Is this a good agency?

What's the real deal working for Sarasota PD? I'd like the straight scoop from street officers on pay, benefits, chain of command support, training, equipment.

A few of us at St Pete Police are totally disgusted with the brain drain over the past few years and the absolute lack of support for doing police work. The chief' is a puppet on a string and the staff and the new mayor are robots. Is this the agency to work an honest shift and make the switch for my law enforcement career? Some say go to Sarasota, but really in the past I never listened closely enough to know if it's the SO or PD. Thanks!

Have you guys been under a rock? We used to hear about how bad St Pete was, until we got even worse than you all. Ill give you the abbreviated version.

8 years ago, we got a wonderful new chief from New York. A cops cop, as he would tell you. But, no, he was a politician, and not a cop at all. He did a wonderful job running us all into the ground on his own. Then, a few years ago, we picked up an evil little man for a city manager. He hates cops, for good reason, long story. He makes it known that he is not a fan of cops through his actions. His famous quote, "BEING A COP IS NO MORE DANGEROUS THAN BEING AN ELECTRICIAN."

Our staffing levels went from 204 sworn, to 176 officers. He wants to go even lower. We cant go lower because of a grant. We lost half our marine patrol, many specialty position went bye bye, morale is unbelievably in the toilets and only dropping.

Our health care was pretty good before. We recently switched to cigna, which blows. It only adds up to more money out of pocket at every corner.



Then the city decided that pensions are too expensive. So they are doing every possible thing they can think of to get rid of our pensions and switch us to 401k. Why would anyone want to be a cop for a 401k? They want to screw us as many ways as possible here. They want to freeze vested people at their pension point, and make them start a 401k. For unvested people, they want to give them the money they invested over the years, and let them start a 401k on their own. They want to also, get rid of post retirement cola raises, which now are 3.2 percent, starting the year of retirement. They want to change it to 2 percent, and not start it until you turn 62 years old.



Thats all I can think of for now. But to answer your question, NO, this is not an agency to look into. Its a joke. People are trying to figure out how to get the hell outta here asap.

The proposed COLA change is not 62, it's 67 yoa. Get it right! 62 is way too good for you damnable coppers. You need to work till you actually die on the job then they can just roll your car into a hole in the ground and bury you. RIP SPD

I have worked here for 10 years and the posts are dead on. Believe me, we have followed St Pete since the new Mayor and you guys are not that bad off. We have read your site and in reality you guys complain about stuff that is really non issues in the big world of law enforcement. In this day and age you have a Mayor that changed some policies to your benefit be happy you can talk with the guy. Here we don't have that option.

Also I was driving to my aunts house the other day and I was in Palmetto and I saw a SPPD cruiser in a driveway. Are you ****ing kidding me! This economy and you got that benefit, yeah, you guys are really hurting.