Grapevine voters on Nov. 7 approved bond funds for two new fire stations, and Colleyville and Southlake are increasing fiscal year 2017-18 public safety budgets in order to keep salaries competitive with surrounding cities after experiencing turnover within their departments.
Officials in all three cities say providing safety and security for residents is a fundamental and important service—one worth investing in.
“[Public safety employees] recognize the sacrifices that come with being in public safety, so it really has to be a passion and that’s not a large pool [of people who want to be public safety employees],” Colleyville Police Chief Mike Holder said. “When [area cities are] all trying to recruit those same people, anything you can do to stand out is huge.”
Colleyville focuses on compensation
Colleyville’s police and fire services are having a tough time finding people to fill vacancies, city officials said.
Holder and Fire Chief Brian Riley said they lost employees who would come into the city to receive the proper training before finding jobs somewhere else that would pay more. Holder said his department turned over five people last year, and Riley said his department turned over three people last year.
To help this problem the city of Colleyville increased its general fund budget this fiscal year to allocate more than $10 million to public safety, adding about $657,000 to increase compensation. With these changes, the average salary for a Colleyville police officer is now $62,503, the average salary for a Colleyville firefighter/paramedic is $59,885 and the average salary for a Colleyville firefighter/EMT is $55,372. This comes after the city completed a study in May to determine where its police officers and firefighters fell on the area’s pay scale. Results from that study showed Colleyville’s pay for public safety positions had fallen below market level.
“Our council said, ‘Our firefighters aren’t making what everybody else in the area is making, so we’re going to make it to where they’re up to that minimum amount on their salary,’” Riley said.
Holder said having competitive salaries will help the police department with recruiting and retention efforts as well. Although Colleyville has a community that supports public safety personnel, salary still factors into employee decision-making, he said.
Southlake avoids overtime expenses
Southlake Chief Financial Officer Sharen Jackson said that in FY 2016-17 the police and fire department spent a combined $450,000 in overtime expenses.
She said the overtime is due to vacancies stemming from turnover within the departments, which could be addressed by bringing public safety officer salaries to the 80th percentile of the market in FY 2017-18. This adjustment came with a $272,191 price tag in the FY 2017-18 budget but was ultimately approved.
“[The fire department] had a 15 percent turnover rate last year,” Fire Chief Michael Starr said. “What we’re starting to notice in the police and fire field period is that there’s a shortage [of employees].”
Chief of Police James Brandon said the high turnover rate hurts the department because of the training time and expense involved with training.
The training for a firefighter lasts about 16 months before the individual can join a team full-time. Training for a police officer takes three to six months.
“It costs a lot to hire those people,” Brandon said. “... We want them to stay for a very long time.”
Starr said all cities in the area compete against each other for employees because there is a lack of interest in these careers.
Brandon said it is easy for officers to take their pick of departments within the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“The culture and the quality of any police department starts with its hiring processes,” Brandon said. “One of the first goals of our hiring process is to get the right people here, and to do that we have to be competitive with what they’re being paid.”
Grapevine voters say ‘yes’
Grapevine’s voter-approved Nov. 7 bond election included funds for the replacement of fire stations Nos. 2 and 3, each with a price tag of about $7.9 million.
“We’re very excited and thankful for the support from our citizens,” Grapevine Fire Chief Darrell Brown said. “We’re looking forward to the future.”
Fire Station No. 2 will be constructed at the corner of Dove Road and Kimball Avenue, and No. 3 will be located on Timberline Drive. Both will contain gender-separated bathroom and shower areas, which the current stations do not have.
“The fire stations are not built for male and female firefighters,” Brown said. There’s only one restroom in there, and if one of our female firefighters is in there, it just creates issues with people trying to answer calls and get showered and get cleaned up.”
The two existing stations are identical and were built about 30 years ago. Brown said as time went on the job description of the department and equipment needs have evolved. He said that means garages and storage spaces need to be bigger to accommodate larger trucks, ambulances and life-saving equipment.
Brown said the area is also highly competitive when it comes to finding trained firefighters and paramedics. These two new facilities might help his department with recruiting, he said.
