A salary bump

Ville Platte police officers received a pay raise from the city council during an evening of heated discussion. Effective immediately, officers will be earning $15 an hour, up from $11.68 an hour. For months, the city has had trouble keeping police officers because they would supposedly leave to work in other cities that offered more money. Before the council voted unanimously to increase the pay, council members heard impassioned comments from the public about the city’s crime wave and hard questions about budget issues when it comes to the police department.
Before public comments, Mayor Jennifer Vidrine gave a brief history of how the city arrived at the issues with the police budget. She stated in 2011, under Vidrine’s administration, the police budget was $1.6 million. In 2012, it was raised to $1.8 million, then $1.9 million in 2013 and 20a14, and $2 million in 2015. In 2016 it was $2,017,000, and up to $2,658,000 in 2017.
“The police budget was top-heavy,” said Vidrine. “There was a staff of 43. There was huge abuse of overtime and time-and-a-half hours. The budget was hemorrhaging. It was bleeding not only its own budget, but it was bleeding the budgets of the rest of the departments. This council, the old ones and the new ones, we have never said no to the police department, simply because our main priority was safety. We never wanted to reduce a budget to the police department because we wanted the safety of our citizens. What we were doing was giving the amount. The money was placed by the police department, not by us. We gave them the money to place where they needed because they knew where it was needed most at the time. But then it came to the point where there was so much bleeding of this budget and so much hemorrhaging that we had to make some drastic revisions. That’s what happened last year. It was a hard decision we had to make, but we made it so we can get to where we are now.”
Vidrine said they have had money in this budget for 10 patrolmen since July of last year. She said they have been urging the police department to look at the numbers to make it happen, but raising the officer salaries did not happen until she decided to “take my pencil, the budget and a calculator and make it happen myself because of everything that was going on it was time to make drastic moves.” She added the people who were taking advantage of those budgets are gone, because they had patrolmen who were making $5,000-$6,000 a month overtime and time-and-a-half. There were eight detectives on staff who were not patrolling.
In council comments, Mike Perron said, “I was born and raised in Ville Platte. I had my own business for 30+ years, and there’s nothing that hurts me more when I see what’s happened to our city. I’m very concerned.” He said at every council meeting, there are new police hires, and they always ask the officers if they are okay with the salary and if they will stay in Ville Platte, the officers say yes, but they wind up leaving anyway.
Perron commented on the police budget, saying, “We went a million dollars over [the police chief’s budget]. We took away from our street department and had a lot of criticisms about cutting grass. We used to have 15 people hired in the city, then went down to six and seven because we couldn’t afford it anymore.” He said the population in the city dwindled, going from around 14,000 people when he was growing up, to about half that now. This has led to a reduction in money generated from property taxes, money that could be used for city services. “We’re doing everything we can for a small community.”
Councilman Donald Sam said, “We need to get together. I love y’all.” He reminded constituents in his district can call him with any issues.
Councilwoman Faye Lemoine said, “Know that we’re on your side, and we understand. It took a loud noise to get us here, but we’re here and we’re sorry it took so long. We’ll do whatever we can to help y’all.”
Councilman Bryant Riggs said, “We have an elected chief, not an appointed chief. An elected chief gets a budget, and he takes that budget and he moves it how he wants to. We have no control over the budget. We can make recommendations and give advice, and that’s all that happens.” He said when he was elected there was one officer on patrol. He spoke with a former officer and asked why he left. He said the officer said he did not want to patrol by himself at night because it was dangerous, not because of the pay. Riggs said the current pay is on par with other cities of similar size. He said the crime rate has been bad for at least ten years. According to him, gangs are taking over, bringing more guns into the mix and more theft to fund the gangs. He said the Bloods and Crips—two factions of gangs found in large cities—are now in Alexandria and are trickling down to Ville Platte.
Riggs said he looked at the numbers to understand why they are losing so many officers. He said between 2015-2019, they hired 39 officers, and only five officers remain today. “That’s an 83% turn-around. Where I come from, an 83% turn-around, either me or somebody hiring is going to lose their job, because that is a high turn-around. Five people left out of 39 in four years of hiring. As the mayor said, the money was given, so what are they leaving for?” He said talked to other former officers and they told him they left because of mismanagement and mistreatment.
“The facts are the facts,” said Riggs. “The police department is like a business. You have to identify and prioritize and resolve the issues going on in there. I talked to a lot of ex officers. I’m talking to current officers right now who are thinking about leaving even with the $15 an hour, and they say ‘I feel powerless. I write tickets. I’m looked down upon.’ I’m hearing it from officers who walk up to me when they see me and tell me this stuff. I can’t sit on this. I tell them I’m going to fight for you. I don’t want you out here by yourself. I’ve done police work. I know what it’s like to be by yourself patrolling. That is dangerous. I wouldn’t go in these bad neighborhoods by myself.” Riggs said no business is going to survive 83% turn-around. He said the raises will not guarantee that we will keep police officers. He said the management has to be there as well. He referenced a police detective who, in one year, made more money than the police chief due to over-time hours. “Someone had to sign off on that,” he said, adding no business will survive an abuse of over-time hours.
To give the officers this raise, the money was used from the retired assistant chief’s salary as well as the salaries of several dispatchers who were recently replaced by 911. Also, the city postponed buying software which would have totaled over $90,000.
In public comments, Jay Gielow questioned the council about budget oversight and who is responsible after the chief. Vidrine suggested he talk to the police municipal board which meets every quarter or as necessary. The council said the chief, being an elected official, is in charge of his budget given to him by the city. The council can make recommendations.
Trevor Brady questioned the council about moving money within the budget. He also asked about having enough officers to properly patrol the city. He said the bump in salary is going to cost about $125,000 a year in the budget before overtime pay. He said there would only be four officers on each shift, so they would have to have overtime eventually and questioned how they were going to make room in the budget to adjust for overtime. “We need to go back and look at the overall budget and find the funds to allocate back to the police department, because we’re at the point now that until we get enough boots on the ground to kick in doors each and every single day until every single gun is found, they’re going to continue to run rampant. One or two officers right now are not going to stop it. There has to be a strong force and that is going to require funding.”
Riggs said, “For us to get where you want us to get, we’re going to have to raise taxes or something.” Riggs reiterated that funneling more money into the police department is not going to help solve the management problem within the department.
Not present at the meeting was Police Chief Neil Lartigue, who was out working on a case. As the public questioned the council on who was responsible for the lack of police officers and the police budget, council members danced around naming Lartigue, with councilwoman Faye Lemoine saying, “It’s very hard to talk about somebody who’s not here to defend himself.” Vidrine added, “I don’t want to answer questions for somebody who’s not there to defend himself.”
Lartigue, when reached out to after the meeting, said he will be sending a letter to the editor in regards to comments made at the council meeting. Regarding the pay raise for officers, he said, “It should help to retain the officers and maybe get us some good post-certified officers.” He said because of the budget cuts and lay-offs last year, some of the officers took jobs elsewhere because they were afraid of being laid off. He said that situation contributed to having one officer on patrol.
There are five eligible officers who will be patrolling the streets, and three coming out of the academy soon. There are also four open positions for new patrolmen for anyone who are post certified and can start work immediately. Interested persons need to apply with the police department.
The new salary of $15.00 an hour is the starting salary with the potential for more as future budgets are taken into consideration. Vidrine said they are also applying for community grants to help with community policing. That would be money added to the police department. In conjunction with the new salary, after officers stay with the city for 12 months, supplemental pay will kick in, giving officers another $6,000 per year.