Thoughts on the NOPD?

[Spudcommando]

Well I'll be flying down on the tenth of May for the next day test, I was thinking of trying to save some money by not renting a car and instead use Uber/Taxi's to get me to where I need to be. Good...Bad idea?

[Dream34]

On Friday, May 8th the Mayor, Superintendent, City Council and FOP announced that NOPD are receiving another 10% pay increase over the next 6 months. The increase is split in half with the first 5% taking effect in July and the second taking effect in January 2016. Combined with the 5% received in January that's a 15% increase over the last year. In this article http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com...lice-to-get-10 they are reporting the increase will mean recruits are making 42k and a 1 year officer will make 53k. That seems a little inflated, but not too much. If my math is correct (based on the current salary matrix) entrance salary for a recruit with no college would be about 40k and a 1 year officer would be at about 51k, add 1k for an Associate Degree or 2k for a Bachelor Degree. While it's still a bit behind some of the cities in Texas, it puts NOPD well ahead of almost all of the other large southern cities such as Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, or Miami and far better than any department in Louisiana except the LSP.

Just for comparison these are the starting salaries for a Police Recruit/Trainee/Cadet in other southern cities
Atlanta $34,726

Nashville $36,109

Memphis $37,972

Miami $42,765

New Orleans (after increase) $40,391

Police Officer:

Entry Salary Top Salary
Atlanta $39,327 $57,417

Nashville $40,125 $47,109

Memphis $40,630 $53,573

Miami $48,765 $ Not Published but pay increases frozen for past several years

New Orleans $51,449 $68,909

[Mwahfromtheheart]

They deserve it. With all of the extra crap they get just for having to deal with things like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest pretty much all year long, with all of the service calls they get, they deserve every penny. This is long overdue. Hopefully we can get enough cops on the street so that private businesses don't have to purchase their own off-duty NOPD security detail like they have been just to keep their neighborhoods safe.

And hopefully this will loosen some minds in the PD to let them restructure a little bit and move more senior officers back to street duty. 1200 officers for a city this size should still have a better allocation of cops to the street. But we still need more.