City police chief says he'll protect officer pay

Lynchburg Police Chief Parks Snead says he will find money in his own budget, if needed, to protect his department from a citywide pay cut now awaiting final approval.

Snead said he and other police commanders already are searching for ways to shift money around with the goal of maintaining salaries.

“I’m the police chief,” he said. “I’m responsible for public safety and making sure all the men and women who make public safety a reality have the resources they need — not only to do their job, but to take care of their families and maintain their homes and have the standard of living they deserve.”

The Lynchburg Police Department encompasses both police operations and the emergency dispatch center, which already have high turnover and concerns about pay scales.

Many public safety officers and supporters in the community are protesting the pending 3 percent pay cuts, citing concerns about blighted morale, increased resignations and the corresponding effect on the crime rate.

A rally is set for May 26, the same day City Council is scheduled to cast its final vote on the new budget. Organizers hope to convince officials to find a way to restore full pay for at least the public safety division, if not for all city employees.

It’s questionable whether City Council could be persuaded to make significant changes to the budget this late in the process.

While not directly involved in next week’s rally, Snead said he did support that event’s message and appreciated the effort to raise awareness about salary concerns.

If the pay cuts go through, he said he would consider keeping vacant positions open in order to redirect those personnel funds to existing employees.

Maintaining vacancies is not ideal for the LPD, which has been working to expand its police force. But Snead said it might be a worthy tradeoff.

“It’s the classic situation: Which is less evil for public safety and for the community?” he said. “… I personally would feel a little strange expanding the number of our positions when I can’t pay the employees I have.”

Two police officers recently announced plans to take other jobs, citing in part the LPD’s uncompetitive pay scale, Snead said. Department supervisors report that as many as 18 other officers are considering leaving if the pay cut goes through, a potential loss the chief has called disturbing.

The LPD has 170 sworn police officer positions. Of those, three are currently vacant.

Snead stressed during an interview Monday that no final decisions concerning the department budget have been made. If the police do ultimately wish to amend their own budget, it’s not immediately clear what process would be required.

Excluding the salary reduction, the department already is slated for a nearly 5 percent budget cut in the new fiscal year — a drop of about $714,400.

In addition, the department is working to trim about $290,000 from the current budget before the financial year ends. City departments across the board are sustaining equally deep cuts as the city struggles against declining tax revenues and reductions in state aid.

In the police department, areas affected by the reduction include equipment and supplies, overtime pay and recruitment efforts.

“To have tried so hard and trimmed so much and have it still not be enough,” he said. “It’s no one’s fault, but it is frustrating nonetheless.”

Asked why the public safety pay issue was picking up steam so late in the budget process, several stakeholders said it had been widely believed the city would ultimately drop the idea of pay cuts.

“I did not think it was going to get to this point,” said Jason Campbell, a captain with the Lynchburg Fire Department and president of the Lynchburg Fire Fighters Association.

The association played a role in some behind-the-scenes discussions during the recent budget process and Campbell said they truly felt City Council did notintend to go through with the pay cuts, a belief Campbell said was “very much widespread.”

“I’m a little surprised and confused as to how it happened that we got this far,” he said.

Unlike the police, Fire Chief Brad Ferguson said his department was not reviewing its individual budget in hopes of restoring employee pay.

“That’s a significant amount of money,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way we could (restore salaries) without laying people off. And our people have said all along they’d take a pay cut over layoffs.”

Campbell said the firefighters association did feel strongly about the pay cuts and did not want to see them go through. He added it worked to find alternate means of balancing the budget, including proposing the retirement incentive plan approved by City Council last month.

Campbell said the association decided early on that its priority would be to avoid layoffs. “Even if we had to give something up, our stance was it was better than people losing their jobs,” he said.

If council seriously entertains a proposal to sustain level police salaries, the firefighters association feels their department should be part of that discussion.

Local firefighters have spoken in the past of the need to maintain “pay parity” between the two departments, and the city has had to take those concerns into account when evaluating past pay raises.