Fraternal Order of Police say officers leaving Cape PD; municipal officials say they are doing the best they can with what they have

Cape Girardeau's police compensation appears to be an issue that won't be going away any time soon.

The mayor said the general fund doesn't have the capacity to fund significant raises, and "new thoughts" about revenue streams will need to be considered if the problem is going to be resolved.

Last week on its Facebook Page, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 51, announced the resignations of two veteran officers who left Cape Girardeau Police Department for higher wages. According to the post, the officers who left had more than 35 years of combined experience. One of them was a K-9 handler, who, according to the Facebook post, brought in $70,000 in revenue to the city from the training he provided to other agencies throughout the region. That officer has taken a position in Nixa, Missouri, which will be paying him $15,000 more annually, according to the post.

Currently, according to the department's public information officer, Bobby Newton, the department has lost five officers in the past three months. He said the department is down 12 officers from full staff. He added that the department has recently hired five officers as cadets who are attending SEMO law enforcement academy.

According to the department's 2022 annual report, Cape Girardeau officers had an average of 10 years of service, but 41% of the staff had five years experience or less.

Previous reporting in February noted the department was down 20 officers at one point in 2022. Newton said he couldn't elaborate on why the officers left the department.

"The shortage of applicants entering into police careers remains one of our top concerns," Cape Girardeau police chief Wes Blair said in an emailed statement in response to questions about the staffing issue. "Cape Girardeau is not immune to this national issue that impacts communities across the United States."

Blair did not address pay in his recent comments. He said previously that the department was very lucky to receive the pay increases it got last year, "but guess what, everybody around us just increased their pay again, so then that puts us right behind the curve again."

Both Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Office and Jackson Police Department raised their starting officer pay 7% and 10%, respectively; Cape Girardeau's officers make anywhere from $100 to almost $3,000 less per year than other officers within the county, according to previous reporting in February.

In a lengthy emailed statement to the Southeast Missourian on Thursday, Mayor Stacy Kinder addressed how the department fits into the bigger picture of Cape Girardeau city government and the economy. She noted that private businesses have also had a hard time keeping up with rising compensation demands.

"I've always felt that there are numerous careers in any community -- public safety, teaching, nursing, infrastructure work and sanitation being examples -- that are never compensated in a way that is commensurate with the value they bring," Kinder said. "In considering the dangerous nature of serving as a police or fire department officer, that issue is only magnified. Our city compensates its employees through the general fund. The general fund is based heavily on the sales tax collection in the city, and given all the departments, employees, and work that gets funded via the general fund in the city, that fund balance has been tight. Through salary schedule restructuring, we were able to finally bring a significant raise in salaries (11.7%) and benefits to our employees in 2022, as well as make large investments in technology and equipment. In (fiscal year) 2024, we were able to offer a 3% salary raise, which is better than we have typically been able to usually do as well."

Kinder added that the salary schedule for police and fire departments were adjusted differently than the rest of the employee schedule to "better reflect the earlier retirement afforded public safety employees. Simply put, our public safety officers can now earn step raises at a faster pace than other employees."

She added that the city has also invoked sign-on bonuses and other types of extra income to its employees.

"And while it is easy to look at other like-sized communities and ask why Cape has a lower salary, the answer is sometimes that those communities might be found in suburbs of much larger cities, or in other states, where the taxes and cost of living might be much higher than in Cape. Our city staff looks into all these issues and many more in considering annual salaries. As we look at current salary trends, the city administration is not overlooking any detail that might have an impact on the very real problem of less-competitive salaries. To offer a long-term, sustainable, and significant salary increase to our public safety forces will take some very creative problem-solving, and obviously a great deal of financing. This is financing the city's general fund does not have, nor is forecast to have in the near future, so new thoughts about how the city might bring about these significant impacts are being examined."

In June, the Fraternal Order of Police-Lodge 51 criticized the city's pledge for up to $600,000 annually for 17 years to redevelop the university's football stadium into a multipurpose facility for athletics and academics. The post was critical for giving a 3% increase to the police department when Blair had asked for a minimum pay increase of 9%.

City manager Kenneth Haskin said in June that starting pay for police officers has increased 15% since 2021, but an annual 9% increase was not possible.

Issues over competitive pay for police officers in Cape Girardeau are nothing new. In 2010, for example, 50 police officers took out ads, paid for by the Cape Girardeau Police Officers Association, encouraging city residents to vote no on a half-cent road tax, saying they had "no trust in city government". The rift was based on results from a consultant firm in 2000 that found Cape Girardeau's pay was 16% to 25% less than found in cities of comparable size. In 2010, officers stated they were promised raises but were never brought up to the level they were promised when a public safety tax was passed.

Going back further, in 1996, the Southeast Missourian reported that high turnover resulted in a staff where more than 30% of the officers had been on the force less than two years. At that time, local police salaries were reported among the lowest in the state in comparable-sized cities.