St. Louis Police Want More Pay, But No One Is Talking About Pensions

When it comes to the future of public safety in St. Louis, the complaints advanced by the city's largest police union have landed somewhere between entitled and apocalyptic.

Representing 1,100 city cops, the St. Louis Police Officers Association is in the midst of contract negotiations with the city, and its controversial business manager, Jeff Roorda, has spent months proclaiming that an insufficient salary increase will create a "dire" shortage of officers. Roorda and the union were also not at all pleased that the city earmarked a chunk of potential revenue from a proposed sales tax increase to fund such things as after-school groups, social workers and mental health treatment, a.k.a "programs unrelated to police pay."

But for St. Louis budget director Paul Payne, there's one word that he wishes would get brought up more often in the ongoing debate, especially when police union reps compare city police salaries to those in St. Louis County — and that word is "pension."

"It's not just apples to apples," says Payne.

In April, St. Louis County voters passed their own half-cent sales tax hike with the express purpose of increasing officers' salaries. That bump now puts an average county officer's starting salary at about $52,000. A brand-new city cop currently gets about $43,000.

Read more: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2017/07/21/st-louis-police-want-more-pay-but-no-one-is-talking-about-pensions