HPD adopts new pay plan for officers

HAMLET — The Hamlet City Council on Tuesday adopted a new pay plan for the Hamlet Police Department aimed at helping the department recruit and retain officers, along with a new model for the distribution of staff.

The pay plan bases officers’ salary on their tenure, the level of training they have completed, and their performance rather than being based purely on rank, according to Police Chief Dennis Brown. Officers’ progress and overall performance is evaluated by a panel made up of an officer of their same rank, the officer’s direct supervisor, and a command-level staff member that determines whether they have satisfactorily completed the requirements to move up in rank and salary.

Brown said the new plan no longer treats officers like “cogs in a machine” that can easily be replaced. Under the previous plan, he explained, a 20-year patrol officer’s salary would only increase in relation to the cost of living, whereas the new plan allows for patrol officers to move up to higher degrees within their rank and potentially earn more than a corporal if they complete their required training.

For example, an officer with less than a year of experience starts out with a salary range of $38,509 – $41,470 and in order to move to the rank of Police Officer 1 they must successfully complete their probationary year, complete in-service, complete field training, pass the report writing class, de-escalation class, use of force class, and robbery response tactics, complete certification on Division of Criminal Information Module I, and complete the National Incident Management System (NIMS) 100, 200, 700 and 800.

“Overall the plan is designed to present to the city and the citizens a very well educated staff and a well-motivated staff that’s been here [for a long time],” Brown said, lamenting the “consistent loss of institutional knowledge” the department had seen over the years due to staff turnover. “When you lose that type of knowledge your community suffers.”

He added that the plan allows officers who demonstrate commitment to the department, the community and to improving their skills deserve to make a “comfortable living.”

The plan is similar to what the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office recently adopted in response to their own staff shortage. As of May 2021, the Hamlet Police Department was down eight officers from full staff, or at 65% of full staff. As of Thursday, HPD is at 85%, according to Brown, and two positions (traffic sergeant and traffic officer) that were previously frozen due to grant funding running out have now been unfrozen, meaning the city will now fill those positions itself.