By Patrick McCreless

Staff Writer

The Cullman City Council recently delayed its planned discussion over an independent survey — which stated city police salaries are not competitive with similar departments around the state — due to scheduling conflicts.

“There were scheduling conflicts between current city council members and those who were recently elected,” said council member Ernest Hauk. “More than anything we want to give these new people a chance to ask questions they may have.”

The council scheduled a meeting on Sept. 26 with survey consultant Charles Swanson from Georgia to learn more about the report before any decision could be made. A new date for the meeting has not yet been set.

“Filling in the blanks is basically what we want to do,” said Mayor Donald Green. “When you get a study like that, you want to know why he (Swanson) did different things.”

The study, which was released in August, compared the base pay of Cullman police officers to that of police officers in Fairhope, Gardendale, Hartselle, Hueytown, Jasper, Scottsboro and Sylacauga. When Cullman police base pay is compared with the salaries offered by those cities, the Cullman Police Department (CPD) has either the lowest or next to lowest paid employees.

One of the largest contrasts in base pay was between Cullman and Hartselle. A Cullman police officer currently makes between $12.43 and $17.50 an hour, which is between $25,854 and $36,400 a year. A Hartselle police officer currently makes between $14.48 and $22.08 an hour, which is between $30,118 and $45,926 a year.

One of Green’s main concerns over the survey was that it only focused on base pay.

“It’s not really that valuable because it only included base pay and not other benefits,” Green said.

Council member Garlan Gudger Jr. said the survey’s focus on only base pay was not entirely fair to the city.

“He just looked at the salary rate … to compare just one thing, I don’t see how that was accurate,” Gudger said.

Gudger said the city pays police other benefits such as insurance, fuel for their vehicles and laundry bills for uniforms. The city also allows officers to drive their patrol vehicles home, which keeps them from needing their personal vehicles.

In addition, the CPD offers its officers overtime money, education bonuses for officers who obtain certain degrees and bonuses for passing the department’s physical fitness test.

“I think when you take those other things into account, it’ll show Cullman is much closer with those other cities,” Gudger said.

The independent study stemmed from a controversy over local police salaries that began last year. When the 2008 budget was passed in October city employees, including police officers, received a 2.5 percent cost-of-living raise. Members of the police department said the decision was discouraging and nearly 5 percent less than what they felt they were due to cover cost-of-living increases.

The study was ordered as a result.



‰ Patrick McCreless can be reached by e-mail at patrickm@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270