Lexington Council members are moving forward with supplemental pay for police officers, those working in emergency 9-1-1, and the county jail. The description of the funding was included in new business adopted by Council in its Tuesday work session. Public Safety Commissioner Ken Armstrong spelled out the breakdown of retention and recruitment allocations.
“Each current employee will get a retention payment of $4000 and every new employee coming on will get a $3000 hiring credit,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong said for new hires in these areas, the money would be divided up to $900 after six months and the remaining $2100 dollars after a year.
Ken Armstrong was asked about a higher amount for retention. He said there are more current employees than vacancies.
“If you a lot more for those individuals that you are wanting to keep, cause they have the experience that you want to retain for a longer term. Also, you have to taken into consideration, new employees are great, but it takes a certain amount of time for like in the police department, it can take a year before they get trained. So it’s very important to retain the employees you already have.”
The Council set aside five million dollars to go toward retention and recruitment supplemental pay.
