BEATRICE – Facing a shortage of officers and competition police departments are feeling, The City of Beatrice has increased hourly pay for beginning and already experienced police officers.


Mayor Bob Morgan says the local department has lost some officers in recent weeks.  "We lost one individual who got out of law enforcement altogether...we had a couple others, I believe who went to Kearney and Buffalo County...and then we lost one to a smaller community local, here. When you start losing officers the first thing you want to find out, is why? Tobias (Tempelmeyer) and Chief (John) Hickman have done exit interviews with the officers that have left...and really it doesn't have anything to do with the department. The department is running well and being led well by everybody that's there. But, it really came down to wage."


Morgan said in one instance, a Beatrice officer took an eight-dollar-an-hour increase at a smaller area department. Another officer is on active military duty overseas.  Morgan says there’s another concern with today’s environment for hiring police officers.


"What we're finding is that there's not a lot of young people that want to go into law enforcement, and even if you find a young person today to go into law enforcement...and you hire them...they probably aren't going to do you any good for ten months, because they have to go into the academy and then come back. We're not alone. There was an article in the Omaha World-Herald where the Omaha Police Department starting pay is about $70,000 a year. We're not too far from that. We did take some steps to raise wages."


The City of Beatrice is currently advertising for police officers, with the pay range for a beginning officer from $26.52 per hour to $40.35 per hour. For already certified officers, the range is $28.50 to $40.35.


Morgan says Court of Industrial Relations standards….combined with an examination of the department’s market area…..showed that pay levels were well below where the city needed to be. The recent increases will improve that situation.  "We worked with the police department and came up with a new salary scale that is going to be operational right now under a memorandum of understanding...and then it will go in as an addendum probably in June, with the contract. It does extend that contract out to October, of 2024."


The shortage of officers puts pressure on other officers to fill in with additional hours and also increases the city’s cost for overtime. Morgan said the city is not alone in the need for officers. "We don't want to over-work people. That was part of the thought process as we went through there....and we made significant change to the pay scale."


Morgan commented on KWBE’s Ask the Mayor program, Thursday.