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You, uh... Wanna post an actual link there, bucko?Quote:
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Mod 1
The Effects of Salary Compression on Law Enforcement Retention: A Research Synthesis of Select Florida and Texas State Agencies
Gary L. Klein
Abstract
Rewarding seniority through established pay raises over a known period of time is a common practice in law enforcement. Florida state law enforcement officers have not had a structured pay plan since 1995. The state of Texas, similar to Florida in region and politics has a structured pay plan. Both state’s highway patrol and conservation officer’s salary and retention rates were analyzed for compression and retention problems. A high turnover rate can create many costs to the employing agency beyond training of replacements. A survey of the four agencies reveals that the Florida agencies have a much greater rate of attrition and salary compression when compared with Texas’ agencies. Does Florida realize a cost savings with this approach?
Introduction/Literature Review
Beginning in July 1984 and continuing through 1992, the State of Florida had a structured pay plan for State Law Enforcement Officers. (Special Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Plaintiffs v. Governor Jeb Bush; Defendant, 2000) After 1992, except for the budget year of 1994-1995 (when the step pay was partially funded), the State of Florida has not had a structured pay plan for its state law enforcement personnel. (Special Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Plaintiffs v. Governor Jeb Bush; Defendant, 2000) In the place of the structured pay plan, Florida implemented Broadbanding which allows for a salary range within specified classes. More specifically, Broadbanding can be defined as “a classification system that replaced the old state classification system by collapsing numerous classes with similar duties into broad occupational categories. Along with the broad categories, broad pay ranges were also created within this system”. (Broadband Classification and Compensation Program, 2011) There currently is no mechanism for consistent and predictable movement through the band, however. In direct contrast, the State of Texas has provisions for two raises in the first year of employment and pay raises every four years thereafter up to twenty years. Florida’s lack of structured pay raises may lead to salary compression and high turnover rates. The mere existence of salary compression and a high turnover rate does not establish causality so this paper will examine four agencies in order to enhance or negate the notion of causality. The degree of compression between Florida and Texas as well as the rate of attrition are compared by
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examining Florida and Texas’ conservation law enforcement and highway patrols. The compression and attrition rate will be established using methods contained in W. Dwayne Orrick’s book, “RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND TURNOVER OF POLICE PERSONNEL Reliable, Practical, and Effective Solutions”(Orrick, 2008). The Criminal Justice Attrition Study by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will also provide data on attrition rates of Florida’s State law enforcement agencies. In addition, James W. Steele’s publication, “Paying for Performance and Position, Dilemmas in Salary Compression and Merit Pay”(1982) provides some of the consequences of salary compression and offers some solutions as well. Some of the documented consequences were lower morale and higher turnover. (Steele, 1982) One of Steele’s proposed solutions has already been done by the state of Florida, the Broadbanding effort mirrors his recommendation to “create fewer job classifications and broaden their pay ranges”. (Steele, 1982) Another of Steele’s proposed solutions to salary compression is to “establish (or use) a bonus program that instantly rewards good performance or special effort”. (Steele, 1982) The costs for replacing employee turnover in law enforcement are higher than those in many other occupational fields because of the training requirements both in the academy and in the field. There are also other, more difficult to measure, costs associated with a high turnover rate such as the effect on morale, inefficiency, loss of institutional knowledge, delinquent behavior and a higher percentage of inexperienced officers to name a few.
My research will determine if the Florida agencies negatively compare to the Texas agencies with regards to salary compression and retention. I will approximate the costs of Florida’s turnover rate and compare them with the costs of implementing a structured pay plan with predictable and meaningful raises weighted towards the first half of a full career. According to an article by Paul Stageberg titled, “Why Police Officers Resign: A Look at the Turnover of Police Officers in Vermont” (1990), half of the officers who left their departments did so in the first two years or less. Surveys will be sent to personnel representatives for all four agencies to discern the rate of attrition and range of salaries for the Officer class. In addition, the survey will request the total salary costs for each agency as well as the number of full time Officer positions.
Methods
A survey was sent out to appropriate representatives from four law enforcement agencies. The selected agencies are the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (hereafter FWC), theFlorida Highway Patrol (hereafter FHP), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, Division of Highway Patrol. The agencies were chosen for their similarity in size, mission and political climate over the last decade. The approximate sizes of the agencies are 700, 2000, 550 and 5000, respectively. Information was requested about the costs for salary plus benefits for entry level, academy graduated Officers/Troopers. The exact number of entry level sworn officers was requested so that a total cost of sworn employees could be obtained. The final product aimed to show what the cost per unit employee
was for each agency’s entry level position. Another question endeavored to obtain what the salary range was for the non-supervisor sworn position so that the median income can be determined.
Two questions were asked to attempt to determine turnover rates. The first question asked how many non-supervisory, entry level sworn personnel left the respective agencies annually in the last ten year. This was followed by a question of how many total non-supervisory sworn positions the agency in question had each of those ten years to determine the rate of turnover. A follow up question of what are the approximate costs to train a new recruit until they are capable of solo patrol will be considered.
The next question was designed to determine what each agency’s median experience is for their non-supervisory entry level sworn personnel. The question was designed to capture experience in five year cohorts. A final question asked if exit interviews are completed and what are the top four reasons listed for leaving employment ranked from first most frequent to fourth most frequent.
All of the data combined should allow for a comparison to see if the two Texas agencies differ markedly from their Florida counterparts given that Texas has consistent, predictable raises in pay for the two selected agencies whereas Florida does not. The primary focus will be on costs, turnover rates, experience levels and salary compression.
The strength of the survey was the fact that it was primarily raw data not subject to interpretation. It consisted primarily of numbers which allow for better comparison across states and agencies. The three greatest weaknesses were my wording on question one whereby the data given was only for persons who had graduated from an academy that year. A second weakness was the wording of the salary range question where I should have provided more clarity with a more specific question such as: “from lowest paid to highest paid, with the number of personnel at each pay rate”. Had I done this I am convinced I would have received more meaningful responses. Another inherent weakness of my survey was the limited number of surveys requested. I intentionally limited the surveys to four agencies due to their similarity of characteristics but would have been completely stymied had not all four agencies agreed to complete the survey.
Results
The survey was sent to four selected departments with all four departments responding nearly fully to all of the asked questions. One department was delayed in its response due to a special session of the Texas legislature. When the departments were queried as to their total costs for salary plus benefits for their entire agencies’ entry level, non-supervisory law enforcement personnel the results were as follows:
• Florida Highway Patrol (FHP)--$58, 652,909
• Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)—$26,349,004.57
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• Texas Department of Public Safety, Division of Highway Patrol (THP)— $3,991,621
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPW)--$29,876,474
The second survey question asked for the number of entry level Officer/Trooper positions that were not supervisory or investigatory in nature. The results were as follows:
• Florida Highway Patrol: 1066
• Florida Fish and Wildlife: 469
• Texas Highway Patrol: 1874
• Texas Parks and Wildlife: 72
The salary range portion of the survey drew responses that were quite varied. Although a range was specified only TPW and FHP delivered their responses in a range format. TPW listed the range as $3938.08 to $5149.41 monthly (or $47,256.96 to $61,792.92 annually). The FHP responded with an Academy pay rate of $30,178.56, an Academy graduate rate of $33,977.04 and the highest paid Trooper at $59,306. FWC simply listed $1262.93 bi-weekly ($32,836.18 annually) while THP only listed $47,221 annually even though they have the same range as TPW.
The survey question inquiring about the number of persons who had left the agencies was meant, along with the number of positions for each agency, to determine the turnover rate. From 2001 through 2010, FHP and FWC had average turnover rates of 7.29% and 8.52%, respectively. Neither of the Texas agencies provided complete data on this portion, thus inhibiting the opportunity for more robust comparison. TPW and THP did provide data that overlapped for the time frame of 2006 through 2010, however. During this time period, TPW’s turnover rate was 5.95% while THP’s was
6.28%.One of the questions in the survey was designed to elicit a breakdown in agency demographics sorted by experience. The question asked for a breakdown in five year increments of the level of experience in each agency. Three of the four agencies (FHP, FWC and THP) were significantly weighted on the lower end of the experience scale.
The final question dealt with responses to exit interviews conducted with Officers/Trooper departing their agencies. The results in descending order for each agency were:
• Florida Highway Patrol: better pay/job opportunity, retirement, family/personal, other
• Florida Wildlife Commission: better pay/job opportunity, retirement, family/personal, other
• Texas Highway Patrol: retirement, better pay/job opportunity, return to school,
is only a tangible benefit if a higher caliber of Officers is remaining with an agency. Some methods of comparing data might be to collect and analyze sustained allegations of internal affairs investigations, employee absenteeism, liability claims paid, worker’s compensation claims, et cetera.
When analyzing the experience cohorts for the agencies, the FHP answers showed that fully 62% of the current Troopers have 10 years or less experience. In fact, nearly one-third of the FHP Troopers (31%) have less than 5 years of experience. When you examine the FWC, the situation is even more pronounced with nearly three- quarters (73.3) of the agency’s Officers having 10 years or less experience. Almost half (44.7%) of the Officers currently working for FWC have less than 5 years of experience. TPW is also weighted towards the same end of the experience scale but not as pronounced. 57.5% of TPW Officers have 10 years or less experience compared to 62% for FHP and 73.3% for FWC. THP’s responses also depict an agency heavily weighted with Troopers with little experience. Fully 48.9% of THP’s Troopers have less than 5 years of experience. Three quarters of the Texas Troopers (75.5%) have 10 years of experience or less. For the 10 year period of 11 to 20 years of experience, FWC seems particularly bereft at 9.8%. By comparison, TPW has 21.8% of its Officers in this same experience cohort while THP and FHP each have approximately 18%. Another interesting component of this question was that for three of the responding agencies, the experience cohort with the least representation was the 16 to 20 year segment with 5.7%, 3.7% and 5.9% for FHP, FWC and TPW, respectively. THP had a similar percent at 4.9% but had even lower numbers for the 21 to 25 and over 25 years of experience cohorts. On the highest end of the experience scale, those with over 25 years, FHP had 12.9%, FWC had 8.2%, TPW had 6.2% and THP had just 2.9%. Since the Florida Officer/Troopers make quite a bit less money than their Texas peers, this might be explained by the need for the Florida Officers to work longer careers to obtain a more palatable and comparable retirement salary.
According to SunshineReview.org, the State of Texas’ per capita spending on taxes is ranked 50th out of 50 states. Even though Texas is ranked last it still out spends Florida on its state troopers and wildlife officers. The combined percentage of the Texas budget devoted to salaries and benefits for Texas troopers and wildlife officers is .2088%. Florida currently spends .12071% of its budget for the troopers and wildlife officers. Were Florida to decide to match Texas’s commitment, it would have to devote another .08809% of its budget to FHP and FWC officers. This is the equivalent of $62,015,360.00. If you were to add that amount to the current Florida expenditures for salary and benefits of FHP and FWC officers it would come to $147,017,273.57 or $95,776.73 per individual for salary and benefits. The percentage comparison may not be as persuasive due to the total number of Texas personnel being 2270 compared to Florida’s 1454. If you simply replicated the salary and benefit value of Texas officers ($83687.60) in Florida the required amount to effect the change would be $36,679,856.83 or expressed in other terms, .0521% (52.1 thousandths of one percent) of the budget.
Many would ask, what would that do to benefit the state? Although more research is needed, there can be no doubt that Florida’s turnover rate at FWC and FHP
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are higher than the comparative Texas agencies. Turnover cost agencies a great deal of money simply to recruit, select, hire and train replacements. For FWC, the costs to replace an Officer have been quantified at $68,637.90 (email FWC training Major Mark Warren 8/3/11). These costs don’t even quantify the lost productivity of an Officer knowing he is leaving, the costs of administrative out-processing, the costs of travel and salary for interview panels for hiring replacements, the value of on the job knowledge gained, et cetera.
In addition to turnover costs, agencies that retain more of their employees have a larger spread of experience cohorts. More examination into the rate of complaints, internal affairs investigations and liability concerns for agencies heavily weighted with inexperienced officers needs to occur. At the very least, an agency with a higher percentage of experienced officers represents more of a cross-section of the community it serves. It also allows for Officers with a larger knowledge and experience base to be the field training officers for the incoming replacements that do occur. Having a larger percentage of your personnel remain with your agency also creates a more competitive pool of persons seeking promotions. The quality of an agency is often no better than the quality of its leaders and its first level of leaders are those line Officers/Troopers working with the newer Officers and citizens every day.
Captain Gary Klein has been in law enforcement for 21 years either with the Florida Marine Patrol, the State Attorney’s Office 4th Judicial Circuit or the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Currently he is an area supervisor for the North Central region and is responsible for all Officers and communication personnel in Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval and Nassau Counties for FWC.
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References
Broadband Classification and Compensation Program. (2011). Retrieved September 1, 2011, from Florida Department of Management Services: http://www.dms.myflorida.com/human_r..._resource_mana gement/for_state_hr_practitioners/broadband_classification_and_compensation_ program
Orrick, W. D. (2008). Recruitment, retention, and turnover of police personnel: Reliable, practical, and effective solutions. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas.
Special Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Plaintiffs v. Governor Jeb Bush; Defendant, 00 00929 Division C (Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court 2000).
Stageberg, P. (1990, December). Why Police Officers Resign: A Look at the Turnover of Police Officers in Vermont. Justice Research and Statistics Association , p. 5.
Steele, J. W. (1982). Paying for Performance and Position Dilemmas in Salary Compression and Merit Pay. American Management Associations Membership Publication Division , p. 42.
Appendix
SURVEY
Question 1. What are the total costs (for the entire agency) for salary plus benefits for your academy graduated Officers/Troopers—please do not include any investigator or supervisory positions? Responses: FHP--$58,652,909; FWC--$26,349,004.57; THP--$3,991,621; TPW-- $29,876,474.
Question 2. How many entry level Officers/Trooper positions does your agency have—please do not include any investigator or supervisory positions? Responses: FHP—1066; FWC—469; THP—1874; TPW—72
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Question 3. What is the base salary range for your Officer/Trooper position—please do not include salary additives, investigators, or salaries of positions above that of the non-supervisory Officer/Trooper? Responses: FHP—Academy $30,178.56, graduate $33977.04, highest Trooper $59,306; FWC—1262.93 bi-weekly; THP--$47221; TPW—3938.08-$5149.41 monthly
Question 4. From 2001 to 2010, how many non-supervisory, non-investigative, Officers/Troopers have left your agency each year? Responses from 2001 to 2010 decending:
FHP FWC THP TPW
2001 59
2002 69
2003 96
2004 82
2005 60
2006 77
2007 68
2008 93
2009 64
2010 79
48 NR NR 40 NR NR 30 67 NR 22 91 NR 45 109 NR 42 112 9 42 127 22 47 150 36 46 126 22 32 74 20
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Question 5. How many non-investigative, non-supervisory Officer/Trooper positions did your agency have:
FHP FWC THP TPW
2001 1023 420 1640 NR
2002 1031 454 1627 NR
2003 1037 459 NR NR
2004 1075 470 NR NR
2005 1084 472 1914 NR
2006 1025 472 1955 379.75
2007 1008 472 1922 389.5
2008 972 469 1743 360.75
2009 1013 468 1850 343.75
2010 985 469 1913 357.50
Question 6. How many of your current non-investigatory, non-supervisory Officers/Troopers have:
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FHP FWC TPW THP 293 191 99 1069 293 121 114 582 116 26 59 284 54 16 22 107 65 38 53 83 122 35 23 63
Question 7. If your agency conducts exit interviews for
leaving employment what were the top four reasons given for leaving in numerical order?
(options were: Health, Family/personal circumstances, Better pay/job opportunity, Supervisor deficiencies, Return to school, Retirement or Other)
Responses: FHP—1. Better pay/job opportunity 2. Retirement 3. Family/personal circumstances 4. Other FWC—1. Better pay/job opportunity 2. Retirement 3. Family/personal circumstances 4. Other THP—1. Retirement 2. Better pay/job opportunity
3. Return to school 4. Other TPW—1. Retirement 2. Other last two reasons omitted.
Sorry MOD1. I had to post it like this cause for whatever reason it wouldn’t allow me any other way. Sorry guys, it’s long but worth reading. Apologies!Quote:
Originally Posted by MOD 1
This is interesting and I hope this information can be used during the next legislative session to help get us what we really need. Thanks for sharing it.
FHP Trooper I. Reyes has completed his entire background processing for DPS all while working the border. Gotta love it
Bye FeliciaQuote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered