Fuller Discusses Possible Compromise on Police Pay

A proposal is before the Shreveport City Council this week to boost police and fire pay by 4%, but this is not the plan being pushed by Councilwoman LeVette Fuller. She wants to boost police pay by 17% but her plan has been tabled and is not expected to be voted on during the meeting on Tuesday.

In fact this latest 4% increase is only on 1st reading, so it will have to lay over for 2 weeks before the council can take a final vote.

Fuller says this proposal came from the Public Safety Committee and was proposed by both the police and fire chiefs.

Fuller says her plan would eliminate 49 police positions that are currently not filled. She says they have not been filled for some time and she says it is time to use that money for the department in terms of police pay.

She says 3 officers are leaving our police force every month. That's 36 a year and we can not add officers fast enough to keep up with that loss. She says the primary reason officers are leaving our department is because the pay is too low. Fuller says there is a compromise measure that would bump up police pay at the lower ranks by 13%.