 who's also primarily working in downtown business district, interacting with people that are in some form of crisis all the time that intersects with our training populations and all sorts who have multiple daily contacts with and they've been very successful in diverting individuals who come in contact within that context to divert them to some wrap-around services, whether it was treatment, getting it re-regulated on meds or it's a temporary housing. So again it's been so far it's been a great alternative to what typically would be basically two choices and that would be a trip to the hospital for medical purposes or a trip to the jail which oftentimes was just a revolving door and was not you know not the best alternative. A few months ago this council generously recognized the importance of growing this program and four additional positions were funded to continue this partnership with Department of Mental Health. Those positions have been posted and interviews are scheduled for Thursday of this week to fill the four clinicians. We have you know well over a hundred officers that are crisis intervention trained in every single region and those clinicians will be partnered with our CIT officers to respond to again calls for service and involve people in crisis and also being proactive and interacting with our transient population to potentially identify someone that might fall in that category where they can deliver services. Can you tell us anything about how many incidents you've had that they've responded to and are they available 24-7 or do they work a shift? They work a shift or call back. Obviously the additions of these positions will give us greater capacity. Potentially we'll be able to staff on a schedule for certain certain hours. We know when we have certain events that require services or peak times that we encounter folks but we will continue to exercise our dashboard every evening and I mentioned in one of my previous presentations every day we have a roster that goes to our watch commanders that says where everybody in the city is assigned and what trainings or specialties that they have whether a crisis negotiator, a SWAT officer, carry a lesson lethal munitions something that they can use on a call for service but now on that roster we have people that are crisis intervention trained that are designated so if there's a call for service with someone it is in crisis and they divert that officer to that call for service. We've had well over a hundred interactions and resulted in referrals since we've stood up the program. Chief can you have enough applicants do you think to fill the positions? I don't know what the exact number was Councilman Taylor but I do know that the number of people interviewed there would be enough people to fill the four positions if they successfully interview. And when do you expect to have the program fully implemented because I think we budget in some vehicles too. Obviously the vehicles are a process but the way we have we've worked with Department of Mental Health they've used some pool a pool vehicle for the the current clinician that's embedded and I'm confident we won't have anybody on foot patrol that we'll have them in a vehicle whether it's paired up with our officer it's already assigned a car or if we're able to use some of our pool vehicles just so I understand people that apply for these positions are already trained or is there a training period that they have to go through once they become part of it? Well so I guess the training would be how to work more hand-in-glove with law enforcement. They already have the clinical and field experience dealing with people in crisis so really it's how they can better compliment how we do our job. The mission is to really I think when we started talking about it, the mission was to move the homeless off the street. I encourage you I think hopefully Dr. Bussells has our first homeless commission meeting coming up I hope you'll be a part of that first meeting to discuss a little bit about this program and how it works. Absolutely I tend to be present for that we'll kind of give us state of affairs with our homeless population from from our lens and how we think this program you know is gonna create better quality life for that particular vulnerable population. And I take it too that this would give us the opportunity I mean I personally witnessed some homeless panhandling situations out and around the community that to me implies they're professionals not necessarily homeless and I take it this will be one means that we're able to separate that you know where it's tough to plead homeless if you're not homeless they're trying to take you to a shelter and we can I have a feeling some of it's being busted I busted but brought in from out of town it's always you never notice chiefs are always on the perimeter of the city you only see them down in the city center just every once in a while but out there at District 4 the Walmart and Harbor some boulevard places like that's where I think we do see some hot spots and we see some some trends when we you know get complaints of certain encampments when we when we clean up an encampment or moved people around often times that's just what we're doing we're kind of pushing it from one location to the next so you know I I think we've got this homeless task force committee whatever the official title will be has its work cut out for it and I mentioned to the mayor recently yeah I think I think we saw with the homeless situation out on Forest Drive when we enforced they did move to a different they moved to a different municipality and somehow we probably ought to ought to for warner our neighbors that the tougher we get on this it's I think unfortunately that most of our communities in the Midlands have relied on the city of Columbia to bear most of the social cost on these type issues and as we began to be more proactive in addressing it tell them we're always gonna be good neighbors okay you got it thank you sir I did want to make sure I confirmed to in addition to dealing with the homeless population for some reason my understanding too is that these clinicians would help deal with mental health issues that may have nothing to do with homelessness and help with de-escalation absolutely okay chief the the CPD person on these teams is that gonna be a static person or you are you gonna be able to use any other people hundred plus that have already gone through crisis intervention we would like to get to the point where they're designated partners they developed that working relationship but initially out of starting gate we'll utilize a pool of officers any further questions and it just could be a total of five be five teams with an officer and a clinician for on each team maybe June 1st I think it's a realistic goal for for hiring and you know onboarding if the interviews go well Thursday and Teresa and I want to jump the gun but if we get them hired and we're out there I think this would be a good thing for the for the chief or whoever speaks to our community groups like rotary clubs to talk about and to get you know to get an announcement that and I don't know chief you know like it said there've been some situations out there where where we've had folks that may have had some mental health issues that put themselves in some intimidating situations at some places I guess when people call into on a 911 call or whatever they would specify that you got a homeless problem or mental health problem and that's how you know they get they go from dispatch most of them would go from dispatch but and then our watch commander would also is also monitoring at it can direct but you know we also want these units to be proactive you know we know where our hot spots are where activity where our encampments are where we experience you know some of the biggest issues surrounding you know people we find in crisis to your point it could be not just a homeless person but so we want them to be proactive sure no and I just like I say whether it's a joint letter or a letter from the city manager of the police chief to mayor to the neighborhood associations again I think this is a great step in the right direction I think it's something Tracy will be very proud of and I think we need to do what we can to put the word put the word out that we're being responsive to what well we've heard and saying is this the first one this men stood up in South Carolina I don't think so there's there's some models in a low country the county has clinicians embedded as well I think we have maybe the biggest group of them when we get to five I don't does anybody have sheriff Barbara don't have five we'll call it the biggest group well and just to mr. Taylor's point to the better information they can get on the front end through dispatch is better because that was the issue with the thing that happened in Richland County no one gave any indication that it was a mental health issue they just said that the guy was trying to stab someone so I don't know what those questions are during dispatch no do I care to know but I think the more information we can get from people so that we deploy the proper people at the right time it's going to be helpful to you handle the advertisements for this department mental health did we're going to go to item one now yes sir we certainly can item one is the review of the compensation and pay structure and the floor use your speaker it's a team effort it is a collective discussion so we certainly want thanks Corey you want to have chief in here to kick it off because it certainly and I wanted to make sure Pam that Stacy is on and can hear us and that sort of thing is that true and maybe give an introduction of who she is Stacy you're muted if you wouldn't mind I'm muting for us says are you there right so Stacy is our consultant from Evergreen I'm consulting and she will be doing a session a section of this presentation to talk about compensation she we have contracted with her to help us come up with a comprehensive compensation plan for police officers and so she's going to once she's teed up she's going to go through some of her slides to show us what that final product is going to look like so we'll go ahead and get started skip if you want to chief if you want to go ahead and I would so thank you all for calling this important meeting I wanted to kind of just like I did with our first topic give some context and acknowledge a couple of things you know this is it seems to be a conversation we frequently have here and and I always appreciate the manager and and counsel giving us an audience to talk through this and and and also the generous bumps that they have made over the years to address our pay but we're kind of an unprecedented times and that's what I really wanted to you know draw some attention to I was looking at some national trends and they're showing 44% increase in retirements 18% and resignations a lot of that's attributed to you know what was referred to as COVID fatigue and in post George Floyd and what I mean by that is you know the law enforcement in particular went through a significant period of time or we had we're dealing with lots of protests and and that's something that makes Columbia very unique in my opinion you have these national trends and we're very much affected by that being a capital city and in a unique capital city you know we were not immune to the protests we had a couple of days of riots but then we had 60 days of protests and that's significant because on top of dealing with 60 days of protests then COVID was right on top of all that but every single day in Columbia which is what makes us unique than the low country upstate and the PD you know our population fluctuates 75 someone the chamber would even say a hundred thousand we have people coming to work going to school going to doctors appointments visiting and doing state government business we have state government that's housed here there's people that come and go all day long and it contributes to our 170,000 plus calls for service it contributes to us you know responding to 8,000 plus vehicle crashes a year and I say all that and then we just talked about you know our transient population and the time spent on that if you look at all that in conjunction with the COVID and the protests and the state of affairs we're in with you know the national narrative that creates incredible mental stress and physical stress on our officers and what we hear with a lot of officers that are transitioning whether it's in the retirement we had to retire this week or just getting out of the business altogether or going to another agency inevitably every single one at least mentions just how mentally and physically fatigued they are and often times our officers that are young and maybe doing their career and midpointing their career and they're moving on to another agency one of the driving factors is their balance of work and home life and just the pace of what we do which is kind of the point I was trying to make with the influx of population and the amount of service calls nobody answers more service calls than the police department and that does take a factor so even know that we have made you know considerable positive strides to address compensation over the years like you would expect other municipalities our our our partnering agencies in the Midlands and then throughout the state and then with our state agencies everybody has adjusted as well so it's it's just a constant you know adjustment and readjustment so some things that that I hope we can frame up today is something that I think would sustain us being a competitive recruiting and retention level for years to come I think I think as we address our pay the one thing that we haven't had a structure in place that allows for that is I have learned in my discussions in the last few weeks that horizontal and vertical growth so we know we it would make sense for us to have our pay separate to have bands that allow for growth and movement that there there's capacity in those bands to move I think what we hear time and time again from our officers they just want to know what they're going to make when they are hired what they'll make five years ten years fifteen and so on and then we also know that we need to be the agency that is attracting certified police officers that we can on board and immediately put boots on the ground and this this model that we're looking at you know has a mechanism for moving certifies in and crediting tenure and and having a pathway into transition into into our pay bands that I think will make us even more competitive and then of course we often talk about take home take home car program which most if not all of our you know competitive partners in the business have I believe that you know manager and staff have come up with a you know funding mechanism for that that I think we're going to talk about with you all we know we have an opportunity in the future to really drill down on a solid strategic plan for our facilities a couple of things that I'm going to recommend that we bring forward is the ability to do a couple of studies one would be staffing and in how we deploy our staffing we have five regions we've consolidated one but our regions have always been aligned based on council districts which is that might be convenient for some purposes but it really doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of where we need to put boots on the ground and the other thing that comes with that is once we determine where our staffing needs are and our deployment levels need to be then we can determine on how we want to divide our city up for services and then make some informed strategic plans on where we would want a region headquarters centrally located in that service area it may be existing property or it may be something that we would build a suit but most importantly we need to have a strategic plan that we can you know pull off the shelf at any time and implement it anytime and I think having facilities vehicles and competitive play that competitive pay that is indicative of a capital city is how we recruit and retain the very best for our police department when did they start lining the metro districts and all with the council that predated me which is no no excuse eight years I own everything now and when it comes to the police department so it's it's just a I think you know once upon a time it it made a lot of sense and it might even have fell along deployment lines better but you know we have I think we the city has changed dramatically in the time that I've been here especially if you just look in our business district or we have you know what used to be maybe nine to five Monday through Friday it is seven days 24 hours a day now we've seen you know an explosion with downtown living but we've also seen tremendous development in the northeast and and in the west so we've just got a we've got to make some adjustments and I think timing is right as we're looking at how we're budgeting for positions and and assigning folks strategically I think timing is perfect for that chief do you have any or city manager y'all have at least y'all have any concept on the cost of the study on staffing okay that's what was one of the questions so we're looking at doing that as part of the budget next year's study of staff and dividing they divide the city for service and and then we're to locate I think that I really think that's another slide at the end but he was now he's he's pretty much done when you gonna make a verbal report to council tomorrow when I would include these the concept behind these studies well the whole thing is a study on how to step up well you got a slide so maybe you'll be able to incorporate the slide just a slide on the different recommendations but yes sir make sure you have some bullets okay so chief is not a great job of kind of summarizing so I'm gonna drill down a little bit more in all of this okay so I've given you all some handouts and again like miss Wilson said this has been a collaborative effort between skip chief Holbrook Tanisha is our HR director and Missy Kaufman our budget program director miss Wilson and so just to give you frame this up a little bit as skips as chief Holbrook stated I keep going to skip as chief Holbrook stated the cities has made many deliberate efforts to try and effectively manage the compensation for the police officers and so we did want to give you a little bit of his history behind some of the things that we've done so since 2014 we've done cross-aboard increases made some cola adjustments merit adjustments and those are all kind of outlined on that following slide which is your third slide in this little chart and so you can see since 2014 some of the things that have happened and I don't want to confuse you with this chart but we wanted to show kind of things we've done for the police department only colas that all staff including police staff have received and merits that all the staff have received and so city-wide so all so this is just kind of a visual to demonstrate kind of some of the progressive increases that we've done you'll note in 2014 2015 we did a comp and class study that was done for the whole entire city it was done by evergreen who Stacey Wichel is on with us today to talk about this next phase but that comp and class study was implemented in 2015 fiscal year 2015 2016 and fiscal years 2016 and 2017 what happened was we phased it in we did a two-part implementation because it was very expensive and so we did have one year and then half the prior year so employees averaged between about a 8.8 percent increase or they went to the midpoint they got 5% or were capped at the midpoint or 5% so it depended on where you were you're where your salary was at the time of comp and class study as to how much increase that you received so I didn't want to I want to get all deep into that but that was something that we implemented and council was very supportive of that at the time since then since in 2017 2018 police officers got a 5% of you were if you were ranked below a captain and a 3% if you were captain and above and they did get a 2% cola 2% cola at that time as well we made some pay grade changes where we upgraded some of their pay grades in 2018 2019 and that same year staff everybody in the city that either a two and a half percent merit increase or 3% depending on whether you exceeded met or exceeded the expectations for the performance system that we have in place police got $2,500 bonuses in 2019 2020 and we also gave merits that year we either gave a 22% or a 2.5% that year in 2020 2021 we got the night they got police got 9% for officers ranked captain below or 5% for a captain and above we did not issue any merits we also that would have been we did know that would have been we gave premium pay if you all will remember that and we also gave $500 vaccine incentives in 21 22 2022 so those were received by by everybody and I didn't include that in the chart because everybody got that and then we did give a 3% cola earlier this year so that just gives you some perspective on the efforts that we have made to try and you know stay up-to-date but as chief as Chief Hobart said it's always a competitive game that the our counterparts throughout the region they're increasing their salaries it seems like every time we increase our salaries they increase their salaries some of you may be aware that they've recently done a law enforcement study for this whole state and they've looked at salaries so we're our timing is in line with some of the reviews that are going on out there so I wanted to give you this next slide just to show you the the way that the pay grades are structured now the positions the entry-level salaries the midpoints and the maximums I also have a handout that kind of breaks this down even more you will notice that there are some skipped grades and sometimes the sequencing doesn't go quite like we would like it and so that is part of evergreen also looking at our rank structure and the pay grade structure to make sure these things are all aligning and it all makes sense and like chief said allowing for some horizontal movement and salaries as well as those vertical movements for promotions and so just some couple things to point out the entry level for cadet you'll see police officer that ranges based on that sheet that I've given you you'll see there are five levels that police officers can come in depending on their previous experience whether they have a college degree whether or not they have an associate's degree or they speak a second language so you'll just see a little range there so this is what we currently have implemented I just wanted you guys to kind of be able to see what the salary look like for each of those positions and you'll also see that there is some progression when someone is promoted and it's either 510 or 15% depending on what level they're being promoted to I mean so that's just there for your reference and you can see the chart it shows you that specifically for those ranks you might have any questions about that I just kind of want to give you a picture of kind of where we were and what that looked like in addition to our salaries we also chief and his staff have tried to be creative with some of the incentives that they provide in order to recruit some of our young police officers or new police officers I should say so this is a list of the incentives that we do offer so we offer referral bonus if you are a police officer and you go out and recruit someone and they join the police department you get a $500 referral bonus there's a residency bonus for staying in the city of Columbia we have a signing bonus program and you'll see in that little chart with the officer there it shows the different levels of signing bonuses and you'll also notice that you get certain amount per year so that's why I included that chart or that little visual so you can see for example if you're a South Carolina certified police officer you're eligible for the $5,000 signing bonus but it's payable in different amounts different years so when you complete FTO you get 1,666 the first year anniversary 1,667 and then the second year anniversary 1,667 so yes sir that's that's base pay right that doesn't count over time because it's salary the bonuses the incentives the whole yes sir yes yes sir yes sir yes sir yes sir chief it is the certified out of state have to go through the academy some portion of it yes they they literally look at that case by case based on where they come from what the curriculum was but at the minimum I'm an example of this. You would go through South Carolina law. Laws are unique to the state of South Carolina. So there's certain core classes that you have to take. It's about four weeks worth of classes, or you can also test out of that, which I chose to do that, which if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't. I passed. Thank goodness there's a lot of pressure. I waited until the last, but they look at that case by case and will tell you what curriculum that you're required to do. Wouldn't that have been fun if she failed? I do have a question, Pam. Of the incentives, do we know which ones are being used the most, or that we're getting, that are being the most effective, or really, really, I mean, are they really helping, or do we have them out there? You know, that's probably debatable. That's a great question. I think we've had the best of intentions with our incentives. We have not seen the result of, for example, the signing bonuses for certifiers that we thought. That's not unique here. Our friends in Rock Hill had a billboard right outside of the academy that they ran for about a year, offering a $10,000 signing bonus. And it was not as effective either. And I think there's a billboard on, I think, it's I-20 from Phoenix PD with the signing bonuses. So I think the jury's out on signing bonuses. I think we've been pretty innovative in creating some internal incentives for some specialized units that require pretty high level certifications and to create interest in serving in those different capacities. But the unintended consequence that comes with that is it's really throwing us out of whack internally with these pay bans. That's why we think there's a very important need to kind of retool that and hit reset and just clean all this up. So it's simpler, better, effective, all across the board. So if no one has any questions about that so far, she has also done a great job of teeing up what Stacey is going to talk about. So Stacey's, she's on the line. She's the consultant that we have, are having the pleasure to work with on this project. And so Stacey has, and Stacey, I'll let you kind of give your whole resume. But Stacey has lots of user experience of doing compensation and classification studies. And so she has been assigned by Evergreen to be our consultant. So Stacey, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself where you start going into the slides? Yeah, I can do that. I'll give you a little bit of background. You guys are a little bit muffled. So I'm assuming you can hear me okay though. Yes. We can, Stacey. We hear you clear, crystal clear. Okay. So my name is Stacey Wichel, I am with Evergreen Solutions, I'm a project manager and you were based out of Tallahassee, Florida. And Evergreen as a company, I think we're one of over 800 class and comp type projects now that we've done from coast to coast, all but four states actually. So we've done quite a bit of this work. I've got a lot of clients right now who I'm listening to the conversation that you've had leading up to this that are also struggling with public safety. It's a challenge right now for everybody. It's Pam and I've been talking a lot. We had a meeting last week thinking about some options and strategies moving forward to address some of your more immediate needs. And then also kind of put you in a better position moving forward. I jumped over the rest of the stuff about myself. A little bit more about me. I'm a native Tallahasseean. Actually spent 24 years with state government, left there as a director for one of our divisions for the agencies. I've worked at four different agencies throughout my career and two of them were law enforcement agencies. So I've got a pretty good background and understanding of the types of things that you're talking about and the challenges that you're facing. My friends at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement actually space in some of the same challenges at that state level too. So it's a different world right now. I guess I'll just say that. All right, Ms. Stacy, we have your slides keyed up. I don't know if you can, I don't know what you can see on your end, but we're ready. I can see it. So you want to jump in the next slide? Yes ma'am, yes ma'am. So we'll advance them for you as we go along. So based on a lot of our conversations, I just kind of wanted to set the stage a little bit, kind of follow what you had already been talking about up to this point and some of the those challenges that competition for quality staff or her mentioned the billboard, got another client in Midwestern state that their neighboring county put a, we're hiring advertisement on the billboard right across from their county administration office. I thought that was kind of a low blow, but we're seeing that multiple areas. Get vacancy rates that you're challenged with right now, recruiting folks in and hiring but then losing them about, what was that about in the seven year, five to seven year, 10 year range and having folks move on at that point too. Looking at external equity peer organizations making sure you're staying competitive. And then also, do you have sufficient level under your classifications? So those are all the kind of setting the stage for what we're going to talk about here. And in thinking about your plan now, you currently have an open range plan which does provide you with a lot of flexibility in how you want to do add a duty pay, supplementals and also when you're hiring people in, where do you place them? So you do have more flexibilities with an open range plan, but we want to take a look at a step plan and kind of show you what that could look like. Step plans are pretty common within the public sector environment and it give you an idea here. So we want to make sure this is based on being competitive, slightly ahead of the market average. We want to provide you consistency in your structure, give you some flexibility moving forward as far as enough room vertically and horizontally. And in talking through and looking at your numbers, not just for public safety, but for the rest of your departments, we recommend doing a step plan for just your sworn staff only, okay? And the next slide to the real look at, these are examples. Please don't hold me to these numbers yet. We are still working on collecting the rest of that data so we can true up all of your information based on a market study, but the information next will kind of give you an idea of what we could create for you, if that makes sense. All right, next slide. So speaking sworn only, we're talking about a step pay plan design. Oh, I changed you. This is not 15 pay grades. I took away some of those pay grades. We're going back and looking at it again this morning. So let's amend that to 10 pay grades and then a range spread that's gonna be in the neighborhood of 60 to 65% and then a grade progression of about three to three and a half percent as you increase in those levels. Stacey, can you repeat that and that that's gonna change and you think it will be 10, but again, we're, I mean, we're trying to get this to council in real time. So I hope they're bearing with us because we're giving it, but there's some slight adjustments here. It could be 12, right, but now you're at 10. It could be, so we went back through and I looked at your current, all your current classifications you have in police. Okay, so I'm talking only police sworn right now. And if I look at what you currently have, I cut that down from 15 to the 10, you'll see here in just a minute. All right, now as a final, we may need to make some adjustments when we look at all of the classifications in total, anything else that you may or may not want to add later on. Okay, so right now what I'm gonna show you is just looking at moving forward. And then range spread, I did adjust because I cut the pay grades down to make sure you had enough horizontal room. And I did leave it at 15 steps for the pay grades. 15 steps for the pay grade and what was the range for it? Changed to 65%. Yeah, it says on the next slide, let's take a look. Okay, so here's what this could look like. I see the 65, basically. Yeah, so it's 60 to 65. And yeah, sorry, I forgot to update that slide before. That was based on what I was looking at. But then I cut it down to reflect currently your current police structure. Okay, so just kind of key in on that part right now. So your range spread would be 60 to 65%. I would increase that when you hit the captain level and broaden that range out a bit more. These are already broader than what you currently have. They're more, you're a little more narrow than this right now. Great, so you would have a 201 would be that entry level cadet position. And then you would come to 202 police officer. And there's a great progression there at 12% because that's where your folks are sworn. You've hired them on. And I know that you have some different levels based on degrees and experience and the things that we could talk about placement of later on. 203, 4, down to 210. I added the words, the titles in there along that grade column so you could equate them back and forth because it's hard when your numbers and your system changes on you. But this would bring you to a starting in a cadet of 40,000. And I think right now, Pam correct me, 37 and change. Yeah, that's right. I'm on the roads when I have one monitor. I'm not used to having my two monitors set up. So I can have multiple things pulled up. So your cadet right now is around 37. So this would be starting you at 40. And then your police officer that 202, we would increase that from just under, I think, 42 to closer to 45, 44, eight. And then you would have, well, you can see the rest of the progression, 202, 3, 4, 5, 6, getting each of those levels that you've had. And hopefully I didn't miss anybody. If I did, let me know. We'll definitely get them added in there for you. You'll see in your grade progression that 212, 202 is a 12%. So that's the difference as you increase in your grades vertically. Okay. So 12% there is the difference between your cadet and then when you first become sworn. And then we'd have a 5% grade progression between 202, 3, get down to 206. But then with an increasing levels of complexity, roles, responsibility, leadership, increase that grade progression to 15 to 20%. Which it does adjust your step levels when I go to increase that grade progression some and the range spread. But you're so averaging. Stacey, would you give me the definition of range spread it is from minimum to maximum? It is range spread is the difference between men to max. And the great progression is the percentage between from one grade to the next grade as you go up. And then she, she had the steps projected at 3.4% for each step. And she'll show you what that looks like in the next on the next slide. Cause that's one of the things, Stacey, this is one of the things that Chief Hover has talked about a lot when we talk, when we show the steps that people kind of want a sense of where their salary will be as they move along. So from year one to two, three to four, and she'll show you that in a second. I'm sorry, Stacey, go ahead and say what you're gonna say. No, you're fine. So what was I gonna say here with this one? I was gonna say that your current range spreads are a little bit more narrow. And I know we talked about, you know, people reaching the midpoint pretty quickly through some of the changes that you've made. This will give you a wider range spread. So folks have longer in those pay grades. If they need them, if they don't move vertically and get promoted and move through the ranks. So it gives you more room before somebody has reached a midpoint and kind of stalling, if you will. Okay, we do next slide. And then here's your public safety plan. Again, sworn stuff only. And here's what your steps could look like. So this would be that average about 3.5% adjustment on an annual basis. Sorry for the broken there. I was just not trying to make it big enough so you could see it. Chief, what's the normal time that one of our officers would be cadet before the game police officer? How long are you staying in the cadet category? So we probably need to define that a little differently. I'm assuming that would be police candidate versus a cadet because we actually have a cadet position which is a non-sworn. It's a developmental program we have, 18 to 21. So this would actually be a police candidate, someone that's in training. Would they be going to the academy? I've heard it had to be a sworn officer. These are sworn officers. This would be somebody that's being hired to be a police officer that's in training. They haven't been certified yet. So you would just, let's just say for example, if it's a candidate, it would never stay a candidate more than 24 months. So we really should take year three, four, five, six, seven and so on off of that candidate mark because they would move from candidate. They didn't move from candidate to police officers when a certain period of time you can move them out. Right, right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So we could take out those. Yes, so just to clarify, a cadet is a civilian position that we offer to someone between 18 years of age and 21. And many of our senior police officers came through the cadet program. It's a full time with benefits position. They acclimate themselves to the law enforcement community. It's a great program to grow a homegrown citizen of Columbia into being a police officer. They're not sworn in and not armed. Correct. Let's not imply that you can stay a cadet for 15 years. That's right. We can certainly change that. And of course they wouldn't be able to be a law enforcement officer until they were 21. Right. But for what Evergreen has here that that would be police candidate. That's a sworn, somebody that's sworn that's in training. Stacey, can you talk about what the steps, do the steps really equate to years, essentially? Also, so hypothetically if Chief was trying to recruit someone who already had four years of experience, what they come in and this is how they could find where they fall in the plan at step four? So different organizations handle this a little bit differently. What I see most commonly is, except for specialized and much higher level, is almost half time experience. So somebody with four years experience would come in at a step two for their appropriate level. Now it may not be what you guys decide to do with your compensation philosophy, but we do see that quite often because of that address as a concern of you've got somebody that have been with the organization for five, 10 years, they are now a lieutenant. And if you bring somebody in right at their same level then that creates an internal compression issue. And so typically there's gonna be some weight, definitely weighting of their experience, but it's not always a one-to-one matchup. Does that make sense? It does. But there's some discretion there or it depends, like you said, it depends on what philosophy we take about it. So it was a certified of having a lieutenant from somewhere else who had the same amount of experience as one of our lieutenants and he could conceive of what he put him and he wouldn't have to treat it as half. Not necessarily right, especially, I mean, they've got some of the special certifications, clearance levels, that would be special consideration. I always recommend that you write that as guidance and not policy, so you don't kind of put yourself in a corner. Yeah. Sorry, just for my clarity, that whole discussion, each one through 15 does not equate to 15 years. It's not where it does. It could if we decide that we want to move one year for every year. So it's kind of two things we're talking about, bringing someone in where we would place them and if someone was just tracking on the steps moving forward. So like a person who started at step one, like a brand new person started at step one, they could expect to be at step two, year two, step three, year three, step four, but then we'd have to build in some type of compensation philosophy for where do we slot people who come in with other experience, but we'd have to have some type of methodology to be consistent and to be fair and with some levels of flexibility. My understanding is you're creating a career path here basically where if you bring somebody in, you can almost say here's a realistic expectation of where you might be in 10 years. And they don't have to come in at one. Right, we could have the philosophy where they would come in based off of whatever experience and education, what have you. They may come in at a step two or a step four or wherever they are. Then wherever they come in though, they would track along that progression. That during in if they're, but if they're promoted, they can also track vertically. Right. Your steps are there to do that as well. Very nice so far by the way. All right, Stacy. And this is kind of talking a little bit about how we implement. So Stacy, can you go over these strategies? And again, these are our examples. We can determine which ones are methodology for implementation and how we want to move forward. So Stacy, can you talk about these? Really? Yeah, I'll go through these. So these are whenever you're bringing staff over from an existing pay plan to a new pay plan, you've got to have implementation strategy because it's not often a one-to-one crosswalk. And then on top of that for right now, you guys are also going to be taking people from an open range system to a step plan system. So you had to figure out how do you place people on those steps? So the implementation options here, they're different calculations, different linear models, bring to new minimum. What that would do is it would look at a person's current salary. It would crosswalk them to their new pay grade. And if they're already making above that minimum of the new pay grade, then the only adjustment that would be made would be making it, rounding them to the next highest step because it doesn't often fall math to math, doesn't often line up equally on steps. So if somebody is making 36, 88 an hour, we're going to round them to that next level step. Does that make sense? Okay. Class year parity and higher year parity, these are very similar. Class year parity is looking at the number of years that individual has in their current classification. And it looks at a 30 year career trajectory. So it's a linear model, 30 year career trajectory. It looks at what they're currently making, looks at their years in class, places them appropriately on this new model and then would line them up. All right. So it's, I don't know if you can kind of, I talk with my hands all the time. I don't know if you can see that or not, but that's what it's going to do there. So it's going to look at their years in class, look across a 30 year career trajectory and line them up appropriately and then put them on the right step. Hire year parity does the same thing, but rather than the years in that current classification, it's looking at their years as they've been hired on originally. This is often one of your most expensive options because it's looking, it doesn't take into account those vertical movements and promotions along the way. Okay. If they started in 1994, it's going to look at their careers since 1994 rather than their career since they have been in that current classification for the last three years. Again, that's a linear model. It's going to run that regression, line them up and then slot them. Current range penetration, that looks at their current pay grade and where they are. So if they're 30, 40% end of their current pay grade, it's going to cross walk them to their new pay grades and place them that same percentage end. So basically you're just moving people forward into this new system. And just as a point of history, that's what we did with our last one. We did the current range penetrations and because that was so expensive, we capped it at the midpoint and then we only gave a certain percentage. It was a lot of money. I understand. I was going to say, we'll model our existence before we do anything. Yes, sir. That's what I meant, sure. So you can see financial impacts for the different models and then we can make a determination as to which way we go forward. And it's key that we do that because we're right at budget. So we're trying to, I'm glad we're pushing through with this because we need to know and build that in. Question about the 30 year. Should we use 25 there instead of 30? Back to 28. Five people go out in 25. 28. Yeah, do you want to go back up to the step plan? Is that what you said, Stacey? Yeah, if we could. So we could increase these step plans, the number of steps at each level. And you're at that 201, it's there for consistency. You don't need 15, 20 steps for that 201. But if you increase this to 28, we're gonna have to really increase that range, range spread. And right now you're at 60%. Unless you're okay with, come back one more slide for me. But right now your step progression is about three and a half percent between each step. So in order, if you want to maintain that level annually, then we're gonna need to increase that range spread. Otherwise your step progression is gonna come down to about 1.4, 1.6 maybe. And some organizations, Stacey will tell you that they stop the steps at a certain level and then people get bonuses or they don't get the steps anymore. Because if you have steps all the way out to your 28, then like she said, then it's gonna shorten, it's gonna lower the percentage for each step because you're trying to stretch it out for so long. Let's say, let's say look at the modeling on that. You do see a combination of certain places you're getting bonuses and other places you're getting the steps. And she sees that a lot, like merits, they get bonuses instead of, because now you're locked into a step. So you don't change those salaries based on the merit, but you may give them a bonus equivalent to the dollar amount for that step. And the size of a three and a half percent raise on somebody making this is radically different than the size of a three and a half percent raise. That's why I say the combination can work out really well towards. You know, one of the things that we could do, Pam, Stacey haven't talked about this yet is we could increase, let me stop a second and think about, I'm thinking out loud here. So we could adjust the level of steps for some classifications, but then maybe not for some of the others based on the number of years you wanna have. Once you get to your deputy chief and chief level you typically are not gonna have somebody in that classification for 28 years. Well, like I said, I think rather than trying to figure that out here, we can model the models and make the goal. Yeah, definitely. Does anybody have any other questions for Stacey on kind of conceptually what we're talking about? I mean, one of the things that I would ask, just this is a very clear, a theoretical ask is, is as we're looking at re-forecasting the way this pathway would work, can we look at leave allowances and things like that too? If there's ever, the best time to true up things that may or may not be having a negative effect is when you're doing raises. I mean, I'm just not so sure that overall that our leave policies are congruent with the private sector. In other words, we're getting out here where our highest paid folks are accruing like five weeks of annual leave, three weeks of sick leave, and 11 holidays. I'm just wondering if it's not worth not saying do one thing or the other, but this would be the time to look at that if we were going to look at it. And I would just add too, from that perspective, I wouldn't be more interested in what other agencies are doing that we're competing with, because I don't think we're really competing with private sector when people are leaving, they're going to other agencies. From a competitive standpoint, and we're trying to make our packages appear to be as competitive. So I think they can look at both. Private. Whatever you like, Ms. Harlan, we'll just tell you that almost two months of leave is, I mean, it creates the need for additional, it can create the need for additional personnel that if things were, I mean, again, what you see more and more of today, and I've heard the mayor mention it before, it's a PTO program, and I just don't know if you would switch it in one department citywide, but it's worth us taking a look at it. Oh yeah, absolutely. I just want to make sure, though, that we're mindful that we're competing, and I don't want us to do anything that would make us less competitive. And when people are looking at, because actually my question was going to be to chief, one of the things that he mentioned earlier was one of the main problems was balance of home and life, home balance work, and what we could do to address that. And so because that was resonating with me, I'm just concerned about it because I know that clearly that's the problem that chief is worried about too, so if you take people's leave, I just don't know how that goes. I think we've got a very good, had a very good discussion here. Councilman Taylor said, when y'all run the models, we maybe can come back. Let's finish that recommendation because I think the recommendation pages is very important to go along with the review of the pay scale. Absolutely. So Stacey, thank you so much for those slides and for your assistance with this presentation. So as far as implementation, recommendations, the first recommendation is to implement and fund the final whatever model we agree on, compensation plan created by Evergreen. The goal really is to separate it into its own pay plan with wider band ranges with steps in the more room for pay progression. So that's really what we were talking about the meat of this whole presentation. The chief touched on some of the other things that he would like to see, or he thinks that would be beneficial to us as a city to retain, recruit and retain as the fund to take home car program past just the cars that we've already given, the ones that he's projecting that he's gonna need for the future to keep that program solving and always being able to get those cars. And Ms. Wilson mentioned that we've talked through some budgetary ways to do that. And then hire an officer wellness coordinator. There is a vacant position currently for that role. So it'd be hiring somebody who could help with the physical wellbeing of our officers and mental, yes. Assessing the fire, I mean, chief. You've been giving me the evil eye. That's what I said, fire. Assessing the Columbia police department's facility needs. I know that that's a big thing for chief. Some of our facilities could need a little love and some facilities could be looked at. So he certainly advocates for that. And then the last one was the regional realignment and staffing that you refer to Mr. Taylor. So that's the last bullet that's there. So chief, I think I got all your recommendations you had so far and the ones you listed when we began this discussion. Did I miss any? Any further questions from Cal? I did have one question for chief going back to the balance of home and work. Is this a new issue because we have so few officers that folks are having to work a lot more? Or is this just, it is just an issue period. Just like, you know, it is in my practice. I think it's a combination. Really, we, you know, we're always doing more but nevertheless, we have so many special events that we have to staff. And oftentimes that's, you know, having somebody work overtime on a day off to build a staff that. You know, what, a lot of, one of the things we talk about with special events, especially when it comes to parades and runs, for example, it really doesn't matter if there's 20,000 runners or 20 runners, you still control every intersection on that route or a parade, you control intersections on that. So typically when we have events such as that, even though there may be different funding sources for that overtime, that's not the issue. The issue is the time that the officer spends, you know, in that capacity on top of their normal duty. And remember, our officers work 12 hour shifts and it's a rarity that you work 12 hours. You typically show up a little bit early, get your gear ready, your head ready, you have your roll call, you go to work, and inevitably during the course of your work, you're tied up, finishing up your report or you may be involved in an arrest at the end of the shift. So that, and then oftentimes on your day off, you're being asked to work other duties. See the manager, since we're doing this and we wanna get into this year's budget, that we need to, is this gonna realign the fire department's face schedule too? No sir, this is a separate effort, but we are, frankly the fire department, the fire chief has already proposed their own plan internally that did not require Evergreen, but we are asking Evergreen to take a look at it. Though we were just trying to handle police because the police department, we think, is really at the most critical juncture as far as the hiring situation. I'm very proud of what Chief Jenkins and those have been able to do with their recruiting classes of late. I mean, he would say that he definitely wants to continue to staff up and I hear him loud and clear on that, but they are certainly not at the same place. But we are going to take a look also at the fire department's recommendations. Any other questions on these item one? Let's move to item three, Ms. Herbert. Thank you, Stacey. Thank you, Stacey. Thank you, we'll follow up after. All right, safe travels. And this one will actually be, should be short and sweet. As we listen to the challenges that our police department is having as they try and build back up, I just think it's imperative that we do whatever we can do to help the police department and look at prevention, decrease their caseload and there was this nice little article in the state newspaper that I sent to Mayor Rickerman. And so we had this on the agenda and then Mayor Rickerman sent his email, I don't know if you all saw it on Friday, discussing a office of gun violence prevention. That was one of the recommendations. Essentially, when I was here at the city too, there's nothing new under the sun. So we look and see what other cities are doing and see if it'll work for us. I in particular thought that that was a great idea. And I think that great minds think alike because Mayor Rickerman wants to do an office similar to that. So my whole point was to try and come in here and convince y'all. But I no longer had to do that because Mayor Rickerman wants to do an office. So I have asked and I think I have permission to assist in those efforts. And it will be able to give you some details at our next meeting about partners. But I think the real goal is to take the weight off of the police department because we need the police to be the police and look at all these community partners that we have. What can I do to help? We need to have somebody who can coordinate and say we need volunteers here, we need donations here, so actually my goal has been achieved already thanks to Mayor Rickerman. We don't want to talk about any of those today. We have talked, I wanted to talk about them just so we could push one of them but Mayor Rickerman has already decided he wants to go forward with one. Preempted. Yes, and I'm excited about it. Can I add one thing, I read that article and there are a number of successful initiatives across our country. We really like to follow evidence-based programs that follow best practices. We have a number underway here. I've seen the model that you mentioned that the mayor is interested in, especially dealing with the opioid crisis, approaching things from a public health standpoint. And of course there's a lot of harm reduction with our efforts that need to be done with a lot of our children that are exposed to gun violence and just adverse effects that it has just when they see a law enforcement action and with the loved one. But one of our marquee programs that we do is our ceasefire program and we have a call in tonight. For example, we have about 30 violent offenders that'll be attending this call in and they hear a message from law enforcement, from all of our law enforcement leaders in the Midlands and the state and then they'll spend the bulk of their evening with service providers that are there to provide some contacts and wraparound services for parenting, education, substance abuse, stability at home. So who are the folks that call in? They are prolific offenders that have served time in the State Department of Corrections for violent crimes and they fall into a very vulnerable population that's very statistically high that they will either re-offend or they'll be the victim of a violent crime and they'll see some footage of many people that they're very familiar with that are involved in shootings. So they'll see pictures of people that have not listened to this advice in the past and are sitting in prison now and we have a recidivism rate that's in the single digits. And I mean, this is, I think this is our eighth call in. It's a fantastic program and we're part of, as part of our project, Safe Neighborhoods, we're a target enforcement area. We're one of just a couple in the state that has that designation and that's what's led us having that special assistant U.S. attorney. What I think is really not fully understood with a lot of our citizens is the significance of us being a gun crime intelligence center and the funding that came with that and the methodology with investigating and analyzing gun crime and in order to implement best practices. So we've got some really smart people doing some tremendous work in this arena. Yeah, how can we help get that word out? Give me some talking points. I like going out. We can do that. Chief, the mayor made a commitment to more justice to review one of the programs. I know he's not here, but is that progressing? Mike, it is on. We've had a commitment to pick a group to help analyze and we have that in the works along with a greater discussion that will happen here in a couple weeks, which I think will really bring a lot of excitement to the public, a program that the chief and some other folks have been working on that would be a great announcement for this city. Thank you, appreciate you being here. Any other business come before the committee? If not, we'll stand adjourned to the next call.