The Alexandria City manager recommended that Alexandria police officers, deputy sheriffs and firefighters be put on separate pay scales.
Under the city’s current system, if one of these groups of workers receives a percentage raise in income, the other two must receive an equal percentage increase in pay. This system, known as pay parity, has been employed by Alexandria since 1997 because of high turnover in the Sheriff’s Office. The city manager has recommended City Council abandon pay parity and allow each department to justify how much it pays workers based on how much people doing similar jobs in the region make.
“This is a dramatic change,” said Alexandria Mayor William Euille. “Hopefully it will come with the broad-based support of the three public safety divisions.”
Sean McGowan, president of the Alexandria police union ACOP Local 5, said the union approached the city a year ago and asked it to abandon the parity system. He said the change to separate pay scales is overdue.
“The way we look at, it’s comparing apples to oranges. If the market shows the police department deserves a raise, that’s not a reason to give it to all of public safety,” he said. Separate pay scales will allow the “three agencies will be able to address their own individual and unique needs,” McGowan added.
Capt. Tony Davis of the Alexandria Sheriff’s Department said he was behindthe plan “as long as the city recognizes that the three agencies functions are different but equally important” and the sheriff’s office didn’t fall behind market-rate compensation. Davis said the talks were a result of long talks between the public safety agencies and the city. “The only concerns we had was out attrition rate was pretty extreme,” he said. “We always worry about losing staff to the police department.”
The proposal to separate public safety personnel pay will be presented to the public at a hearing on June 13.
Pay-parity system
» According to consultants hired by Alexandria, the counties of Montgomery and Fairfax have separate pay scales for public-safety workers.
» The pay parity system in Alexandria took effect on Jan. 1, 1998.
