Baton Rouge stops underpaying cops
Police pay in Baton Rouge is getting a long-overdue jump.
Why it matters: Baton Rouge is finally moving to pay police officers like it wants to hire them. City leaders are betting that higher salaries will help fill vacancies and improve the caliber of those wearing the badge.
The details: Mayor Sid Edwards says the raises will be funded with savings from last year’s overhaul of parish health insurance.
- Starting pay for Baton Rouge police officers will rise to $58,000, from $41,000, a 41% increase.
- Existing officers will get a minimum 15% raise.
- The Metro Council is expected to approve the plan.
The backstory: This is Edwards’ second attempt at boosting officer pay.
His earlier Thrive plan would have shifted tax revenue tied to the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, the Council on Aging and Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control. It first included police raises, then yanked them out. Voters ultimately rejected that idea, showing little patience for playing municipal musical chairs with dedicated money.
The big picture: For years, Baton Rouge has tried to staff its police department in a labor market where the work is hard, the scrutiny is constant, and the pay lags the risk and responsibility, not to mention the higher pay of competing departments.
Between the lines: Edwards says the higher salaries solve a basic problem: too many positions stayed open because the pay was not competitive enough.
But this is not just about filling empty slots. Insiders tell RedEye the city hopes to attract better candidates, too—officers who can think clearly, de-escalate tense situations and meet the higher expectations modern policing now requires.
The bottom line: This is more than a pay raise. It is an attempt to make Baton Rouge policing more competitive and, ideally, more competent. Better pay could also help shrink the pool of bad candidates at the front end, since getting rid of bad officers later is notoriously hard under current union rules.
