ROGERS -- The City Council, recognizing a need to stay competitive with other cities in the region, adopted a resolution this week supporting a 17% pay increase for its entry-level police officers.
Effective July 1, the starting salary for Rogers officers will go from $47,325 to $55,444 -- an $8,119 raise.
All other police officers also will see an $8,119 bump up in their annual salaries, according to Thomas Dunlap, the city's director of human resources.
"Mr. Dunlap requested a pay study be done, and after analyzing the numbers, we felt that raising the starting pay $8,119 was what it was going to take to keep us competitive in Northwest Arkansas with the other departments," Police Chief Jonathan Best told the council during its meeting Tuesday.
This is the second part of a two-pronged approach to improve recruitment and retention of officers, Best said. The first part came last fall when the City Council approved paying each officer a bonus of $1,000 per month for the first six months of 2023.
The raises will cost the city a total of $495,958 for the remainder of 2023, Dunlap said.
That money already had been appropriated for 2023 but has gone unspent because of the number of vacancies the Police Department has had this year, Dunlap said.
The department has 125 police officer positions, 17 of which are currently vacant. Two new officers are set to start June 26, Dunlap said.
The salary increase comes one month after Bentonville's City Council voted to increase entry officer pay 22%, from $19.67 an hour ($40,914 a year) to $24 an hour ($49,920 a year).
Rogers' pay increase places its starting police officer salary between Springdale, where officers make a minimum of $53,087, and Fayetteville, where officers start at $55,758.
"Once we had the [pay] study, once we watched what the other cities are doing -- and we have to compete in the marketplace -- this is the sweet spot, this is the right place to be," Mayor Greg Hines said about Rogers' new salary structure.
The resolution adopted by the council states regional law enforcement agencies are facing a "once in a generation issue" in their recruitment and retention of police officers. It further states "the demanding recruitment process and fact that police officers remain one of the most scrutinized employees in the City has exacerbated the hiring and retention" of officers at the Rogers Police Department.
In other business at Tuesday's meeting, the council approved rezoning -- from highway commercial, residential office and planned unit development to residential multifamily -- an area of 9.5 acres slightly south of West Walnut Street and east of the intersection of West Walnut Creek Parkway and South Promenade Boulevard.
The move was meant to accommodate the planned Magnolia Farms 1B development, which will include 198 housing units.
The council's vote on the matter was 7-1, with Gary Townzen the only member voting against it.
The plan drew some criticism from nearby residents concerning traffic congestion, decreased property values and the plan's requested departure from both setback and height requirements.