentages below the entry-level median salary for the same positions in the other departments. Furthermore, Kyle pays below the median maximum in all eight positions and at double-digit percentages below the median maximum salary in seven of the eight positions.
In two cases – animal control officer and lieutenant – Ray said KPD pays double digit percentages above the entry-level median. However, she added, because the KPD lieutenant functions much like a captain, that position isn't truly paid above the norm in Kyle.
In addition, Kyle requires ten years of service before its police officers are vested for retirement benefits, compared with five years for other police departments.
Ray cited two factors in Kyle's compensation lag: the city hasn't established a standard pay scale, nor has it conducted a survey of the market for police compensation since 1998-99.
Chalking it up to fast growth, Ray said it's common for cities in the neighborhood of 5,000 residents to not have such a pay scale, but, she added, cities approaching 30,000, such as Kyle, absolutely need one if they are to retain skilled employees.
"You're growing so fast," Ray told the council. "You're in another league now."
While noting that the pay shortages are unique factors to the KPD turnover, Ray said police departments everywhere frequently lose officers. In recent years, she said, local police departments have lost personnel who elected to fight in the Iraq War and take homeland security positions. Additionally, she said, Baby Boomers are hitting retirement age, police tend to retire earlier than people in other professions and the pool of young workers isn't large enough to fill all the positions.
Ray recommended that the city implement a 3.5 percent pay raise across the board for the KPD, then establish a classification and compensation plan citywide.
Citing a 2005 study by Deloitte & Touche and Families and Work, Ray said the cost of recruitment and training for a non-professional employee runs $12,000 each, that the same costs for professional employees are $35,000, that those costs for supervisory employees who aren't managers is 75 percent of the position's annual salary and that the costs for a manager are 150 percent of the position's annual salary.
Ray said her firm attempted to contact all 15 of the officers who have left the KPD in recent years, but repeated efforts only turned up one former officer who answered the phone or returned a call. Because it's fallacious to draw general conclusions from single cases, Ray declined to note findings based on that one interview.
Councilmember David Salazar protested that "I would have expected a little more tenacity getting in touch with the officers," but Ray insisted that her firm's efforts in that regard were repeated and persistent.
Councilmember Dan Ekakiadis complained that Ray didn't interview sitting members of the KPD, instead having them fill out forms describing their duties and compensation. Kyle City Manager Tom Mattis interjected that the consulting firm wasn't charged with interviewing current police officers so much as discovering how Kyle compensates police officers relative to other similar towns.
So vigorous were councilmembers in their disappointment that speculation around the meeting suggested they hoped the study would pin high police turnover to the management style of KPD Chief Al Moore. At one point, Councilmember Becky Selbera went so far as to suggest that councilmembers interview sitting police officers, prompting Ray to gently remind her that the police work for the city staff and that the council's role is to set policy, rather than manage employees.
