Cold Spring City Council approved three revisions to its personnel policy, amending budgets for previous fiscal years and a new pay plan for the fiscal year July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024 in a special meeting before the council’s standing caucus meeting Monday night.
The plan included updates to the pay ranges for police officers and other administrative positions.
Cold Spring resident Tom Travis addressed the council, asking whether the city would struggle to recruit officers at newly approved pay rates, especially with recent increases in officer salaries in the adjacent town of Alexandria. Travis cited higher pay rates for Alexandria officers reported in a previous article in this publication.
Mayor David “Angelo” Penque confirmed in response to Travis that the talent pool for police officer positions is often very small.
“For the recruitment part of it, you’re exactly right. A lot of people don’t want to do this job. When we have applicants, I get I get one or two where in the past you have probably gotten 20 or 30,” he said. “But that’s that’s everywhere, not just Cold Spring.”
The mayor explained how Cold Spring augments its police force with retired police officers who work under contract in addition to officers that are employed full-time.
“We have excellent officers and a lot of police officers are retired at 43 years old,” Penque said. “We bring in very experienced officers and pay them on a contractual basis and we don’t have to pay their insurance, so it’s very more it’s much more economical for the city and we save a tremendous amount of money.”
Police Chief Steve Collinsworth echoed Penque’s comments on cost savings and added that the retired officers under contract bring a lot of experience in law enforcement that younger officers benefit from.
“The other thing that retired officers bring to the table, as long as I’m doing my due diligence with the backgrounds, is they’re very good mentors,” Collinsworth said. “They’re here to help teach and that really helps a lot, and I try to keep a balance of contract employees who have 20, or 30 years experience and continue to bring in new officers.”
Collinsworth also explained that contract officers are held to the same accountability and standards for conduct as officers who are employed full time.
“It’s no different than any other officer,” Collinsworth said. “They are sworn employees protected by the police officers’ Bill of Rights just like everyone else. The contract is just kind of in name only.”
Alexandria also has a published rate for contract police officers with an annual salary range of $62,000 to $75,000.
The full document showing approved budget changes can be found on the city of Cold Spring’s website.