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Hot Springs Police Department increases pay

The City of Hot Springs and its police department have been working closely for the past several months to increase pay and improve benefits for officers.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Increasing pay for police officers is an effort that has been seen across Central Arkansas. Though recruiting and retaining officers hasn't been easy for cities all across the country.

A new survey from the Police Executive Research Forum found that while hiring is up in recent years, agencies have been losing officers faster than they can hire new ones— and many have had trouble filling those open positions.

“There's about 80% that are having a hard time hiring new officers, we've seen a about 45% reduction, just from retirements, and 20% that are just leaving the field altogether,” said Hot Springs City Manager, Bill Burrough. “We've gone from having about 30, in each one of our recruiting classes to about seven.”

Due to this, the City of Hot Springs and its police department have been working closely for the past several months to increase pay and improve benefits for officers.

“We've, you know, seen other cities throughout Arkansas, really raising their starting pay for police officers and we want to stay competitive within the market,” said Burrough.

Beginning June 10, the starting pay for officers in the city will increase to $50,000.

There is also a $10,000 signing bonus for all newly hired fully certified police officers and a $5,000 signing bonus for all newly hired non-certified officers.

“One that's 12 and a half percent, I don't know that we've ever had an increase that was to that to that significant amount,” Burrough explained.

He hopes that this will draw more people to start a career in law enforcement and help recruit existing officers.

“We've been running close to four to eight positions that are open at any given time, that on top of vacations and just sick leave, with people being out,” said Burrough. “We need these bodies, and we need good police officers here in Hot Springs.”

Burrough also said the city plans to increase pay for other city jobs.

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