FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Fayetteville City Council approved starting salary pay raises for the police department and fire department on March 8, 2023.
“We believe it's going to make a very big impact and being able to recruit highly qualified candidates,” said Deputy Chief Jamie Fields.
Every other year the City of Fayetteville conducts a pay study for police and fire. Deputy Police Chief Jamie Fields says this year’s study showed that the Fayetteville Police Department was below market and this pay raise will bring their officers to the top of the local market
“Many of our senior officers and supervisors are eligible for retirement. And we have a strong culture here of strong community involvement and professionalism. And we're hopeful that these raises will help us to retain that qualified talent. Then keep instilling that culture in our junior generation,” she said.
The starting pay for a Fayetteville Police officer will be up by more than $13,000 starting April 3rd. New officers will start at more than $55,000 which includes holiday pay. The highest salary for a police officer has a base pay of around $75,000, according to the proposed pay plan that was approved.Fields says they have 23 new positions to fill that were added over the last two years. She says the application pool has reduced by about 70% over the last three years.
“Violent crime, the rise in aggression towards officers, social justice reform, negative political rhetoric that makes this job maybe not as attractive to new applicants. And so we're hoping that bringing that pay to the top of the market in this area will help us be more competitive,” she said.
The starting pay for a firefighter will go up to just over $46,000. Assistant Fire Chief Willie Watts says they are thankful for the increase.
“The new hires that we bring in, you know, we invest a lot of time, effort, and money into those individuals to train them to be the best and we don't want to lose that employee. We want to be competitive in the market. We want to give them a great salary. We want to give them a good benefits package. And truly we just want to give them a great place to work and the city of Fayetteville does that,” said Watts.
The Fayetteville Police Department will be moving into its new location on north Stephen Carr memorial boulevard this spring.
Applications for FPD officers are due April 4 in order to take the test on April 8.
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